by John Blaine
“Have they been in today?” Rick asked politely.
“No!” The beefy man exploded. “They ain’t been in, and they better not come in” He turned to the men at the tables.“Right, boys?”
An ugly growl of agreement rose from the room.
“What we want to know is,what do you kids want with them?”
“Business,” Scotty said shortly.
The man switched his glance to Scotty. “Oh, so you’re doin ’ business with ‘em, hey? Workin ’ for ‘em, maybe?”
“We might be,” Rick answered quietly. He took in the man’s unshavenface, the dirty flannel shirt that puffed from his pants top, his sparse, unkempt hair, the bulldog thrust of his jaw, and didn’t like what he saw.
“Get out,” the beefy man said viciously. “You guys work for the plant, you ain’t wanted here. Get out.”
From long experience, Rick knew when Scotty’s temper was coming to a boil. He put a hand on his friend’s arm, but Scotty pushed it aside and stood up.
“You want to try putting us out?” he asked.
“Easy,” Rick cautioned. “I don’t know what you’re so upset about, mister. We only asked a civil question.”
“Ask it outside. We don’t want guys who work for the plant in here. Notno more than we want the plant in town. Now get goin ’.”
“But what’s wrong with having a sea mining plant in town?” The man’s hostility aroused Rick’s quick curiosity.
“You know blasted well what’s wrong!” The beefy man’s voice rose, as though he were addressing the whole room. “The waste from that mine will ruin us! It’ll turn Crayville into a ghost town. It’ll ruin the fishing grounds and poison every oyster and lobster for twenty miles!”
“But they’re protected by law,” Rick protested.
The man took a menacing half-step toward him.“Who you callin ’ a liar, young feller?”
Rick felt Scotty tense and again put a hand out, but it wasn’t necessary. A newcomer suddenly had come between the beefy man and the boys.
He was small and thin, with gray hair and a weathered, wrinkled face.
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“Let them alone,” he said quietly. “They’re only boys.Stoles.”
“You keep out of this, Gait!”
The thin man must have been well over sixty-five, but he showed no fear of the blusterer. “Run along, boys,” he said. He gestured toward the door.
Rick knew authority when he heard it. He obeyed the old man without question, putting some coins on the counter and motioning to Scotty. In a moment they were out on the boardwalk.
“I don’t like running out,” Scotty said hotly. “Why should we let an overstuffed windbag like that push us around?”
“Relax,” Rick said. “The old man knew what he was talking about. We’ll get out of here. There’s no point in mixing in local troubles.”
“Now I know I’m going after a job in the sea mine plant,” Scotty said. “No greasy character like that is going to run me out of town!”
Rick felt much the same way about it, but he only shrugged. “There’s nothing we can do today, anyway.
Let’s get started back.”
“We didn’t get to eat the chowder,” Scotty grumbled.
“That will leave more room for waffles when we get home.”
His own temper wasn’t as explosive as Scotty’s, but he was just as angry deep down inside-and he was curious. For some reason, the man called Stoles was spreading lies about the sea mine. Something unpleasant was cooking in Crayville.
He felt Scotty watching him.
“What’s on your mind?” his friend asked
“I was thinking,” Rick told him. “Tomorrow morning let’s come back to Crayville.”
Scotty breathed a sigh of relief. “You had me worried. For a while I thought you were letting blubberpuss scare you off.”
“I am a little scared.” Rick grinned. “But not as scared as I am curious.”
CHAPTER II
Rick Gets a Telegram
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Barby Brant, a pretty girl a year Rick’s junior, looked inquiringly at her brother.
“I asked did you want another waffle,” she said.
Rick looked up from his plate. “Huh? Oh, no, thanks. I’m full up.”
“I’ll have one,” Scotty said.
“She knows that.” Hartson Brant laughed. “The day Scotty refuses a waffle is the day the world ends.
Or maybe the day Rick discovers perpetual motion.”
