Eddie didn’t say anything. He walked along, busy with his own thoughts. Probably Teena was right. Why make a mystery of it? Even if the man were Simms, what difference would it make?
Yet, why had Simms acted so strange and unfriendly that day. And for no reason Eddie could think of. There was also the memory of the strange metal tube which had been in the rowboat when the two men went fishing, and wasn’t there when they returned.
There was no point in even mentioning it to Teena, but Eddie had a strangely uncomfortable feeling on seeing the man right there on the campus from which the secret radioisotope had been stolen recently.
No, it really couldn’t mean a thing, Eddie told himself.
Then, again, maybe it could.
Eddie had hoped that the following day he and Teena could make the trip to Cedar Point with the Geiger counter. It had been in the back of his mind ever since his dream of locating radioactive ore on the rocky point. But by the time he finished mowing his lawn and doing the few other chores lined up for him, it was too late to attempt the long trip.
Besides, the only sensible way to get to Cedar Point was by boat across Moon Bay. It was a two-mile row each way. Yet, protected by sand bars, the bay usually remained quite calm. By taking it easy, it was no great job rowing out to the point.
Still, you had to have a rowboat. To rent one cost money. With so many things going on during summer vacation, Eddie simply hadn’t been able to save out of his allowance.
He knew of a way to get a boat, though. He had done it a couple of times before. There were more than two dozen rowboats at Anderson’s Landing. Seldom were they all rented at once.
On this particular Saturday, a gray blanket of high fog hung in the sky. Eddie had an idea that quite a few of the boats would still be tied up at Anderson’s Landing. Right after lunch he hurried over to Teena’s house.
“How would you like to go down to Anderson’s Landing,” he suggested, “and see if we can’t earn a day’s rental on one of the boats? Then maybe next week we can take that trip out to Cedar Point with the Geiger counter.”
“You want to earn the use of a rowboat again?” Teena asked.
“Yep. It’s not so hard,” Eddie said. “Want to come?”
“I’ll ask mother.”
Soon Eddie and Teena arrived at the beach. Mr. Anderson was midway out on the wharf which jutted a hundred or so feet out into the smooth water of the bay. They trotted out across the rough planking to see him. The boatowner was a small, wiry man with deep wrinkles around his eyes from years of squinting against the reflection of sun on water.
“Hi, there,” he greeted. “Where are your fishing poles?”
“We didn’t come to fish today, Mr. Anderson,” Eddie said. “Do you have any odd jobs we can do?”
“Need a boat?” the owner guessed.
“Yes, sir,” Eddie said. “We’d like to row out to Cedar Point one of these days.”
“Quite a row.”
“Oh, Eddie’s a good rower,” Teena said. “Sometimes I even help with one of the oars.”
“Well, now,” Mr. Anderson said, rubbing his bristly chin, “you’d need a boat almost a full day to row out to Cedar Point and back. At fifty cents an hour, that’s quite a bit of money.”
“We don’t have any money, Mr. Anderson,” Eddie explained. “That’s why we hoped we could work it out. Remember, I’ve done it before.”
“I remember,” Mr. Anderson said. “And I remember that you’re a pretty good worker, too.” He glanced along the wharf at the rowboats tied up to a row of cleats. “Tell you what. You clean out what boats are in, and you’ve earned yourselves a day’s rental on one.”
Eddie counted the boats quickly. There were fourteen of them not in use. Depending upon how messy various fishermen had been, he and Teena should be able to clean them up in about three hours.
“How about it, Teena?” he asked.
“All right by me,” she said.
“It’s a deal, Mr. Anderson,” Eddie said. “And thanks a lot.”
“Just when do you figure you will want the boat?” the owner asked.
“Maybe next Saturday.”
“All right. You do the job, and I’ll save you one. Make it a good job, mind you.”
They started with the boat near the far end of the wharf, and worked shoreward. They wiped off the seats with a damp rag and coiled the anchor ropes neatly near the bow. The biggest job, though, was cleaning up the junk which had gathered in the bottom of each boat during the week. There were candy wrappers, smelly chunks of old bait, snarled bits of leader, occasional fishhooks, even dried-out sandwich crusts and other odds and ends which had collected in each boat.
