Perspiring under the load of all his equipment, Chet deposited his baggage beside the Hardys' car.
When good-bys had been said to Mrs. Hardy and Aunt Gertrude, he reached down to pick up a black box. “Here, Iola, take this home. I won't need it. Frank and Joe have their short-wave radio.”
Iola put the instrument aside, and the three boys loaded their belongings into the convertible.
“Got everything?” Joe asked.
“Yes,” Frank replied.
The girls drove them to Bayport Airport in a matter of minutes. There they boarded a plane that arrived at Kennedy International Airport in ample time to sign in for the Icelandic trip.
After they had checked in with Loftleidir, Chet asked the ticket clerk, “Do you serve dinner on this flight?”
“Yes, sir. About an hour after you're airborne.”
Chet rolled his eyes with a pleased expression. They headed for Gate 18, where a sleek jetliner was taking on passengers. The boys entered through the front and walked toward the rear. Three seats were on either side of the aisle. Joe sat next to the window, while Chet slipped into the aisle seat, leaving Frank the place in the middle.
Then the plane's door was shut and it taxied to a runway. Buzzing like a bottled bumblebee, the huge craft lifted off and headed out across the sea toward the north.
Soon seat belts were removed and the boys tilted their seats back to enjoy the flight. By this time darkness had settled over the ocean beneath them.
The attractive stewardesses began bringing trays of food. Frank and Joe, being on the inside, were served first.
“What, no more food left?” Chet asked with a worried expression.
The stewardess smiled down at him. “I'll be right back,” she said.
When she returned, Chet started a conversation. “We're going to Iceland to see the Eskimos.”
“Oh, really?” The dark-haired girl repressed a laugh. “But there aren't any Eskimos in Iceland.”
“What?” Chet was perplexed.
Touching her fingers one at a time, the stewardess explained, “There are no Eskimos, no frogs, and no snakes in Iceland.”
Joe grinned. “Then what is there in Iceland, Missâ?”
“Just call me Steina. You wouldn't remember my last name, it's too long.”
The girl went on to say that there were glaciers and hidden people and night trollsâand, of course, ghosts. Then, before the boys could ask any other questions, she moved off to serve their fellow passengers.
“Hey, this is going to be an interesting trip!” Chet remarked, slicing through a juicy piece of steak.
“We'll have to learn more about those ghosts and night trolls,” Frank said with a chuckle.
Steina returned later to remove their trays, but could not tarry to chat.
“She sure is good-looking,” Chet whispered to Frank.
But Frank's mind was on the special equipment his father had supplied. He reached down into his flight bag tucked under the seat. The tape recorder was there in place. So was the codebook, slipped in tightly beside it. For no special reason, Frank pulled out the decibel counter. Suddenly a curious expression crossed his face.
“Holy crow, Joe, what's this?”
His brother's head was buried in a magazine. Now he turned to look at the object in Frank's hand. “It's the decibel counter Dad gave us toâ” He stopped short and his eyes grew wide. “Wait a minuteâit's a radio!”
“Sure, it's mine,” Chet put in. “I wonder how it got into your bag. Just before we left I gave it to Iola!”
CHAPTER III
An Ancient Custom
THE brothers stared at the radio they had brought by mistake. Without the decibel counter, the codebook was of no use! If Mr. Hardy had an urgent secret message, they could not receive it!
Frank shook his head. “Whew! This Icelandic case is starting off like a disaster! First the attempted kidnapping and now this!”
“I'm to blame for the whole thing,” Chet muttered, crestfallen.
“No you're not,” Joe said. He tried to console his friend. “It could have happened to anybody. The two cases look very much alike.”
Frank realized that they had to get a message back home as soon as possible. He beckoned to the stewardess, who hastened up the aisle and bent over the seat.
“Steina,” Frank said, “we have an emergency on our hands. We must get a radio message back home.”
“Emergency?”
“Yes,” Joe added. “This is serious.”
