Notes

Why is the deck-hand behaving suspiciously? And what is the letter he keeps studying? On the Wanganui River Mary Paul's grandfather runs a small fleet of pleasure craft while his arch-rival Alexander Hatrick owns a much larger fleet which services settlements as far upriver as Taumarunui. When Hatrick's nephew Tom, newly arrived from England, meets Mary she finds him arrogant and unfriendly. But Tom persuades Mary to take a trip with him on his uncle's steamer and convinces her one of the deck-hands is acting suspiciously. They soon become involved in a mystery reaching back to a time when Wanganui was a threatened little colonial outpost - a mystery that involves hidden jewellery, an abandoned well and which concludes with a thrilling chase up the rapids of the Wanganui River.