While they were working, two more boats returned. Eddie checked their numbers when they came in. Then, after he and Teena had finished cleaning up the fourteen, they went back and did the two new arrivals.
“Well, I’d say you’ve earned a boat for next Saturday,” Mr. Anderson said, glancing approvingly at their work. “And thanks for cleaning up those extra two that came in. They weren’t actually in the bargain, you know.”
“We were glad to do them,” Eddie said, feeling a bit proud that they had done more than the bargain called for. “I guess we’d better be going now.”
“There comes another boat,” Teena said, pointing to one of the orange-and-white Anderson’s Landing rowboats about a hundred yards out from the wharf.
“Well, now,” Mr. Anderson said, smiling, “don’t you be staying around to clean that one up. I’ll take care of it.”
“Teena, look,” Eddie said. “It—it’s those same two men we met at the cove last week. You know, the tall one called Simms and the chubby one called Roy.”
“Roy Benton,” Mr. Anderson said, consulting his rental slips. “He signed for the boat this morning. Second Saturday they’ve rented one. Hope they’re steady customers. I can always use the business. Don’t know how long they’ll stick with it, though. They didn’t catch a thing last week.”
“Bet they didn’t catch any this week, either,” Eddie said. “Not if they fished over the sand bar again.”
“I tried to tell them about good fishin’ spots,” Mr. Anderson said, “but they didn’t seem to be listening. Didn’t even ask me what kind of bait was best around here. Well, there are all kinds of fishermen. One thing I’ve learned in this business is not to go around giving advice when no one asks for it. Fishermen can be mighty touchy about that. Best to let them use up their own pet ideas, even if they don’t catch fish.”
“I can’t figure why they would want to take trout rods out with them to do ocean fishing,” Eddie said.
“Trout rods?” Mr. Anderson asked. “They rented poles from me. I didn’t see any trout rods.”
“Well, remember that metal tube they had last week? About two feet long? If that wasn’t a carrying case for a jointed trout rod, what else could it be?”
“I don’t recollect them having anything like that,” Mr. Anderson said thoughtfully. “And I sure would have noticed it. I helped them get loaded in the boat. All they had was a small box which I figured was their lunch. Same thing this morning. No metal tubes with knock-down trout rods or anything like that.”
“Let’s go, Eddie,” Teena prompted. “I’d just as soon not have to meet them again. They were pretty cranky.”
But the tall man at the oars already was maneuvering the boat clumsily up to the wharf. Mr. Anderson leaned down, took the painter from the fat man’s hand, and snubbed it to the dock cleat.
The tall man, Simms, shipped oars and turned around to hand them up to Mr. Anderson. He spotted Eddie and Teena.
“Well, so it’s you two again,” he said with no show of friendliness. “You keep turning up, and we’ll think you’re spying on us.”
“We’ve been helping Mr. Anderson,” Teena defended.
“No fish again today?” Eddie said, looking into the empty boat.
“Snagged a couple whoppers,” the portly man said, “but they got away.”
“Did you hook them over the sand bar?” Eddie asked.
“Why not?” Simms said sharply.
Eddie glanced at Mr. Anderson. You just couldn’t hook big ones over the sand bar. The boat owner shrugged at Eddie’s inquiring look, but he said nothing.
“We’ll get them next week, though,” the man, Roy Benton, said. “You save us a boat for next Saturday, huh?”
Mr. Anderson made a note of it.
Before Eddie nodded to Teena that they should be leaving, he noticed that there was no metal tube lying in the bottom of the boat. Had he been seeing things last Saturday? After all, even Mr. Anderson claimed the men hadn’t brought anything along except a lunch of some kind.
Eddie was quite sure it hadn’t been imagination, but he didn’t know why the vision of the round metal cylinder kept coming into his mind. And anything he couldn’t explain bothered Eddie a lot.