“All right. Come with me. We'll go to the captain.”
Frank followed the pretty stewardess down the long aisle. When they reached the door of the crew's cabin, Steina knocked lightly and they entered. In the dim glow Frank saw four men who seemed to blend into the console of dials and instruments, which reached clear to the roof of the pilot's cabin.
The captain turned his eyes from the windshield and spoke to Steina in Icelandic. Then he switched to English and addressed Frank. “So you have an emergency, young man? ... Yes, I can send a message by radio. What is it?”
The copilot handed Frank a pad and pencil. Quickly he printed the message to be delivered to his home in Bayport. He asked his parents to please get the black box from Iola Morton and send it to them at Keflavik Airport on the same flight next day.
Then Frank thanked the captain and the stewardess and returned to his seat. Soon the cabin's main lights were switched off and the passengers settled back for a short nap before the early dawn which would come about two o'clock.
The boys dozed fitfully until the lights came on again and stewardesses busily went up and down the aisles serving breakfast. Frank looked out the window and gasped in amazement.
“Joe, Chet! Look at that!”
On the portside, rising out of the sea like a strange white world, loomed the snow-covered mountains of Greenland.
“Wow! That gives you the chills, doesn't it?” said Chet.
As the view of the great peaks inched by the wing tip, the boys talked about the huge island of Greenland, which seemed to spell adventure. Frank knew it was owned by Denmark, populated by Eskimos, and that there were several air bases on its shores.
“There's a Danish one called Narssarssuaq,” he stated. He pulled a map from the seat pocket in front of him and opened it. “Here it is, look!”
“Boy, I'm glad I'm not an Eskimo,” said Chet. “I could never spell a word like that!”
Their banter was interrupted by Steina, who brought them breakfast. Not long after they had eaten, the captain's voice crackled over the loudspeaker.
“We are on our descent to Keflavik. Please fasten your seat belts.”
As the plane glided lower, the boys craned for a look at the country below. It had been born of volcanoes, and much of its surface was covered with lava and volcanic ash. Steaming hot springs lay next to its glaciers, and geysers spouted steam high into the air.
When the huge aircraft touched down, Frank swallowed hard to release the pressure in his ears.
“Exit through the front,” Steina said. “Good-by, and have a good time in Iceland.”
“We're on business,” Chet said importantly. “But we'll try to have fun.”
Lugging their hand baggage, Frank, Joe, and Chet climbed down the steps, breathing deeply of the crisp fresh air. Snow covered the airfield.
“Pretty bleak,” Joe remarked as they hastened into a long, low building to be checked through customs.
An official stamped their passports and directed them to the back of the building, where a bus and taxis were waiting.
Frank talked to the driver standing beside the bus, and learned that Reykjavik was approximately thirty miles away. The bus would leave in twenty minutes.
The trio put their bags by the side of the building, then looked about the unusual landscape. A wide, black, barren valley swept off into the distance before rising abruptly to a bald, snow-clad mountain ridge.
“That's probably all made of lava,” Joe declared, moving off a few paces to get a better look. Not far away an open jeep was parked on the side of the roadway, its hood lifted. A boy about their own age was tinkering with the motor.
Frank, Joe, and Chet casually walked over to him. “Find the trouble?” Frank asked.
The youth smiled at them. With a slight accent he replied, “Something's wrong with the carburetor.”
“Let's take a look,” Joe said. “Maybe we can help.”
“Sure, be my guest.”
The American colloquialism surprised the Hardys. “Oh, you've been in the States?” asked Frank.
“Yes, just got back a couple of days ago. My name is Gudmundur Bergsson.” The boy wiped his hands on a piece of cloth and shook hands with the three. “Just call me Gummi.” He told them that he was a student at a flying school in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and was learning to be a mechanic. “Now I'm home for spring vacation,” he concluded.
Before Frank and Joe could examine the stalled motor, the loudspeaker blared: “Paging Frank and Joe Hardy!”
