Bobby Ware Is Missing

After preparing part of a southern California granite quarry for dynamiting the following morning, a work crew leaves the area. Eleven-year-old Bobby Ware and his pal, twelve-year-old Mickey Goodwin, then arrive on their bicycles to explore and play on the heavy equipment. Deciding to climb up to the top of a ridge, the boys hide their bicycles in brush to prevent theft and set off. Upon reaching the top, however, Bobby stumbles and when Mickey tries to catch him, both fall into a ravine, landing on a shallow shelf, halfway down the dangerous incline. When Bobby's father George returns home from work to his wife Janet and younger children Sammy and Janey, Janet tells him that Bobby is late in coming home, but George decides that Bobby may simply have been delayed by a flat tire on his bicycle. Meanwhile, Max Goodwin, Mickey's father, learns from his housekeeper, Sophie, that his son is late for dinner. Later, when Bobby has not returned, George phones Sophie for news of the boys and also checks with Bobby's homeroom teacher, who suggests that he contact the sheriff's station. Darkness has fallen and the boys, cold and scared, are still stuck on the ledge, hoping that people are looking for them. Bobby prays for protection throughout the night. After George unsuccessfully searches the neighborhood, he phones Max, who is dining at a restaurant with Alfred Gledhill and another business associate, and Max agrees to meet George at the sheriff's station. At George's request, Lt. Andy Flynn issues a bulletin to all patrol cars to be on the lookout for the boys and then arranges for a rescue squad, composed of professionals and volunteers, to be ready to begin a search at first light. George invites Max, who feels that he could have been a better, more accessible father to Mickey, to his house to wait for news. While they are there, a rock is thrown through a window. An attached note informs the fathers that if they want to see their boys again, they are to deliver ten thousand dollars in cash to a mailbox on an outlying road. Although George wants to inform the police about the kidnapping, both Janet and Max dissuade him and convince him to pay the ransom demand. At dawn, instead of joining Flynn's rescue crew to comb the nearby foothills, Max delivers the cash he has taken from his office safe to the drop point. George, meanwhile, decides to call off the search as the men and equipment might be needed for real emergencies, and locates Flynn close to the granite