At the foot of the wharf Teena said, “It’s early yet, Eddie. Let’s take a hike up the beach, shall we? Maybe we could even go as far as the lighthouse and say hello to Cap.”
“Suits me,” Eddie agreed. He never got tired of walking along the beach. There was always something new to see and do. The fresh ocean breeze on his face and the soft sand underfoot made him feel good. Nor did he ever tire of picking pebbles off the beach and skipping them across the smooth water of the bay.
A little while later they were almost to the cove when a piece of green material caught Eddie’s gaze. It was being gently buffeted up and down on the sand by the small lapping waves. He trotted over and picked it out of the water.
“What’d you find, Eddie?” Teena called from nearby.
“Just a piece of rubber,” Eddie said, holding up the four-inch length of green material. “Looks like part of a strap off someone’s swim fins.”
“Boy, you’re some beachcomber,” Teena teased. “An old strap off someone’s swim fin is some treasure.”
Eddie drew back his arm and was about to throw the scrap back into the water, when some printing which was molded into the rubber caught his eye.
“Hey,” he said, looking at it closely. “It’s got some kind of foreign words on it.”
“So what?” Teena said. “I guess they make swim fins all over the world. Probably some tourist from another country brought them. There are quite a few tourists around here during the summer, you know.”
“Yeah, that’s right,” Eddie admitted, but he stuffed the scrap of rubber into his pocket and walked on.
In a little while they arrived at the cove where they had come across the two men a week earlier. Owing to the rocks and the rather poor beach, the cove was seldom visited by bathers. There was really little reason for fishermen to put into the cove, either. That was why it had puzzled him to find the two men at the cove the previous Saturday. However, they might simply have been exploring the cove.
Eddie and Teena continued across the rough beach. There was no one in sight at the cove. As they walked, they picked up bright shells which sprinkled the sand before them.
“Look at these tracks, Eddie,” Teena said, as she pointed down at deep grooves in the sand. They were long and wide—the kind a boat dragged up onto the beach would leave.
“They look fresh,” Eddie said. “Couldn’t have been here more than three or four hours, or the tide would have wiped out the marks. Wonder if it was the same two fellows?”
“Funny that they would rent a boat to go fishing,” Teena said, “and then come in here to the cove first. There aren’t any sand crabs to dig for bait.”
Eddie was thinking the same thing. Then he saw footprints which led from the place where the boat had been beached to the base of the bluff rising above the cove. “Now why would they go to the foot of the bluff?” Eddie said, puzzled. “There’s nothing to see over there.”
Curiosity gripped him. He started following the twin sets of footprints.
“Eddie,” Teena said, “we’d better go on if we’re going to visit Captain Daniels.”
“This won’t take long,” Eddie called back over his shoulder. Teena followed as he went on toward the foot of the bluff.
“Hey, look,” Eddie said. “There’s a kind of path that zigzags up the bluff. I’ve never noticed that before.”
“It’s not much of a path,” Teena said, looking up the steeply winding trail. “And I don’t know why anyone would want to use it to get to this cove. It’s much easier coming up the beach.”
“But someone’s been using it,” Eddie said. “See how the ground’s stirred up. I can’t figure why anyone would want to land a boat in this cove, then climb up and down that bluff before going fishing. Can you?”
“Guess not,” Teena admitted.
“Might be worth finding out,” Eddie said. “Come on.”
“Where?”
“Up the path. I’ve never been up top. Might be something really worth seeing.”
“I doubt it,” Teena said. “There used to be some fishermen’s shacks up top. But I don’t think anyone lives there any more.”
“Just for kicks, let’s see,” Eddie insisted, starting up the winding path.
The dirt of the bluff was sandy and soft, making hard climbing as it shifted and slid underfoot. It took them several minutes to climb the slanting palisade which was only some seventy feet high.
“Phew,” Teena said, after they had scrambled up the last few feet. “You sure get some wild ideas, Eddie.”
