Fenton Hardy approached the door of the trailer silently.  The experienced detective listened intently at the door for any sound of movement behind the thin, insulated door. There was none. He motioned for Frank to close in behind him.

In his mind, Fenton reviewed what he knew; yes, they had probable cause to break in.  Without another moment of hesitation, he tried the door handle.  It turned easily and the detective smiled.

Fenton glanced at Frank.  “On three,” he whispered.  Frank nodded and watched as his father counted out three fingers.

The two Hardy men burst into the trailer, startling the two occupants. “Get your hands in the air, now!” Fenton shouted. 

Vernon Dixon sat up.  Still half drunk and high from a cocaine rush, he brushed his stringy hair out of his eyes.  Seeing Fenton’s gun pointed at him, he raised his hands in instant surrender.

Morris Grafton pretended to be groggy as he slowly rose from the floor near the tattered sofa.  “Wha’z goin’ on?” He staggered slightly before grabbing Frank.

Fenton froze, his finger on the trigger.

Grafton twisted Frank’s arm painfully behind the teenager’s back.  “I’ll break his arm, man! Back off!”  Fenton kept his weapon drawn, but lowered it to a less threatening position.

Sam Radley hurried down to the trailer where Fenton and Frank had gone.  His own bust went down easily, since Sonny Black, Gene Burress and Tommy Hall had all surrendered without resistance.  They all immediately pointed to Morris Grafton and Vernon Dixon as the ringleaders, blabbering about kidnapping two boys for Grafton and leaving them in the swamp. Sam helped Sean Prescott tie the trio up and then decided that Fenton and Frank might need a little extra help.

Sam moved quickly up the walkway of the trailer with the green Impala parked by it.  He pulled back the slide on his semi-automatic when he heard Grafton’s shouted threat.

Sam bobbed his head toward the door and took in the scene.  A guy with stringy blond hair sat in a drugged-out stupor on the sofa; Fenton was between the door and the sofa with his gun lowered to waist high, pointed in the general direction of a dark-haired man that had his arm wrapped around Frank’s throat.

The dark-haired man, Sam presumed, was probably Grafton.  Sam watched as Grafton backed toward the door.  He moved slightly, catching Fenton’s attention behind Grafton’s retreating form.

Seeing Sam at the door, Fenton lowered his weapon and spoke gently.  “Okay, Grafton. Take it easy.  Just don’t hurt my boy.”

Sam waited until Grafton was almost on the threshold before striking him firmly with a karate chop and rendering the man unconscious. 

“Thanks for the save, partner,” Fenton said sincerely.  He gave Sam an appreciative smile before moving to Frank.  The younger Hardy was rubbing his throat, but otherwise appeared unharmed.

“You okay?” Fenton asked, putting his hand on Frank’s shoulder. 

Frank nodded.  “Just a slightly bruised throat and a wounded ego.”

Sam meanwhile moved to the sofa where the stoned Vernon Dixon still sat watching, with his arms raised.  Using extra rope he’d brought with him, Sam secured Vernon’s hands behind his back.

Sam looked over at the Hardys.  “Fent, those guys in the other trailer confessed to kidnapping two teenage boys.  They said Grafton paid them and they took the boys to a swampy area near the Black Warrior River.

A noise near the door made all three detectives turn.  Sean Prescott looked in on them, and then peered down at the prone body of Morris Grafton.

“The state police are here,” Sean informed them.  “I gave them a brief statement, but we need to hurry.”

“Where?” Fenton asked, sensing the urgency in Sean’s voice.

“I got one of those guys to tell me exactly where they took Joe and Chet,” Sean replied. “It’s a pretty bad place, Mr. Hardy.  We need to get there and rescue the boys now!”

* * *

Joe Hardy’s body had pretty much shut down.  He was vaguely aware of muffled voices and hands grasping at him.  He felt something tight being wrapped around him and sensed motion.  Then he drifted into total oblivion once again.

“This is a serious bite,” the young paramedic stated as he lifted Joe’s litter over the lip of the pit.  “We need to hustle if this kid is even going to stand a chance of survival.”

His partner nodded in agreement and the pair worked quickly on the blond teenager, starting an IV and packing the wound in ice.

“H-he’s gonna make it, r-right?” Chet asked David Neel as they watched Joe being whisked into the waiting ambulance.

“It looks bad, but the doctors around here know how to deal with snake bites, son,” David said gently.  He led Chet to another ambulance where paramedics began checking him for injury.

“We’ll need to take you in and let the doctors check you out,” one of the men told Chet.  He was tired and drained and sore with no argument left in him.  Chet climbed aboard and promptly dozed off to sleep before the ambulance had even reached the main road.

* * *

“This whole stinkin’ town is fallin’ apart around me,” Chief of Police Cecil Struthers complained as he hooked his car radio back on its stand.  As much as he wanted to be in on the bust going down in the trailer park, he now had even more pressing matters at hand: a dead body had been discovered and the two missing teenagers had been found.

He drove his police cruiser to the road where Calhoun and Masters reported finding a floating body.  From the description, it sounded like a two-bit hood named Brian Jackson.

As he turned the corner and recognized Calhoun’s SUV parked behind a station wagon, he remembered the description of the three men the Morton kid had told him during the interrogation.

“The kid might’a been tellin’ the truth all along,” he declared aloud.  He knew Jackson hung with a bad crowd.  It certainly was possible that they could have been on the bridge with Chet and Lydia Morton.

* * *

Jack Wayne lay stretched out on a bed in the motel room that Frank and Joe Hardy shared.  The Morton women were across the hall and asleep as well.  Jack rested, but sleep eluded him.  His mind was filled with troubled thoughts and he was concerned that he’d not heard from Fenton or any of the other men since they went in search of Joe and Chet.

He nearly jumped out of his skin when the bedside telephone rang loudly in his left ear. He picked up the receiver quickly and greeted the caller. “Hello, Jack Wayne here.”

“Jack! It’s Frank,” a familiar voice on the other end of the phone line said.  “Dad wanted me to touch base with you.  We’re on our way to a swamp where we think the kidnappers took Joe and Chet.  The kidnappers are…”

Jack listened intently as Frank described the arrest of the kidnappers.  When he hung up the phone, he said a silent prayer that the boys would be found…safe and alive.