Rick Brant - Smugglers' Reef Part 9

"You don't like it," Rick scoffed. "You like a peaceful, quiet life. A book and a hammock. That's for you. Why don't you go get one of your Oat Operas to read and leave the mystery to me?"

"Got to keep you out of trouble," Scotty said amiably. "It isn't because I'm interested."

They walked from the house into the orchard that separated the low, gray stone laboratory buildings from the house and headed toward the air strip. The strip was gra.s.s-covered and just big enough for a small plane like Rick's. It ran along the seaward side of the island, with the orchard on one side and the sea cliff on the other.

"Just thought," Scotty said suddenly. "We'd better have some binoculars if we're going out to take a look at the fleet."

"I'll warm up while you get them," Rick agreed. He started the engine and warmed the plane until Scotty arrived with a pair of ten-power binoculars.

Scotty untied the parking ropes and pulled out the wheel chocks, then got into his seat. "Let's go," he said.

Rick nodded and advanced the throttle. In a moment the Cub lifted easily from the gra.s.s.

Rick settled down to the business of flying. He looked at the sea below and estimated the wind force. Mentally he figured his probable drift, then decided on south-southeast as his compa.s.s heading, and swung the little plane on course.

"Checked the equipment recently?" Scotty asked.

He referred to the two-man life raft and signaling pistol Rick had purchased from Navy surplus for just such overwater flights as this.

"Went through it Sat.u.r.day," Rick said. "But don't worry. We won't get your feet wet."

"You hadn't better," Scotty retorted. "These are new shoes I have on."

He paused. "What do you think about that warning?"

They had discussed it thoroughly on the way home from Seaford, examining all possibilities. "I haven't changed my mind," Rick said.

"I think it was Carrots Kelso."

He reasoned that Red Kelso, the boy's father, had too much sense to try warning them away. The only purpose the warning would serve would be to arouse their curiosity even more--which it had certainly done.

"That Carrots is a queer one," Scotty said. He had to raise his voice slightly because of the engine's drone. "Did you notice the rifle he carried?"

"And how! It looked like a .30-30."

"It wasn't."

Rick looked at Scotty in surprise. "No?"

"Nope. It looked like one because of the lever. Sport carbines have those to lever cartridges into the chamber. But this one had a lever for pumping air. I've only seen one like it before, and a professional hunter in Australia had that one. He used it for collecting specimens when he didn't want to make noise. Sometimes he found several wallabies or Tasmanian wolves together and he could get two or three before they knew what was up."

"You mean an air gun has enough power to use for hunting?" Rick knew modern air guns had high penetrating power, but he had never heard of one powerful enough to use on animals as big as wolves.

"This model has," Scotty told him. "It was made by the Breda Gun Company in Czechoslovakia before the war. The slug is about .25 caliber, but heavier than the kind we have in America."

"Wonder where he got it," Rick mused.

"Hard to tell. They're expensive guns, believe me."

The Cub had been flying only a few hundred feet above the water.

Behind them, the New Jersey coast was still in sight. Rick climbed to a thousand feet and told Scotty to start looking for the fishing fleet.

"How many shots can you get out of that air rifle?" Rick asked.

"Just one. It's automatic loading, but it has to be pumped up each time. That's not as hard as it sounds, though, because the pump is made so that two strokes will give it a full air charge. It's about as fast firing as a single-shot .22 rifle."

Rick's eyes scanned the horizon. "How do you suppose Carrots tracked us to Cap'n Mike's shack?"

"Easy enough. He could hike along the sh.o.r.e and keep us in sight."

"He was risking being seen when he put that warning on the seat.

Suppose one of us had looked out the window?"

"Then he would have pretended to be just hiking, or looking at the boat or something. It wasn't really much of a risk."

"I suppose not," Rick agreed. Small specks on the horizon caught his eye suddenly and he pointed. "There's the fleet!"

Scotty held the binoculars to his eyes. "Sure enough. About eight trawlers so far, pretty well scattered."

In a few moments they could see clouds of gulls and petrels around the boats, a sure sign of plenty of fish. Then they made out the details of the big nets used by the fishermen for catching the menhaden.

"See if you can spot the _Albatross_," Rick said.

"You'll have to go down and pa.s.s each boat, then. I couldn't make out the names from this height."

"Okay. Here we go."

On each of the craft, fishermen waved as the Cub sped past. Scotty read the names aloud. None of the trawlers was the _Albatross_.

Rick put the Cub into a climb. "There must be other trawlers around.

Let's go up and take a look."

Scotty shook his head. "I have a better idea. We'll see the _Albatross_ tonight, anyway. Why not go into sh.o.r.e and fly over Creek House? Sometimes you can see things from the air you can't see from the ground."

Rick considered. Flying out to the fleet had been only an impulse anyway; he hadn't expected to see anything. He was quite sure the _Albatross_ would look and act just like the rest of the Seaford fleet.

"Good idea," he said finally, and banked the Cub around. He pointed the little plane south of west to compensate for the wind, then settled back.

Rick kept an eye out for landmarks as the coast approached and presently he made out the steel towers of an antenna field. That would be the Loran radio range south of Seaford. He had compensated a little too much for drift. He banked north and in a few moments Scotty spotted Seaford.

Rick dropped down, but kept out to sea so that he wouldn't violate the law about flying too low over towns. He saw the windmill and Cap'n Mike's shack behind it.

"Go past Smugglers' Reef and then turn and come back over Creek House," Scotty suggested.

Rick nodded. Dead ahead he could see the curving arm of the reef and the wreck of Tyler's trawler. He saw that the fishing craft had piled up just about midway between the navigation light on the reef's tip and the old tower where the light formerly had been. Men were working about the trawler. Then, as the Cub flashed overhead, he saw a large truck that had backed down the reef toward the wreck as far as it was safe to go.

Scotty had been watching through the gla.s.ses. As Rick swung wide out to sea and banked around to go south again, he said, "Know what they're doing down there? They're stripping the wreck."

"That makes sense," Rick said. "Probably the insurance company wants to salvage what it can. They'd have to act fast before sea water ruined the engines."