The Hardy Boys: Legend of Willowa Lake

Chapter I: Willowa Lake

"I think it went really well, all in all," Tony Prito said, sitting in one of the passenger seats in the Hardy plane. "Maybe I've got a shot for that scholarship after all."

"You better," Joe Hardy teased him. "You can use some of the money you save to pay us back for flying you all the way to Seattle."

When Tony Prito had been offered to compete for a scholarship at a West Coast college that he hoped to attend, he had been ecstatic. The only problem was that he had to come for an interview within a week of hearing about his good fortune. He hadn't been able to book a flight with that short of notice. That's when Frank and Joe Hardy had stepped in.

Frank and Joe had been some of Tony's best friends since kindergarten. Their dad, Fenton Hardy, was a private detective and he had to leave home at a moment's notice so often that he had eventually decided to buy a small plane. Naturally, Frank and Joe had been eager to get their pilot's licenses and learn to fly it as soon as they were old enough. When Tony had asked them to fly him to Seattle, they had willingly agreed. With the interview completed, they were now on their way back home.

"Where are we flying over, anyway?" Tony asked, leaning over to look out the window. Beneath them, all he could see was mountains.

"We've still got a long way to go," Frank told him. "I think we're only over Idaho."

Just then, there was a loud thunk from one of the engines.

"Is that normal?" Tony asked, trying not to sound worried.

"It doesn't sound good," Joe replied. "You'd better take her down a little, Frank."

Frank nodded. "No good being this far up if the engine has problems."

"Um, what does that noise mean?" Tony asked.

Frank and Joe looked at each other, not wanting to raise any false alarms.

"It could mean a number of things," Frank told him. "Most of them aren't even anything to worry about. There's just no point in taking risks."

The thunk wasn't repeated, and so all three boys began to relax. Frank tried to take the plane higher again, but it didn't respond.

"What's wrong now?" he muttered, realizing that it was a very serious problem if the plane didn't respond to the controls.

"Hey, what's going on?" Joe asked, noticing that all the indicators—the altimeter, the artificial horizon, the GPS, even the compass—all began blinking and rapidly changing their readings in ways that couldn't possibly be correct.

"I don't know," Frank said. "I think we're losing altitude."

"What's wrong?" Tony asked.

"I don't know," Frank replied. "Joe, radio to find out if there's an airfield nearby. Did you see our position before everything went out?"

"Yeah," Joe said. He grabbed the radio and tried to send a mayday message. After several tries, he gave up. "It's no use. The radio's gone, too."

Frank decreased the speed of the plane, and it fortunately responded to that. By now, they were flying low over a wooded, mountainous area. Ahead of them, Frank could see what looked like a break in the trees. Desperately hoping that it would be a level, clear spot, he guided the plane toward it as well as he could, although it only sluggishly responded to the controls.

A few seconds later, they were over the clearing. Frank's heart sank when he saw that it was actually a large lake with a small town on its northern shore.