Seated with his family at the Sunday night supper table, Hartson Brant might have been taken for almost anything but the famous scientist that he was. Except for the lines in his face, he might have been Rick’s elder brother. He had the same leanness, the same speculative eyes, and the same alert, eager look that marked his son. And, like Rick, he preferred comfortable old clothes with open shirt collar and moccasin-style shoes.
Scotty accepted the waffle without comment, spread it liberally with butter, and poured on a pint of syrup.
From the end of the table, Mrs. Brant spoke up. She was a small, attractive woman with a pleasant face.
“Never mind, Scotty,” she said, “don’t pay any attention to them.”
“He’s building up his muscles,” a stocky young man spoke up from across the table. “He knows there’s no hope for his brains.”
Scotty withered him with a glance and went on eating.
Jerry Webster, a reporter for the Whiteside, New Jersey newspaper, and a regular attendant at the Brant Sunday night waffle suppers, continued, “He’ll need muscles if he takes that job I offered him.”
“What job?” Instantly Barby Brant was all ears.
“He and Rick can have jobs at the paper for the summer. I asked the boss and he said it was all right.”
Barby gave a delighted squeal.“Reporters? Honest, Jerry? Can you get me a job, too?”
Jerry grinned. “The jobs are as muscle men in the distribution department. They’d have to wrestle stacks of paper.”
“Oh!” Barby’s enthusiasm collapsed. “That’s no fun.” She appealed to Rick. “Is it?”
Rick had been lost in thoughts of his own. “Is what what ?”
“You’re in a daze,” Barby accused. “You haven’t heard a word.”
“Chatter,” Rick said airily.“Small talk. I’m a man with weighty problems. I have to think.”
“I have intuition,” Barby declared. “Do you know what? My intuition tells me you and Scotty had an adventure today. I bet!”
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Sometimes Darby’s perception startled Rick. He looked at her with surprised respect. “How did you know?”
“Well, when you left this morning, you were cheerful. And tonight you’re glooming into the syrup pitcher as though it was a crystal ball or something. That’s how I know.”
Hartson Brant showed sudden interest.“How about it, Rick? I thought you took Scotty up the coast on a routine flight.”
“It started out to be routine,” Scotty put in. “I was just getting in some hours on my logbook. Then we spotted the sea mine-“
“Sea mine?”Mrs. Brant’s voice was startled. “But those things are dangerous! Why, I read just the other day how some ship was blown up by a floating mine!”
“Not that kind of mine, Mom,” Rick hastened to say. He told them about the day’s events.
When he had finished, the others were silent for a moment. Then Jerry asked, “And you’re going back after jobs?”
“If it’s all right,” Rick said. He gave his father a pleading glance.
“It might be interesting,” Hartson Brant agreed. “I would discount what you heard in the restaurant. As you pointed out, the law protects fishing grounds from factory wastes. And, in addition, I can’t imagine what wastes from a sea water processing plant could possibly be poisonous.”
“But it’s so far away,” Mrs. Brant protested.
“Not very,” Rick assured her. “It’s only about an hour and a h
ah0 flying time. We would be home every week end.”
“And it’s not as far asTibet ,” Scotty said, grinning.
Mrs. Brant sighed. “I suppose not.”
“I remember the story we carried about that plant,” Jerry put in. “The owners are a couple of young fellows. One of them worked out the processes and the other one put up the money. Somethinglike that.
I can’t remember all of it.”
“Well, let’s not cross bridges before we come to them,” Hartson Brant advised. “The boys don’t have the jobs yet.”
“If you’ll go out on the porch, I’ll bring cake and coffee,” Mrs. Brant invited.
“I’m afraid I can’t stay,” Jerry said regretfully. “I promised one of the boys I’d cover the night desk for him. Barby, how about running me back to the mainland?”
“All right.You’ll save some cake for me, won’t you, Mother?”
“If I can keep it away from Scotty.”
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Jerry thanked Mrs. Brant and said good-bye to the others,then he and Barby departed in the direction of the boat landing.