Eddie didn’t answer. He stood looking around. It was easy to see why so few people were acquainted with that part of the coastline. Although there were no trees of any size, the rolling land which extended back from the bluff’s edge was covered with a dense tangle of brush. Only a foolish person would try clawing his way through it to get to the cove. The beach route was the easy way, as Teena had said.
Yet there was a faint path winding inland from the top of the bluff. It disappeared quickly into the brush. Fresh footprints indicated that it had been used recently.
“Now, why do you suppose anyone would go that way?” Eddie wondered aloud.
“I wouldn’t want to try it,” Teena said. “That brush would scratch my arms and legs.”
“Maybe it leads to that shack over there,” Eddie said, pointing.
He could see only the upper half of the small building. Probably it had once been a fisherman’s house. The other fishermen’s buildings must have rotted away and fallen into the weeds. The dampness of the seashore could rot timbers out if they weren’t kept up properly. Even the structure that still stood about two hundred yards away was badly weather-beaten and without paint. The shingles of the roof were crooked and partly blown away, leaving gaping holes.
“Come on, Eddie, let’s go back.”“Come on, Eddie, let’s go back.”
“Come on, Eddie, let’s go back.”
“Well, I don’t know why anyone would want to go to that place,” Teena said. “Surely, no one lives there. It—it almost looks haunted. Come on, Eddie, let’s go back. It’s getting too late to visit Captain Daniels, anyway.”
“I’d like to get a good look at that shack,” Eddie said.
“But why?” Teena insisted. “I can see enough of it from here.”
Eddie didn’t have a ready answer for wanting to look more closely at the shack. He couldn’t even explain it in his own mind, let alone give a good reason to Teena. Still, a lot of things seemed to be in need of some explanation. Why did the two men named Simms and Benton come to the cove? Why did their footprints lead up the bluff and disappear into the brush? Did they lead to the old shack? If so, why? And what about that disappearing metal cylinder which Eddie had seen in their boat last Saturday?
Maybe none of it meant a thing. Even if it did, he certainly had no idea what it was. Eddie shrugged. Sometimes his curiosity got the best of him. Anyway, why bother Teena with it?
“All right,” he said, “let’s go back.”
The following few days were sultry and hot. Eddie stayed pretty close around home. He saw little of his father. Between regular teaching duties and the search still going on for the stolen radioisotope, Mr. Taylor was very busy. Each day he looked even more tired. Eddie could only imagine how much the loss of the secret radioactive substance bothered him.
Then, Friday, something happened which set all Oceanview astir. The cause was a story on the front page of theGlobe. There wasn’t positive proof, but one of the Coast Guard planes on regular patrol the previous Saturday night had picked up a strange blip on its radar screen. By the time the plane had circled back to drop a flare and investigate, the image on the radarscope had disappeared. Upon dropping the flare, they had found nothing but the smooth water of the ocean just outside the entrance to Moon Bay.
The immediate belief was that the object had been a submarine. Further, if it was a submarine, it certainly had been a foreign craft. The locations of all American submarines were well charted and known by the Coast Guard.
Finally, after a week of secret investigation had revealed no proof of the object’s actual identity, the story was released to the newspapers.
“Dad,” Eddie said that morning after breakfast, as his father prepared to leave for school, “what would a foreign submarine be doing around here?”
“That’s a tough question to answer, Eddie,” Mr. Taylor said. “And remember, what showed up on the airplane’s radar wasn’t positively identified as a submarine. It might have been a whale. Or several whales, for that matter.”
“The newspaper doesn’t think so,” Eddie said. “Besides, no one’s ever seen whales that close in.”
“There’s always a first time.”
“But what if it was a submarine?” Eddie insisted.
“It’s possible that it got off its course and surfaced to try and get a bearing,” his father said. “If that’s the case, they probably were considerably startled to find themselves so close to shore, and dived immediately to avoid discovery. It could happen. Submarines have been known to scout off this coast. But usually they are far out to sea in international waters.”
“Maybe they were picking up spies,” Eddie blurted. “Or—or landing some.”
