sent."

* * * * *

At nine o'clock next morning Carnes and Dr. Bird sat in the office of
Lieutenant Commander Minden of the United States Coast Guard, listening
intently to the history of the alien smuggling case. Commander Minden
was saying:

"Their boats would load up and clear ostensibly for Rio de Janeiro or
some other South American port, but once they were in the Atlantic, they
would alter their course and head from the Massachusetts coast. Of
course, we had no right to interfere with them on the high seas, and
they never came closer than fifty miles of our coast line. When they got
that close, they would cruise slowly back and forth for a few days and
then steam away south to the port they had cleared for. When they got
there, of course there were no passengers on board.

"We patrolled the coast carefully while they were around but we never
got any indication of any landing of aliens and yet we knew they were
being landed in some way. We drew lines so close that a cork couldn't
get by without being seen and we even had the air patrolled, but with no
results. Eventually the air patrol was the thing that gave them away.

"They had been operating so successfully that they evidently got
careless and started a load off late in the night so they didn't reach
the coast by dawn. A Navy plane was flying along the coast-line about
twelve miles off when they spotted a submarine running parallel with the
coast, headed north. It didn't look like an American craft and they went
on and radioed Washington and found that we had no under-sea craft in
that neighborhood. They returned to their patrol and followed the sub
for a matter of thirty or forty miles up the coast, and then it turned
in right toward the shore. The shore line there is rocky, and, at the
point where the sub was heading, it falls sheer about two hundred
fathoms. The sub ran right at the cliff and disappeared from view."

* * * * *

Lieutenant Commander Minden paused impressively. Carnes and Dr. Bird set
forward in their chairs, for it was evident that the crux of the story
was at hand.

"When the plane reported what they had seen, we knew how those aliens
were being landed. The point where the sub went in gave us a good idea
of the location of their base and we threw a cordon of men around and
searched. A Navy sub was sent to the scene and they reported that there
was a tunnel opening into th