Chapter 10

Don and Ron had been searching every nook and cranny of the canyon where the river lay. They had been frantically looking under every clump of brush and behind every rock for a trace of the girls, all to no avail.

Don surveyed the hilly canyon and looked at his friend with a look of resignation.

"I don't know," he said, his voice cracking, "I just don't know."

Ron looked at his friend and he could see that Don was just on the edge of breaking and he knew that it was absolutely imperative that both of them keep their heads.

"Hey," Ron said. "Take it easy man. There's a chance, there's always a chance. We haven't exhausted all the possibilities yet."

"Yeah," Don replied. "But what else could have happened?"

"There's one thing we haven't even considered yet," Ron said. "They are not here. We know that. If they landed on the ground down here, they would have tried to call out to us or at least waited. What if they fell into the river and were carried downstream?"

Don's eyes suddenly became filled with a glimmer of hope.

"Jesus!" he said. "I never even thought of that! That's got to be what happened!"

Don's face became morose and a dark frown clouded his features.

"But...but" he said, "what if . . . " Ron put a strong arm on his friend's shoulder and looked him square in the eyes.

"Hey, hey," he said. "We've got to try! Now. You know what I think could have happened? I think that if they fell into the river that they would have been all right. It's deep, the current isn't that strong, but it's strong enough to carry them downstream. Let's say it carried them downstream a little ways even a quarter of a mile. Now, hell. All this brush and countryside looks the same. They'd be lost! Why, the only thing you can see from here is...

"PEARSON PEAK!" Don said. "Yes! Yes!" Ron shouted exuberantly. "That has to be what happened. They would stumble around trying to find us. They'd walk to the destination that we agreed upon before ...Pearson Peak!

"Right!" Don said. "There's a ranger station there, isn't there?"

"Yes!"

"O.K.! The best thing for us to do is to hike there! That way we'll be accomplishing two things at once; we'll find the girls if they've hiked there and we can find the ranger station at the same time!"

"Let's get started!"

With great haste and a sense of dire urgency, the two men gathered up their gear and set off in the direction of Pearson Peak.