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Then we would swim into the cove and recover the object. With two of us, it would be a cinch to find the fish line." "If the thing is too heavy to swim with," Scotty went on, "we'll hand it into Orvil's boat. Of course we'll pull up the sapling and hand that to Orvil.
Scotty came alongside and they swam to the bottom. Both gripped the pole, put fins flat against the muddy bottom, and heaved. The pole came up without difficulty. While Scotty held it, Rick wrapped rope around it until the line was fully wound again. Orvil's motor was nearer now. Rick took one end of the pole while Scotty took the other.
Scotty held the runabout wide open, at its top speed of nearly twenty miles an hour. They sped across the Little Choptank River straight for Swamp Creek, with no effort at concealment. Rick saw a low, white boat some distance down the river and grabbed Scotty's arm. "Isn't that Orvil's boat?" Scotty looked for a long moment. "It looks like it. Let's go see."
"It's Orvil's," Rick said. "But where is he?" "Get aboard," Scotty suggested. "Okay." Rick stood up and timed his motion with the slight roll of both boats, then stepped into the crabber. Orvil's crab lines were coiled neatly in their barrels, the stone crab-line anchors and floats were stacked along the side of the boat.
They swung onto a new course, in pursuit of the white boat. It might not be Orvil's, but it was like it. Both boys could now recognize the design characteristic of boats built on the Chesapeake Bay. The boats were known as "bay builts," and distinguished by their straight bows almost vertical to the water line square sterns, and flaring sides.
He crossed another of Orvil's crab lines, and kept going until pressure change told him he was back in the deeper water at the creek entrance. He turned right again. A check of his compass told him he was on course. His groping hands trailed over a thin line. He grabbed it, and stopped his flutter kick. Then, moving with care, he turned and followed the line.
There were three covered bushel baskets of crabs, and extra baskets stacked in place. One open basket held a dozen jumbo crabs. Orvil's net was in its rack on the engine box, but there was no sign of Orvil himself. Wait there was a sign. Rick knelt by a small brown patch on the deck. He touched it, and a chill lanced through him. Blood, and only recently dried. Orvil's? Rick straightened.
They kept going until the scrub concealed them, listening for sounds from the creek. There was the beat of a motor. It sounded like Orvil's boat, and Rick thought it probably was. But would Orvil continue crabbing? Again the doubt came. Had the crabber tried to kill them? He couldn't believe it. The boys stopped and slipped off their fins. "Lead on," Rick said softly. "Okay.
If the gadget is light, we'll swim back to the runabout with it, push the runabout away from the cove into the river, and then get aboard and come home." Rick concluded, "With Orvil's motor going, no one would hear our bubbles." Steve had followed the plan carefully. "Fair enough," he agreed. "It's a good plan. No one will see you enter the cove, and no one will see you leave.
While he, Steve, and Scotty had examined the mansion through glasses from Orvil's boat, Merlin and company, or a single guard, had been watching them. They had drawn attention not only to Orvil, but to the time of day when the guards would need to be especially alert.
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