SANDY STEELE ADVENTURES

Black Treasure
Danger at Mormon Crossing
Stormy Voyage
Fire at Red Lake
Secret Mission to Alaska
Troubled Waters

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
INCLUDING THE RIGHT OF REPRODUCTION
IN WHOLE OR IN PART IN ANY FORM
COPYRIGHT © 1959 BY SIMON AND SCHUSTER, INC.
PUBLISHED BY SIMON AND SCHUSTER, INC.
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FIRST PRINTING

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 59-13882
MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
BY H. WOLFF BOOK MFG. CO., INC., NEW YORK

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

1 The Lodge on the Lake 7

2 Into the Woods 17

3 A Midnight Visitor 26

4 The Missing A-Bomb 34

5 Lightning Strikes 43

6 A Futile Search 51

7 A Birling Match 64

8 Fire! 76

9 Battling the Flames 88

10 A Temporary Victory 104

11 Last-Ditch Stand 115

12 Trapped on the Hill 128

13 An Unexpected Find 141

14 The Rains Came 152

15 End of the Trail 157

CHAPTER ONE
The Lodge on the Lake

The battered station wagon bumped and groaned over the rutted dirt road at about ten miles per hour, churning up great clouds of dust. Sandy Steele wiped the grime and grit from his face with his handkerchief and bent forward to yell in the driver’s ear.

“How much further, Mr. McClintock?”

The wizened little old man tugged his dirty straw hat down tighter as the front wheels lurched in and out of a hole with a jolt that sent all four occupants of the car bouncing several inches off the seats.

“’Bout ’nother quarter of a mile is all,” the man finally replied.

Sandy grinned at his high-school friend Jerry James, seated beside him. “Well, we’ve come twenty miles; I guess we’ll last another fifteen hundred feet.”

The short, stout boy seated up front with the driver turned to face them, his eyes owlish behind thick, horn-rimmed glasses. “One thousand, three hundred and twenty feet, to be precise,” he said solemnly. “That’s a quarter of a mile exactly.”

Sandy and Jerry let out long-suffering groans. At fifteen, Clyde Benson (Quiz) Taylor was the No. 1 student at Valley View High School in central California where the three boys lived only houses apart. At the age of ten, Quiz had been a winning contestant on a television quiz program, which accounted for his nickname. Quiz could discuss Einstein’s Theory of Relativity or the batting averages of the leading hitters in the National and American Leagues with equal ease. His mind was a bulging storehouse of facts and figures that his friends found very valuable. But at times the superior manner in which he flaunted his knowledge could be highly irritating.

“Why did you have to ask him along?” Jerry demanded wearily. “Living with Quiz for a whole month is more than any human being can take.”

“That lets you out then, Jerry,” Quiz said, grinning.

“Okay, wise guy.” Jerry thrust his lantern jaw out indignantly. “Just you wait till we’re camping out in the deep woods—hundreds of miles from civilization, with no one around to hear your deathly screams.”

The driver interrupted this byplay, pointing to a patch of blue between the trunks of the giant pines. “There, you can see the lake now, fellers. Five minutes more, we’ll be at Mr. Steele’s camp.” He caught Sandy’s eye in the rear-view mirror. “You’re Russ Steele’s nephew, ain’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

The driver nodded. “Great man, Russ Steele. My son was in his division in Korea. Said General Steele was the best CO any outfit ever had. Used to be real interested in his men. My boy said the dogfaces swore by him.”

“Uncle Russ is a regular guy all right,” Sandy said.

“I’ll say,” Jerry put in. “How many big shots like him would spend their summer vacations taking a bunch of teen-agers on a camping trip?”

The driver looked surprised. “Russ never talks about his work. Is he really a big shot?”

“Mr. Steele is vice president in charge of research of World Dynamics Corporation,” Quiz explained loftily. “That’s the firm that does all that secret government work.”

The driver tipped back his straw hat. “Well, now, I never would’ve guessed it. He sure don’t act it.”

At that moment, the station wagon rounded a curve, and the road broke out of the trees on the lake shore. To the left and