SpindriftIslandwas separated from theNew Jersey mainland by a rocky tidal flat, under water at high tide. Transportation to Whiteside, the nearest town, was by motorboat, or by Rick’s Cub. Two fast motor-boats were kept in a hook-shaped cove below the big house, which was located on the north side of the island, overlooking the sea.
Hartson Brant and the two boys went out to the big screened porch as Jerry and Barby left. Rick walked to the end of the porch and looked across the edge of the orchard to where the gray bulk of the laboratories dominated the south tip of the island. It seemed strange not to see the building ablaze with light.
“I wonder what the professors are doing now,” he said. “I’ll betthey miss Spindrift.”
“So their letters say,” Hartson Brant said. “But they’re all very busy.Hobart has something up his sleeve that I think we may hear about soon.”
He referred to Hobart Zircon, the big, bluff scientist who had been with the expedition toTibet . He was inWashington now, studying at theInstituteofOceanography . Julius Weiss, the little mathematician, was also inWashington . The other two professors, Dr. Wisecarver and Professor Gordon, were out on the Pacific coast.
Thinking of Hobart Zircon andTibet brought to mind the newest member of theSpindriftIsland family.
Chahda, the Hindu boy who had become their friend and ally on the Tibetan expedition, was at school inMassachusetts , studying hard. He had refused to take the summer vacation, preferring to take special courses.
“This way,” he had written, “I think so I get smart two times as fast. But I come home in maybe August.
This school has much more fact than my World Almanac.”
Chahda’seducation had been a great source of amusement to the boys. He had laboriously memorized most of a very old edition of The World Almanac. ”I feel sort of guilty about not being at home with everyone else away,” Rick said.
Hartson Brant smiled. “Don’t feel too guilty,” he said. “There wouldn’t be much excitement for you here.”
Rick returned the smile gratefully. He had the best parents in the world, he thought. They encouraged his ideas-whether they took the form of going toConnecticut to work for the summer, or whether they were perfectly useless inventions such as he sometimes turned out.
A sharp bark sounded from the direction of the orchard, Rick whistled and a shaggy little dog came trotting over. He scratched at the screen door and was admitted.
At once Hartson Brant and Scotty let out sharp protests. A harsh, distinctive odor smote Rick’s nose forcibly. “Dismal,” he groaned.
Dismal rolled over, all four legs in the air, and played dead.
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“You should,” Rick said sternly. “Will you ever learn to keep away from skunks?”
Dismal whined for forgiveness.
“Outside,” Rick ordered.
“Wait until Barby comes back,” Hartson Brant said. “She can sprinkle him with cologne.”
“It’ll take more than foo-foo water to kill that smell,” Scotty commented.
Mrs. Brant appeared with a loaded tray. She sniffed the air,then exclaimed, “Dismal! Not again!””
“He’ll never learn,” Rick said.
Dismal sat up and begged, then played dead again.
“Teach him to vanish,” Scotty suggested.
As Rick led the reluctant pup outside, he heard the phone ring. Scotty ran to answer, and he heard snatches of the conversation.
“Who is it for? Just a sec . . . okay, read it . . .”
In a moment he returned, his forehead creased in a frown.
“What is it?” Hartson Brant asked.
“For Rick,” Scotty said. He handed over a sheet of paper.“A telegram.”
Rick read it aloud.
Mr. Gait informed me of your visit to Crayville today. He took number of your plane and learned your name from Civil Air Authority. Appreciate your interest but regret all positions at the mine are filled.
It was signed Douglas Chambers, Crayville Sea Mine.
“Well, how do you likethat! ” Scotty exclaimed.
Rick read it over again, rapidly.
“I don’t,” he said slowly. “Listen, how old would you say Mr. Gait was?”
“About seventy.”
“And he read the license number of the Cub? When? He couldn’t have seen it, except when we were over the town at two thousand feet. And could he read it that high in the air?”
“What do you mean, Rick?” Hartson Brant asked.
