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 compass 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 Saturday," 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