Book Description

Will it be another boring summer? Would the grind of school give way to a two month overdose of television? It won't for Craig Moore and his friends. They have already been laboring for weeks to build a clubhouse. It's a risky venture because their material primarily comes from other kids' forts. The boys work harder than they ever have before. When they finish, they are an unbeatable team without a mission. Craig sees this as an opportunity to propose a new project. He has always wanted to treasure hunt. That calls to mind desert islands and pirate booty, but he is aiming at something more modern. He wants a metal detector to search for gold coins. The machines are expensive, and he needs his friends' help to buy one. Their ingenious ideas allow them to raise the money in record time. The fort soon becomes a home base for the Treasure Hunters' Club. Over the summer, the boys hone their talents with the machine. There are many interesting finds, but no gold. Craig stumbles onto information that might lead them to it. In the last century, wealthy New Englanders flocked to grand hotels in the wild and mountainous north of New Hampshire. The hotels were wooden and all of them burned. They were never rebuilt and that area became national forest. Craig proposes a secret and daring trip to find one lost site and detect it. That means traveling a hundred miles to a place that they've never been to find something that exists only in old picture books. The deep New Hampshire woods are no place to get lost. After some initial success, things go horribly wrong. The boys' high expectations are soon reduced to hoping that they get out alive!