rly. He saw the faces of the crew, saw the cases stacked from
stem to stem and even read their labels. Hummer sewing machines. He
didn't believe for a moment that there were really sewing machines in
them, but he couldn't guess their actual content.

He stopped shooting and rewound the camera while Scotty cranked the
dynamo spring, then he took another brief sequence, stopped, and
waited. No more now until they actually reached the dock and started
to transfer the stuff.

Red Kelso and Brad Marbek came out of the hotel and he started
shooting again, then he switched to a telephoto lens and took a
close-up of their faces as they watched the boat draw near.

Carrots appeared around the front of the hotel and Rick got him, too,
before he vanished again, patrolling the grounds.

The boat touched the dock. A crewman leaped to the place where Kelso
and Marbek stood. There was conversation with much gesturing and
pointing into the boat. Then the crewman jumped down again and
motioned to one of his fellows. Rick started shooting. Clearly, as
though it were day, he saw the two bend over something in the bow.
They heaved upright and a chill shot through him. A man, bound and
gagged! Then they turned the man over to hand him up to the dock and
Rick's teeth clamped on his lip so hard that he groaned.

It was Jerry Webster!

CHAPTER XIX

The Fight at Creek House

Rick and Scotty watched helplessly as Jerry was carried into the
hotel, then they looked at each other wordlessly. In a moment the
seamen who had carried him returned, but Brad and Red didn't.

The one who had first reported to Brad, probably the mate or bosun,
stood on the dock and called to the men in the boat. The boys could
hear him clearly. "Let's get busy. We've got to load this stuff fast."

One of the men in the boat asked, "What they going to do with the
kid?"

"Find out what he knows, then knock him on the head and shove him
under the fish until we're out where we can dump him."

Rick and Scotty grabbed for each other at the same time. They knew
without speaking what they had to do. Rick snatched up the camera,
hauling it out of the muck recklessly. He pulled the power plug and
Scotty reeled it in. They plowed through the swamp as fast as they
could without making too much of a disturbance. Scotty led the way,
cutting straight through the marsh to the boat, his highly developed
direction sense showing him the way.

It seemed forever to Ric