sh and stowing his fishing
equipment."

They walked around to the front of the house where there was a small
porch. A few wicker chairs were upended against the wall. The boys
righted them and sat down.

"This is the life," Rick observed. "Look at that view."

They looked from the porch down to the sandy beach, past the pier and
the Sky Wagon to water that was almost glassy calm. The water continued
in a smooth stretch for about five hundred yards out to the reef. Light
breakers foamed along the reef, and beyond, the water was a blue waste
to the horizon. A quarter mile south, a break in the reef marked a
passage where boats could enter.

Somewhere, out beyond the reef, was the wreck of the _Maiden Hand_. In
his mind, Rick planned how they would go about finding it. The first
step was to rig some kind of underwater towing boards. Then he and
Scotty, equipped with their aqualungs, would be towed behind the _Water
Witch_, scanning the bottom as they went.

He wasn't worried about finding material for the towing boards. Any kind
of planks would do, or they could even make a tow board out of a fallen
log, although that would be harder to control.

"Come on," he invited. "Let's walk through the palms. We need a few
planks, and we might as well get them now."

By the time the scientists approached the pier, the boys had explored
the central part of the island and had returned to the cottage lugging
planks found in the ruin of a cottage apparently blown down by some
long-past hurricane. They dropped the planks beside the house and
hurried to catch the line that Zircon threw, then they warped the _Water
Witch_ in to the dock.

All hands turned to, and in a short time supplies were unloaded and
stored, beds were made with linen and blankets loaned by Dr. Ernst, and
the cottage began to take on an inhabited look.

While Tony Briotti began preparations for dinner, the boys carried their
aqualung equipment to the shed at the rear of the cottage and began to
check it over. Since their lives would depend on proper functioning of
the equipment, they inspected the regulators carefully, checking the
condition of the neoprene flaps. Once checked, the regulators were hung
on nails on the shed walls, out of harm's way.

The next step was to inspect the tanks. Rick had already looked them
over, but for the sake of safety the boys did it again. There were six
of them, each of seventy-cubic-feet capacity. There was an advantage to