The boys looked up in surprise.
“Paging Frank and Joe Hardy,” the announcer said again.
Joe started into the building, but Frank restrained him. “Not so fast, Joe. Nobody was to meet us here. Maybe it's another kidnapping attempt!”
“That's right,” Chet chimed in. “We can't be too careful.”
Gummi looked on, bewildered by the unusual conversation. “Somebody is trying to catch you guys?” he asked.
Frank nodded and said to Chet, “Just stroll inside and see who's paging us.”
Chet left, returning a few minutes later. “A short, heavy-set guy with long blond hair and a mustache. Look, here he comes now!”
A square-looking man, his hair flowing, walked from the building. Frank and Joe ducked behind the jeep. The fellow looked right and left before climbing into a small foreign car. Then he drove off.
Frank glanced around for a taxi, but they had all gone. “I wish we could have followed him,” he said disappointedly.
Gummi looked at the boys dubiously. “Hey, what's all this? Are you a couple of spies or something?”
Frank grinned. “We're detectives.”
“No kidding.”
“Look, it's a long story. We'll tell you later.”
Gummi went to his tool kit without asking further questions, and before long, he and Frank had disassembled the carburetor.
“There's your trouble,” Frank said, and wiped a piece of sludge from the intake.
Gummi laughed. “I can get you a mechanic's job in Reykjavik any time you want,” he said and started the engine. “Where are you fellows staying?”
“The Saga Hotel in Reykjavik,” Joe replied.
“Want a ride into town?”
“Great!”
The boys got their bags and climbed into the jeep. On the way, they told Gummi about their search for Rex Hallbjornsson.
“Seems like looking for a needle in a haystack,” the Icelandic boy commented. “There are two hundred thousand people on this island.”
“How big is it?” Frank wanted to know.
“East to west about three hundred miles. Larger than Ireland, but we have not nearly as many inhabitants.”
“What do people do for a living here?” Joe asked.
“Most of our income is derived from fishing,” Gummi explained as he drove along a curving road hugging the rugged coastline. Not a tree was in sight. Only black lava formations.
Frank pointed to small piles of stone along the road. “What are these for?”
“They guided winter travelers in the olden days,” Gummi replied. “And that village over there to the left is Hafnarfjordur.”
As they entered the outskirts of Reykjavik, Gummi said, “When the first settlers came to this harbor, called a âvik,' they saw steam coming from the ground in the distance. Thinking it was smoke, or âreykja,' they called the place Reykjavik.”
Gummi drove along a wide street lined with buildings which were faced with corrugated iron. The roofs were gaily painted in apple green, white, blue, or yellow.
“Quite a colorful place,” Chet commented as he banged the side of the car with his right hand.
“Are you practicing karate, too?” Gummi asked. “It's the craze in our school right now. But Icelanders like wrestling better.”
Finally they reached the center of town, where a small plaza was decorated with red-white-and blue bunting and American flags.
Joe grinned. “Boy, they must have known we were coming!”
“If I didn't know better, I'd believe it.” Gummi chuckled. “This is in honor of three U.S. astronauts who came here to study our lava surface, which is very similar to the terrain on the moon.” He rounded a corner and pulled up in front of a modern white hotel located at the hub of three radiating roads. “Here you are.”
The boys jumped out, unloaded their baggage, and thanked Gummi. He gave them his address and phone number. “Call me any time if you need help,” he said. “I'll take you around in my jeep.”
Frank and Joe occupied one room, and Chet an adjoining one. After unpacking, they took the elevator to the eighth-floor restaurant for lunch.
“Well, masterminds,” Chet asked between mouthfuls of broiled trout, “how are you going to find your boy Rex?”
“As soon as we're finished, let's look in the telephone book,” Frank suggested.
When they consulted the directory, however, they stared at each other in confusion. “I can't make heads or tails of this,” Joe stated. “It looks as if everything with âson' at the end is a first name!”