His father looked at him sharply. “What kind of harum-scarum talk is that, Eddie?” he demanded.
Eddie swallowed uncomfortably. He wished he hadn’t said it. But he had been doing so much thinking about the stolen radioisotope and the missing blueprints from the Acme Aviation Company that the words had leaped from his mouth without his realizing it.
Before Eddie could think of an answer, his father’s face relaxed. “Forget it, son,” he said. “You always have had a pretty active imagination. There’s nothing wrong with that. Just don’t let it get away from you. Well, I’d better be leaving.”
“Dad,” Eddie said, “do you have a teacher at school named Simms?”
“Simms?” his father replied. “I don’t recall any Simms. What department?”
“I don’t know,” Eddie said. “Teena and I saw him out fishing a couple of times with a fat man called Roy Benton. Then I thought I saw Mr. Simms last week on the college campus.”
“Well, we have nearly two thousand enrolled for summer courses, you know,” his father explained. “Many of them are adults. Teachers taking extra credit courses, or studying for their masters’ degrees. I imagine a lot of them go fishing on their days off. Any reason I should know this Simms?”
“I guess not,” Eddie said. He was a little embarrassed at the questions he had asked. He didn’t really know why he had asked them. Yet he felt that the various puzzling things which had happened during the past weeks might tie in together. He couldn’t explain the feeling, but it gained strength all of the time.
It was the reason, too, why he decided late that afternoon to go and take a look at the shack he and Teena had seen located back from the top edge of the bluff the previous week.
He decided not to ask Teena to go. She had worried the other day about the brush scratching her arms and legs. It would be simpler to go by himself. He decided to take Sandy along for company.
He stopped at Anderson’s Landing long enough to check with the owner about a boat for him and Teena the next day.
“That’s our agreement,” Mr. Anderson said, smiling. “After all, you earned it. Don’t want you chasing any submarines with it, though.” The boatowner laughed. Apparently people weren’t taking the rumored submarine sighting very seriously. Eddie supposed that, as long as there was no proof, perhaps it was just as well. Besides, even a foreign submarine was not likely to cause any trouble. After all, there was no war going on.
Still, Eddie couldn’t shrug it off so lightly. The tangle of strange happenings during the past days upset him, and he didn’t feel much like joking; not when his father and Teena’s father were both in the thick of serious trouble.
Eddie took his time getting to the cove. Sandy chased back and forth into the surf after bits of driftwood which he kept dropping at Eddie’s feet, and which Eddie threw back into the water.
By the time he reached the cove, Eddie wished he hadn’t dawdled along so slowly. The sun had dropped fast, and was already squashing down against the horizon.
“Come on, Sandy,” he said, starting for the foot of the bluff. “We’ve got to hurry.”
He started up the narrow winding trail. Sandy scurried ahead and finally stood, panting heavily, on top of the bluff, waiting for Eddie.
The shack was still plainly visible in the waning light. Eddie started along the path. In most places it could hardly be called a path, except that there were dim tracks to follow. The heavy growth of brush and weeds tore at his clothes. He kept his arms tucked in close to his body to keep from getting scratched. Sandy had no difficulty whatsoever in racing back and forth through the thick scrubby growth. All of his running had tired the cocker spaniel enough that he wasn’t yipping and barking as he so often did.
Within a few minutes Eddie was to be very thankful for that.
As he had suspected, the faint trail ended at the door of the old abandoned fisherman’s shack. In the eerie light of dusk, Eddie remembered Teena saying that it looked almost haunted. It certainly did. Broken shutters dangled from boarded-up windows. Gaping holes in the roof yawned at the darkening sky. The warped and twisted wooden siding made the whole structure look as though it were about to cave in.
Eddie approached the shack cautiously. He figured his curiosity would be satisfied if he took just one look inside.
His hand was poised over the latch on the door when a slight scratching sound from inside froze it in mid-air. It sounded like someone scratching a match.
Even as he stood there with sudden fear prickling along his spine, a small flare of light seeped through one of the cracks between the warped boards of the door. Itwasa match! Eddie sucked in his breath and drew back. His first thought was to turn and run.
