g."

"The whole dollar," Scotty added.

The boys' rooms were on the second floor in the north wing of the big
house. But where Scotty's was usually neat as a barracks squad room,
the result of his service in the Marines, Rick's was usually a clutter
of apparatus. Living on Spindrift Island with the example of his
father and the other scientists to follow, it was natural that he
should be interested in science. He was more fortunate than most boys
with such an interest, because he was permitted to use the laboratory
apparatus freely and his part-time work as a junior technician gave
him spending money with which to buy equipment. Another source of
revenue was his little two-seater plane. He was the island's fast
ferry service to the mainland.

His room was neater than usual at the moment because he had not
bothered to connect most of his apparatus after returning from the
South Pacific. The induction heater that he used for midnight snacks
was in a closet. His automatic window opener was not in use, nor was
his amateur radio transmitter.

He opened a workbench built into one wall and brought out a
motion-picture camera. It was a popular make with a type of lens mount
that permitted fast switching of lenses. It used one-hundred-foot
rolls of 16-millimeter film. He put the camera on the table, then from
a cupboard he brought out what appeared to be a searchlight mounted on
top of a small telescope.

"That's a sniperscope!" Scotty exclaimed.

Rick nodded.

"No reason why it shouldn't work very well, Rick," Hartson Brant said.

Jerry Webster sighed. "Excuse my ignorance. What's a sniperscope?"

"They were used during the last war," Scotty explained. He picked up
the unit and pointed to the light, which was about the size and shape
of a bicycle head lamp. "This searchlight throws a beam of black
light. Rick would call it infrared. Anyway, it's invisible. The
telescope is actually a special telescopic rifle sight which will pick
up infrared. You can use the thing in total darkness. Mount it on a
rifle and then go looking for the enemy. Since he can't see the
infrared, he thinks he's safe. But you can see him through the 'scope
just as though he had a beam of white light on him."

"I see," Jerry said. "Where are the batteries?"

Rick brought out a canvas-covered case that looked like a knapsack. It
had a crank on one side and a pair of electrical connections. "It's
not a battery," he explained. "It's a small, spri