Chapter III: Danny Welling

When the boys woke up the next morning, they found that Father Percy had already left. Joe discovered three pairs of hiking boots in the entryway with a note saying:

I had to leave early this morning. Two of my parishioners loaned you some boots to use while you're here.

-Fr. Percy

"Looks like we're all set to go following those tracks," Joe commented.

"Right," Frank agreed. "That will be our first order of business as soon as we find out whether Deputy Danver called in the FBI and whether they've arrived."

The deputy was already in his office, downing a mug of coffee. He looked surprised to see the boys.

"Yeah, I called in the FBI," he said. "They said they'll be sending a couple of agents and they'll be here this afternoon. You're still interested in this whole matter?"

"Can you blame us?" Joe asked. "How often do you get stranded by a lake monster?"

Danver frowned. "If you boys understood anything about what's happening here, you'd leave it all well enough alone. There's no point in making Nettie any madder than she already is."

"I don't know about you, but I have a pretty hard time taking a monster named Nettie seriously," Tony commented.

"We didn't take her seriously either," Danver said gravely. "That's what our problem is now."

As the three boys walked out of the deputy's office, Joe smirked and shook his head. "Boy, life would sure be easier for us if we solved all our cases like Danver solves his. Who was Jack the Ripper? River monster. Who killed JFK? Lake monster. What happened to Amelia Earhart? Sea monster."

"Do you guys think the people around here are for real?" Tony asked. "How could they honestly think that there really is a monster in the lake?"

"Beats me," Frank replied, "but there are only two choices: either most people who say that the monster is real honestly believe it or most people in town are in on whatever's going on. The first one sounds unlikely, but the second one is practically impossible."

"What kind of motive would anyone have for rigging it up to look like there's a lake monster?" Tony asked.

"Motives are overrated," Joe replied. "Focusing on motives too much is a great way to keep yourself from solving the mystery. A lot of times, you don't find out what the perp's motive is until after you find out who the perp is, or there're other people with better-sounding motives than the real perp. It's more important to look at opportunity."

"A missing person, strange tracks, blood, a washed-out bridge, sabotage in trying to rebuild said bridge, damaged phone lines, strange lights, a capsized boat, and a wrecked plane." Frank ran through the list of odd happenings. "Pretty much classic haunting stuff. It would take a lot of work to do all of that in a few days, though."

"Maybe the bridge and phone lines went out because of that storm, and someone decided to use it to their advantage," Joe suggested. "The rest of it wouldn't be too hard to do, if you're determined enough."

By now they had reached the Welling house. Meg Welling came out the front door to meet them. She seemed completely calm now, and Joe couldn't resist giving Frank and Tony an I-told-you-so look.

"Do you want something?" Meg asked.

"We'd like to see where those tracks lead, if you don't mind," Frank told her.

"I don't think you should do that," Meg replied. "It's too dangerous. That monster is out there somewhere." She gestured vaguely toward the trees.

"I thought it lived in the lake, not the woods," Joe commented.

"It does, but it obviously went through the woods yesterday," Meg said. "It could be out there again. If – if we're not safe in town, then nobody is safe in the forest for sure."

"Well, if we're not safe in town anyway, we might as well go out into the woods," Joe replied.

As Meg threw her head back and groaned in frustration, Frank asked her, "Don't you want us to find your brother?"

"Yes, of course, I would want you to, if it was possible," Meg said, "but it's not possible, so there's no point in risking your lives to do it."

"We'll be careful," Frank told her. "In fact, we'll probably be back by noon."

"If we're not, just assume that the monster got us and don't bother looking for us," Joe added. "That's Danver's policy anyway."

Before Meg could retort, the boys set out into the woods, following the tracks. After about a dozen yards, the tracks vanished.

"What's the deal here?" Tony asked. "Do you think the monster can fly?"

"Hardly," Frank replied, crouching down to examine the ground closely. "Someone must have used a device of some kind to make those tracks, and so they only bothered to keep going until they were out of sight."

"Wouldn't that be pretty tough to make those tracks and kidnap somebody at the same time?" Tony said.

"They didn't," Joe told him. "Meg said that she saw the tracks after she noticed that her brother was missing. Whoever did it must have grabbed him and then come back later to leave the 'evidence' that would make it look like the lake monster got Danny."

"That makes sense," Tony admitted. "How are we going to find Danny by poking around out here then?"

"Look." Frank pointed at the ground. "There's a boot print. It's muddy enough that we should be able to follow these tracks."

The boys started following the boot prints. They walked slowly because, even with the mud, there was enough grass and weeds to make the prints hard to spot. Instead of circling around for a short distance and heading back to town, as Frank and Joe expected, they continued to go farther into the forest.