On second thought, however, he paused. Perhaps hoboes now and then used the abandoned shack for sleeping quarters. It couldn’t be very comfortable, but it would be better than sleeping outside in the damp ocean air. Although Eddie had no desire to meet any hobo, it was hardly reason to run away in a panic.
Without making any sound, and glad that Sandy was off exploring in the brush, Eddie sought one of the larger cracks in the door. Leaning toward it, he put one eye to the crack.
It was then that Eddie’s fear took a firm grip on him. A small candle burned on an empty fruit crate standing in the middle of the shack’s single room. In one corner was an old double bunk, empty now of mattresses or bedding. A couple of rickety chairs and a bench completed what furniture was inside the shack.
Eddie’s eye was attracted by the glint of candlelight upon metal. Squinting through the crack, he was able to make out the form of the reflecting object. It was one of those metal tubes—like the one he had noticed in the bottom of the strangers’ rowboat that day at the cove. On the floor was a square battery camp lantern such as hunters often use.
There was one person in the room. He sat on the small bench. His back was partly turned toward Eddie. He appeared to be studying some kind of a paper, although Eddie could see only a small corner of it.
There was no mistaking the man, although his face was turned away. It was the chubby fellow named Roy Benton.
There was nothing more to see. Eddie backed carefully away from the door. A few yards away, he turned and scrambled back along the darkening path toward the cove, as Sandy came crashing through the brush to meet him.
A lot of trouble might have been saved if things had worked out as Eddie had planned. And, yet, if they had, the mystery of the missing blueprints and the stolen radioisotope might never have been cleared up.
Hurrying home through the darkness, Eddie went over in his mind the story he would tell his father. Perhaps it didn’t mean a thing. Perhaps his imagination simply was running wild, as his father had hinted. He had to admit to himself that he was prone to build rather normal incidents into deep mysteries. He had always been that way.
Even allowing for that, however, Eddie still believed there was a strong possibility that the events of the past weeks might tie in with the stolen radioisotope; perhaps even with the missing blueprints from Acme Aviation.
Right in the middle of those events the figures of the two men—Simms and Roy Benton—kept looming up in his mind. Anyway, he thought he should tell his father about it and let him decide whether there could be any possible connection.
It was not, however, to be that way. Upon arriving home well after dark, Eddie found his mother both irked and worried over his late return.
“You didn’t even ask me if you could go,” she scolded. “And you know better than to be getting home at this late hour.”
“I—I’m sorry, Mom,” Eddie said meekly. “I didn’t know I would be gone so long.”
Mrs. Taylor turned from the stove where she was warming his dinner. “After you eat,” she said firmly, “I want you to go right to bed. No television.”
It was a mild enough punishment, Eddie thought, and didn’t argue. His father would not have been so lenient. He looked around. “Where’s Dad?” he asked.
“Your father phoned a while ago,” his mother explained. “He’ll be home late. Feed Sandy now; then wash up for dinner.”
Eddie opened a can of dog food, went outside, and spooned half of it into Sandy’s dish. Capping the can with a plastic cover, he put it in the refrigerator, then went to wash.
After dinner he kissed his mother good night and went straight to his room. He lay in bed, going over in his mind the recent events. He listened for his father’s arrival. He had hoped somehow to evade his early-bedtime punishment long enough to tell his story to his father. But he hadn’t counted on his tiredness. He fell fast asleep long before his father came home.
The sound of the car backing out of the driveway awakened Eddie the following morning. He washed and dressed quickly. Perhaps his mother had gone to do a bit of early shopping. It was Saturday. Probably his father would be home for the day. Now might be Eddie’s best chance to tell him what had been running through his mind.
Hurrying into the kitchen, he found his mother at the dinette table having a cup of coffee.
“Hi, Mom. Where’s Dad?” Eddie asked.
“He just drove out, Eddie,” his mother said. “He had to get over to school early.”
“But it’s Saturday.”
