Hunting For Hidden Gold

Hunting For Hidden Gold is Volume 5 in the original The Hardy Boys Mystery Stories published by Grosset & Dunlap. The book ranks 111th on Publishers Weekly's All-Time Bestselling Children's Book List for the United States, with 1,179,533 copies sold as of 2001. Franklin W. Dixon is the pen name used by a variety of different authors who were part of a team that wrote The Hardy Boys novels. Canadian author Charles Leslie McFarlane is believed to have written the first sixteen Hardy Boys books, but worked to a detailed plot and character outline for each story. The outlines are believed to have originated with Edward Stratemeyer, with later books outlined by his daughters, Edna C. Squier and Harriet Adams. Edward and Harriet also edited all books in the series through the mid-1960s. Other writers of the original books include MacFarlane's wife Amy, John Button, Andrew E. Svenson, and Adams herself; most of the outlines were done by Adams and Svenson. Several other writers and editors were recruited to revise the outlines and update the texts in line with a more modern sensibility, starting in the late 1950s.

The tale begins over three-hundred years ago, when the Fair People—the goblins, fairies, dragons, and other fabled and fantastic creatures of a dozen lands—fled the Old World for the New, seeking haven from the ways of Man. With them came their precious jewels: diamonds, rubies, emeralds, pearls... But then the Fair People vanished, taking with them their twelve fabulous treasures. And they remained hidden until now... Across North America, these twelve treasures, over ten-thousand dollars in precious jewels, are buried. The key to finding each can be found within the twelve full color paintings and verses of The Secret. Yet The Secret is much more than that. At long last, you can learn not only the whereabouts of the Fair People's treasure, but also the modern forms and hiding places of their descendants: the Toll Trolls, Maitre D'eamons, Elf Alphas, Tupperwerewolves, Freudian Sylphs, Culture Vultures, West Ghosts and other delightful creatures in the world around us. The Secret is a field guide to them all. Many "armchair treasure hunt" books have been published over the years, most notably Masquerade (1979) by British artist Kit Williams. Masquerade promised a jewel-encrusted golden hare to the first person to unravel the riddle that Williams cleverly hid in his art. In 1982, while everyone in Britain was still madly digging up hedgerows and pastures in search of the golden hare, The Secret: A Treasure Hunt was published in America. The previous year, author and publisher Byron Preiss had traveled to 12 locations in the continental U.S. (and possibly Canada) to secretly bury a dozen ceramic casques. Each casque contained a small key that could be redeemed for one of 12 jewels Preiss kept in a safe deposit box in New York. The key to finding the casques was to match one of 12 paintings to one of 12 poetic verses, solve the resulting riddle, and start digging. Since 1982, only two of the 12 casques have been recovered. The first was located in Grant Park, Chicago, in 1984 by a group of students. The second was unearthed in 2004 in Cleveland by two members of the Quest4Treasure forum. Preiss was killed in an auto accident in the summer of 2005, but the hunt for his casques continues.

Teenage detectives Frank and Joe Hardy investigate a case of counterfeiting.

Gear up for an exciting adventure with the thrill-seeking Kidds as they search for a missing Incan city in South America made entirely of gold! When Bick and Beck Kidd find a hidden trove of pirate treasure, it includes a map with clues to an even bigger score: the lost Incan city of Paititi. But treasure hunting is never easy—and when the map is stolen, the Kidds must rely on Storm's picture-perfect memory to navigate the dangerous Amazon jungle. Watch out for that nest of poisonous snakes! To save the Amazon rainforest and stop a Peruvian tribe from losing their home, the Kidds must unlock the secrets to the missing map and find the fabled city of Paititi . . . before the bad guys find it first. The race is on!

Timber wolves, a Rocky Mountain blizzard, and a mine cave-in are only a few of the perils Frank and Joe Hardy encounter during their search for the principal members of a notorious gang responsible for a payroll robbery. Clue by clue, Frank and Joe cleverly fit into place the scattered pieces of this dangerous puzzle and come up with the astonishing solution.

Mystery - The Hardy Boys Nystery #4.

A fortune in hidden gold! That certainly sounds mighty interesting. Frank Hardy folded up the letter he had just been reading aloud to his brother. "Dad has all the luck," replied Joe. "I'd give anything to be working with him on a case like that." "Me, too. This case is a bit out of the ordinary." "Where was the letter postmarked?" "Somewhere in Montana. A gold-mining camp called Lucky Bottom." "Montana! Gee, but I wish he could have taken us with him. We've never been more than two hundred miles from home." "And I've never seen a mine in my life, much less a real mining camp." The Hardy boys looked at one another regretfully. They had just received a letter from their father, Fenton Hardy, an internationally famous detective, who had been called West but a fortnight previous on a mysterious mission. The letter gave the boys their first inkling of the nature of the case that had summoned their father from Bayport, on the Atlantic coast, to the mining country of Montana. "A fortune in hidden gold," repeated Frank. "I hope he finds it all right." "It was stolen from one of the big companies, wasn't it?" "Yes. He says that an entire shipment of bullion was stolen before it left the camp, so they believe it must have been hidden somewhere in the neighborhood." "And his job is to find it." "If he can. And the thieves as well." Joe sighed. "I sure would like to be out there right now. We might be able to help him." "Well, we've helped him in other cases, but I guess we're out of luck this time. Montana is too far away." "Yes, and we have to keep on going to school. I'll be glad when we're through school and can be regular detectives like dad." Frank grinned. "No use grouching about it," he said cheerfully. "Our time will come some day." "Yes, but it seems a long time coming," replied Joe, smiling ruefully. "Oh, in a few more years we'll be going all over the country just like dad, solving robberies and murders and having all sorts of excitement. We haven't done too badly so far, anyway." "Yes, we had the fun of discovering the tower treasure." "And running down the counterfeiters." "Yes; and solving the mystery of the house on the cliff and finding out about Blacksnake Island." The boys were referring to previous cases in which they had been involved and in which their ability had been proved. But it had been several months since any adventure or excitement had come their way and they were feeling restless, the more so now that they knew their father was at that moment in the remote mining camp in the West engaged on a mystery that seized their imagination.