“It’s wacky!” Rick’s mind was racing. There was something else about the note that didn’t ring true.
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After a moment’s thought he got it.
“It’s Sunday! There wouldn’t be anyone at the Civil Air Authority office on Sunday. And listen! This is addressed to Rick Brant.Rick, not Richard. But it’s Richard on my plane registration.”
“A phony!”Scotty exclaimed.
“I’d say someone doesn’t want you to apply for a job at the Crayville plant,” Hartson Brant said.
“But who?”Rick asked. “No one up there knows us. No one could have known my nickname.”
“Someone did,” Scotty said flatly.
Rick looked thoughtfully into the puzzled faces around him. “Yes,” he agreed. “Someone did.”
CHAPTER III
The Sea Mine
Scotty thrust his head into Rick’s room.“You about ready?”
“Almost,” Rick said.
Rick’s room adjoined Scotty’s, but where Scotty’s room brought to mind the neat efficiency of a Marine squad room, Rick’s was reminiscent of a laboratory.
Along one wall ran a wide shelf containing various tools and jars of electrical parts. What appeared to be partially dismantled radio sets were here and there about the room. But the intricate unit wired to an ancient alarm clock that rested by the window, for instance, was a device that automatically lowered the window and turned on the radiator during cold weather.
The old leather armchair that seemed to be a repository for junk actually was wired so that Rick could turn on his radio, choose his station, adjust his reading lamp, cook a hamburger, whip up a milk shake, or answer the phone, all without moving more than a hand, or perhaps both hands.
Rick took a last look around to be sure he had packed all he needed,then snapped his suitcase shut.
They had already had breakfast and had said good-bye to the family. It was understood that if they got jobs they would telegraph, and the family would not expect them home until the following week end.
Mrs. Brant had been upset about the mysterious telegram, but it was typical of Hartson Brant that he had been as curious as the boys about its origin. Instead of using the message as a reason for forbidding them to go to Crayville, he had contented himself with a warning, and a request that they let him know if they discovered the sender. Then he had lent them enou
gh money to last until they got their first pay checks-if they were hired.
As they went down the back stairs and across the orchard to the Cub, Rick spoke his thoughts aloud.
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“I wonder what we’re walking into. I’m still in a fog about that telegram last night. It’s a dead cinch that this Douglas Chambers didn’t send it, because he doesn’t know me from beans and neither does Mr.
Gait. So who did? No one else saw us, except the men in the restaurant, and they didn’t look smart enough to write their names, much less send phony telegrams.”
“How about that character at the plant gate?”
“I thought of him,” Rick admitted, ‘Taut I know I’ve never seen him before. I couldn’t forget a face like that. It looked like something carved out of Ivory soap.”
“We’ll find out,” Scotty prophesied. “Let’s get there, huh?”
“Okay,” Rick said. “You fly. A few more hours in your logbook and you’ll be able to get a license.”
“Dismal has a license.” Scotty grinned. “And he didn’t have to learn to fly to get it, either.”
“He’d better stop taking somuch license with skunks,” Rick retorted. “I don’t know which is worse, skunk fumes or your gags!”
“Those jokes were good enough for my father and grandfather,” Scotty replied with dignity. “They’re good enough for me.”
“Moss and all,” Rick said. “Get in, fly-boy. I’ll spin the prop for you.”
In a short while the rough oval ofSpindriftIsland fell away below them and they headed north along theNew Jersey coast.
“Head wind this morning,” Rick said. “It’ll take us awhile to get there.”
True to his prediction, it was almost two hours before Crayville came up on the horizon. The town sparkled in the morning sunlight as they banked over it, heading for the packed strip of beach. It looked very pretty from the air.
Rick took a closer look at the sea mine plant. It was a rectangle, the long sides formed by the water front and the road. Within the rectangle, which was outlined, except on the water, by a high board fence, the various buildings were roughly arranged like the ten-spot in a pack of cards, laid on its side.