“Saturdays haven’t been very restful for your father lately, have they?” his mother said. “He has an appointment with some people from Washington D.C. this morning.”
“About the stolen radioisotope?” Eddie wondered aloud.
“Might be,” his mother said. “He didn’t say, and I didn’t ask.”
“Didn’t ask?”
“Eddie,” his mother said firmly, “the theft of that isotope is pretty serious business. Your father is handling it the best he can. He’ll tell us what he wants us to know. It is not our part to be asking questions. You try to remember that, dear.”
Eddie didn’t say anything. He knew his mother was right. He was greatly disappointed, though, that he hadn’t had the chance to talk to his father.
Eddie was finishing breakfast when Teena telephoned.
“We’re going to Cedar Point today, aren’t we?” she asked.
“I—I guess so,” Eddie said.
“You guess so? But Mr. Anderson is holding a boat for us. This is Saturday, you know.”
“I know.”
“Well, we should get started,” Teena insisted. “It’s some row out to Cedar Point.”
“Hold on a minute,” Eddie said. “I’ve got to ask Mom.” He turned and explained their plans to his mother.
“It’s all right, Eddie,” Mrs. Taylor said. “But no getting home late like yesterday, understand?”
“Don’t worry, Mom,” Eddie promised. “We’ll start early, and get back early.” Then he spoke to Teena.
“I’ll be right over,” Teena replied, “soon as I make us a little picnic lunch.”
Eddie got the Geiger counter out of the closet. He told his mother how he had been wanting to try it out on Cedar Point. He told her about the dream he had had.
“Well, I guess you never can tell,” Mrs. Taylor said. “According to your father, uranium ore often shows up in most unlikely places.”
“Cedar Point isn’t so unlikely, Mom,” Eddie said. “There are lots of rock formations out there. Uranium ore is usually located where there are plenty of rocks.”
When Teena arrived Eddie was all set to leave. He wore swimming trunks under his blue jeans. Teena said she also had her bathing suit on in case they had to swim home.
“Well, you children be careful,” Eddie’s mother cautioned. “The bay’s usually nice and smooth, but it can get pretty choppy. If it does, you head straight for shore, understand?”
“We will, Mrs. Taylor,” Teena promised.
Eddie’s mother smiled. “Be back no later than four o’clock,” she said to Eddie.
“Right.”
“But you don’t have a watch, Eddie,” Teena said.
“I can tell by the sun,” he said proudly, then added, “pretty close, anyway.”
Eddie carried the Geiger counter and Teena the picnic lunch as they started toward Anderson’s Landing.
Although it was a nice sunny day for fishing, there were still several rowboats tied up at the landing. Mr. Anderson was in his little office at the foot of the dock.
“I’ve been expecting you,” he said. “Saved you a nice light pair of oars, too.”
“Swell,” Eddie said. “Thanks, Mr. Anderson.”
“Take boat Number Eighteen,” the owner said. “She rides high and is leakproof. What’s that gadget you’ve got there?”
“It’s a Geiger counter, Mr. Anderson,” Eddie said. “We hope we’ll find some signs of uranium out on Cedar Point.”
“That the stuff you make atom bombs of?” Mr. Anderson said, with a note of disapproval in his voice.
“You can make bombs of it,” Eddie admitted, “but nowadays scientists are more interested in running machinery and curing diseases with it.”
“That’s the kind of thing I like to hear,” Mr. Anderson said, smiling. “In that case, good luck.”
Soon, with Eddie at the oars, they started toward distant Cedar Point. Eddie set the course in a line which cut at an angle across the bay. As they were crossing the submerged sand bar, Teena pointed shoreward.
“Eddie, look,” she said.
Resting on the oars and following the direction of Teena’s finger, Eddie saw that they were directly offshore from the cove. He also saw the orange-and-white rowboat pulled up onto the beach.
Of even more importance, he saw two men making their way carefully down the narrow trail which zigzagged down the face of the bluff. Even from the distance, Eddie saw that one man was tall and thin, the other short and fat.
