Read Online Speed Times Five by Franklin W. Dixon - Free Book Online

HQ.”
    â€œWhat if we don’t find him?” Lupin asked.
    Frank and Joe glanced toward Victoria Clemenceau, talking with the race team a short distance away.
    â€œWe’ll find him,” Joe said.
    â€œEven though I’m helping out here,” Lupin said, “I still want to win this race. I’ll need time to rest before tomorrow’s leg. I’m not staying out here all night.”
    â€œDid it occur to you that they may cancel the race if Georges isn’t found?” Kelly said angrily.
    Lupin frowned. “Well, no,” he said sheepishly.
    â€œLet’s get going,” Frank said. “The sooner we find Georges, the sooner we get back.”
    The official search crew set off down the trail, moving quickly but cautiously. Hawk and Lupin took the woods on the left-hand side, while the Hardys took the forest on the right.
    Moving in the dark, they all quickly lost sight of the camp. Joe had a compass and a map of the route and used them to keep the Hardys on track. Frank kept the main trail and the search crew in sight as the brothers swept the woods for signs of Georges Clemenceau.
    â€œWhere could he be?” Joe asked after forty-five minutes of fruitless searching. “And why would he leave the path?”
    â€œHe might have run into an animal, like we did,” Frank said. “Or he might have been trying for a shortcut.” Radio checks told him the other searchers hadn’t found anything, either. “We just have to keep looking.”
    As they trudged through the brush, the night grew darker and the foliage thicker. Animal eyes shone in the beams of their flashlights, but the creatures quickly flitted away into the darkness.
    The brothers found several small game trails and, each time they did, tracked the trail back to the main path before resuming their original course. In the distance, they heard Hawk, Lupin, and the other searchers calling Georges’s name.
    Two hours into the search, Joe noticed some broken foliage at the edge of a game trail as they backtracked from the main path. Shining his flashlight through the brush, he saw a flash of red in the woods.
    â€œFrank!” he called. “I see something.”
    The older Hardy looked where Joe indicated. “Too red to be leaves at this time of year,” Frank said. “And it looks as though someone left the path here.”
    The brothers quickly followed the tracks toward the red object. “Georges and Victoria wear red uniforms,” Frank noted.
    â€œOh, man! That looks like a body!” Joe said.
    They sprinted the last few yards, ignoring the brush that scratched their arms and legs.
    Georges Clemenceau lay on his face in a pile of leaves in the middle of the small trail. Frank knelt to check on him. “He’s still breathing,” Frank said, “but it looks like he’s had a nasty crack on the head.”
    â€œWhat do you think hit him?” Joe asked. Looking around, he saw no low-lying branches or any other obvious obstacles.
    â€œIt doesn’t matter. Get on the horn while I see what I can do for him.” The brothers’ first-aid and EMT training had served them well during their previous cases.
    Joe pulled out his radio and called the other searchers. “We’ve found him,” Joe said. “He’s alive, but he’s had a bad crack on his head.” He checked the Global Positioning System display on theemergency phone and read off the coordinates to the searchers. Then he stowed the radio and shone his flashlight toward the main trail so the others could locate them. “They’re sending a chopper,” he said.
    â€œThe woods are too thick to land here,” Frank replied. “We’ll have to move him to the main trail.”
    â€œLet’s wait,” Joe said. “The main team has a portable stretcher. How’s he doing?”
    â€œI think he’s got a concussion,” Frank said, “but I