"Nancy? Bess? George? Are all of you alright?" Ned called out after a moment. "Yep, I'm okay. What about you, Bess?" asked George, getting up off the floor and standing up to brush herself off. "Did we get in a wreck!" Bess exclaimed with a frightened look on her face as she stood up. George answered her: "Ofcourse not, you numbskull!" "Nancy? Nancy, are you okay?" Ned asked, turning around in his seat. "I'm okay but... what in the world?" Nancy exclaimed, quickly standing up and looking around.

"Look!" Ned said, pointing toward the road. When Nancy looked, she saw a huge gash in the road just ahead of them. It was more like a pit or hole right in the middle of the road. It was alteast five or six feet deep and about the same across.

"Gosh... thank goodness we didn't fall in that!" said Nancy. "...We... almost died!" exclaimed Bess, biting a finger nail with a worried look on her face. "Yes, dearest, but we're NOT dead, now are we?" said George in a laughable tone and with a sarcastic smile. "Thanks to Ned's driving we're not!" Nancy said, patting him on the shoulder and hopping out of the car.

"Nancy Drew, just where do you think you're going?" Ned exclaimed, quickly jerking the door open and jumping out after her. "I'm going to climb down into the hole and see if I can tell how it got here!" she exclaimed, sitting on the edge of the ditch and taking her skirt in one hand. "Oh no you're not!" he exclaimed, grabbing her arm. "Oh, Ned, don't be silly. It's nothing that'll harm me! Besides, you're so... strong that you can lift me back up out of there." she said, with a smile. "...Well... okay. But only be down there for a minute!" She patted his hand and nodded: "I will."

She turned halfway around and grabbed the edge of the hole, lowering herself down until she felt the ground lightly brush her shoe. Letting go of the ledge, Nancy dropped down into the fairly large pit and began to examine the walls of the dirt road. Suddenly she stepped on something. Looking down, she saw a key. She picked it up and turned it over. Her eyes caught a label that said: Barney's - 1026833.

"Ned!" "What?" he called quickly, hurrying to the edge. "Ned, look at this key." she said, handing it up to him. "I was just thinking, "Barney's" must be a placelike a store or soemthing. Do you think that might be?" Ned nodded, looking at the key: "You could be right. But right now, let's get you out of that ditch and see if we can figure out how to make that train. We still have plenty of time but I'm worried about how this is gonn'a work."