Eventually, the boot prints met up with what looked like a well-worn trail. All three boys had spent enough time in the wilderness to know that not everything that looked like a trail really was one, but this time it didn't matter. They simply had to follow the boot prints.

"Wonder where this is going to end," Joe said, panting as they climbed a steep hill.

"It looks like right here," replied Frank, who was in the lead.

Joe and Tony caught up to him as he stopped, and all three looked down as the chasm that was at their feet.

"What a view," Tony commented.

It was a stunning view. They were standing on the edge of a canyon, which spread out to the edge of their view, its sides covered with evergreen trees and rock formations.

"Whoever made those prints must have walked right over the edge," Joe said, wrinkling his forehead in confusion. "They just stop right here."

"Maybe there's a way down that we can't see," Frank suggested, carefully peering over the edge of the canyon.

He didn't see any sign of a trail leading downwards. Just when he was about to step back a little farther, he heard a faint noise that sounded like a human voice.

"Did you hear that?" he asked his two companions.

All three listened hard. After a minute or so, they all thought they heard a call for help.

"Maybe whoever it is did fall over the edge," Tony suggested.

"If that's so, how are we going to help him without falling down ourselves?" Joe asked.

Frank looked up and down the sides of the canyon to the left and right. He pointed a short distance to their right. "It doesn't look too steep over there. We might be able to get down."

"Only one of us better try it," Tony said. "Someone else can keep watch in case whoever tries to climb down gets into trouble, and the third can go back to town to get help."

"If anyone will come out here to help," Joe commented. "It's a good plan, though. I'll climb down there."

"Hold on," Frank said. "I think I should go down."

"You two sort this out and I'll head back to town," Tony volunteered, turning around and going back the way they had come.

"Rock, paper, scissors?" Joe asked.

Frank was the winner and he began the descent. He hadn't gone far before he realized that it was steeper than it looked. Hesitating, he tried to make up his mind whether he should abandon this quest and wait for Tony to return with help when his feet slid out from underneath him.

With a startled cry, Frank began to slip down the slope, brush whipping against his face. At first, he threw his arms in front of his face to protect it, but a moment later he thought better of this. He grabbed one of the small bushes, grimacing with pain as he did. By sheer bad luck, he'd grabbed onto a wild rosebush. Even though the thorns dug into his palm, he didn't loosen his grip while he tried to find a firm place to put his feet.

"Frank!" Joe shouted, alarmed when he saw his brother's fall.

"I'm fine!" Frank called back up. "But I'm kind of stuck."

"Want me to come down?" Joe asked.

"Better not," Frank replied. "Hold on."

He saw that there was an outcropping of rock a few feet beneath him. Hoping the rock wasn't loose, he carefully let go of the rosebush and allowed himself to slide down. The rock was firm, and Frank was able to regain his balance there.

As his pulse returned to a normal pace, he turned his attention to his hand. There were several bloody cuts from the thorns, but it didn't look too bad. He wrapped his handkerchief around it.

"Do you see anything down there?" Joe called.

Frank looked around, but he didn't see any sign of another person down there. He was about to shout this up to his brother when a voice from the left and down called softly, "Help."

"There's definitely someone down here," Frank reported to Joe, "but he's still farther down than this."

Joe bit his lip, trying to decide what he should advise Frank to do, even though he already knew that it would make much difference to what Frank did.

"I think I can make it from here," Frank called up. "There's a deer trail that goes right over this rock."

Treading carefully to keep from sliding any farther, he followed the trail. It took him down into the trees, where the soil was firmer. He called out to the person who had been shouting for help. After a pause of several seconds, the voice called for help again.

Now that he was closer to the source of the voice, Frank could tell that it belonged to a man. He could also tell that it wasn't just soft; it was feeble. Whoever was down there must be badly hurt.

Frank continued down the deer trail. By now he was nearly at the bottom of this spur of the canyon. There was a shallow but noisy creek bubbling about ten feet below the trail.

"Hello?" Frank called. "Are you still there?"

"Help, help," the voice said weakly.

It was coming from just ahead. Frank rounded a bend and saw a man lying face down on the ground. He was dressed in camo shirt and trousers, which were torn and bloody.

Frank sprinted the last few steps and bent down next to him. The young man was alive and just barely conscious. He had a large, ugly swelling on his head and cuts on his arms and torso.

When Frank touched him on the shoulder, he groaned and looked up at him from the corner of his eyes. "Please help me."

"I will," Frank assured him. "You'll be fine. Who are you and what happened?"

"Dan Welling," the man whispered. "It was the lake monster."