ich the boys used in common, but Frank restrained him.

"Make too much noise," said Frank. "Anyhow, we can take a plunge down
at the beach before going to the shed. Come on, get into some old
duds and let's hurry."

The boys were dressed in short order. In the pantry, to which they
tiptoed, they found cold tongue and ham, bread and butter, with which
they hurriedly made several sandwiches apiece. It was not much of a
breakfast, but their appetites were those of youth and they enjoyed
it. Letting themselves out of the back door of the sleeping house,
they started on a trot for the little private beach, a good half mile
away. The last few yards were made with the boys shedding garments as
they ran. Then with a shout they plunged naked into the rollers coming
in from the open Atlantic.

It was great sport. For twenty minutes they crashed through breakers,
wrestled, ducked each other, shrieked aloud secure in the knowledge
there was nobody within hearing distance, and in general had a
glorious time of it. At the end of that period they rubbed down
briskly with rough towels until their bodies were in a healthy glow,
then dressed and set out for the airplane shed.

This was located some distance back from the beach where a long, level
stretch of sandy soil, unbroken by tree or bush, made an ideal landing
field. The "shed," as the boys termed it, was, in reality, a
substantial structure of corrugated iron, well-anchored to resist the
severe Atlantic coastal storms. It stood to one side of the route
followed by the boys in going from the house to the beach, with the
rear to them, and was midway between the two points and concealed from
the house by a clump of trees.

When the matter of buying a plane was up for discussion more than a
year before, after the boys and Jack Hampton, their absent chum, as
well as Mr. Temple--himself an enthusiast about flying--all had become
licensed pilots by taking a course at the Mineola flying fields, the
question had been whether to buy a hydroplane.

That question finally had been solved by the purchase of a light,
all-metal plane capable of carrying two passengers besides the pilot
and able to alight on water and land. It was not a stock model but was
built after a special design. All three boys had flown it, as well as
Mr. Temple, and none had ever had an accident. Equipped with a
radiophone head set, to which had been added recently a detector
designed by Bob and Frank to increase th