“It’s those two men!” he exclaimed.
“Of course. But don’t get so excited,” Teena said. “They’re probably just coming out fishing.”
“Coming from where?” Eddie asked. He knew there was only one place to come from—the shack. Then he remembered that Teena didn’t know about his visit to the shack yesterday.
“Well, anyway,” Teena said, “let’s get away from here before they come out to fish over this sand bar. They sure would think we were spying on them if they found us out here. I hope they don’t see us now.”
“To far away for them to tell who we are,” Eddie assured, sharing Teena’s dislike of meeting the two men again.
Eddie started to turn back to rowing, when the flash of sun on metal caught his eye. He knew at once that one of the men was carrying that metal cylinder which he had seen yesterday evening in the shack, and which he had puzzled over so long. He would like to have stayed and gotten another look at it; that is, if the two men were coming out to fish over the sand bar again. Yet Teena’s warning about getting away seemed the wiser move. Eddie bent to the oars.
Less than an hour later he guided the boat onto the narrow beach at Cedar Point.
“Phew!” he said, mopping the sweat from his forehead. “That’s a lot of rowing.”
“It was a swell ride, Eddie,” Teena said. “I’ll row back if you want.”
“You’re a girl,” Eddie said importantly, which seemed to close the subject about Teena doing the rowing. But Teena did help him drag the boat up onto the beach beyond the high-water mark.
“Now to find some uranium,” Eddie said, picking up the Geiger counter. Before starting inland to explore the point, however, he shaded his eyes and looked back across the bay. In the far distance he could barely make out Anderson’s Landing. Quite a few boats dotted the bay in between. Directly in line between Cedar Point and Anderson’s Landing was the light strip of water marking the submerged sand bar. There was only one boat over the sand bar.
“Those two fellows are fishing in that same place again today,” Eddie said. “They don’t seem to learn, do they?”
“Let’s not worry about them,” Teena said. “Let’s start prospecting. We promised to be home by four. It’s a long trip back.”
The wind-swept point offered difficult hiking. Fallen trees and tangles of underbrush slowed their progress. They had to keep on the lookout for poison ivy.
“If leaves there are three, leave it be,” Eddie said, remembering the familiar warning. They gave wide berth to the irritating vine whenever they saw it.
Eddie left the Geiger counter switched on much of the time. The way led over the rocks. There was no way of telling, except by the Geiger counter, if any of the rocks were radioactive. The results, however, were quite discouraging. Except for the faint background count, the Geiger counter gave no sign of there being any uranium-bearing ore on Cedar Point.
After a tiring hour and a half of hard climbing over and around the outcroppings, Teena suggested they stop and eat their picnic lunch.
“Might as well,” Eddie said. “Sure doesn’t look like we’re going to find anything out here. Lot of trouble for nothing, huh?”
“Oh, no, Eddie,” Teena disagreed. “We’re having fun aren’t we? After all, you’re supposed to have fun during vacation.”
“Be better, though, to have fun and find some uranium, too,” Eddie said.
Teena laughed. “You sure do want everything,” she remarked.
Eddie switched off the Geiger counter. They found some shade under a wind-twisted oak and ate their lunch. Eddie glanced at the sun. “It must be one o’clock,” he said. “Guess we’d better be starting back. The water will be a little choppier than this morning. Won’t be so easy to row. I don’t want to get home late, or my mom will scalp me.”
“Let’s go,” Teena said. “Anyway, we’ve done enough prospecting out here to know there’s no uranium around.”
On the way back to the boat Eddie tried out the Geiger counter in a couple of places they had missed. The results were the same—negative. He put the Geiger counter into the bottom of the boat, pushed the boat into the water, and jumped in after Teena.
A slight breeze angling in over the bow made rowing difficult. Less than halfway across the bay, Eddie’s arms and shoulders began to ache.
“Eddie,” Teena said from her seat in the stern, “why don’t I sit there beside you and row with one of the oars? We’ve done it before. Just give me a little time to get the swing of it.”
“O.K.,” Eddie said tiredly.