, too, because they ran out right after
they tied us up and put that thing on my head. The women guarded us,
and one of them had just started the machine running when the plane
came right at us. We saw it, through the open door, and we thought you
were going to crash!"

Rick grinned at Scotty. "That was our fast-acting pal. If he hadn't
done that, I'd never have had a chance to get aboard."

"Good thing you figured out what I was doing," Scotty admitted. "When
I saw you moving fast toward the boat, I knew it was okay, and that I
didn't have to crash."

Rick stared. "Do you mean you'd have actually crashed?"

"Not head on, because that would have hurt the girls. I was planning
to swing at the last minute and try to knock the men off with the
wing."

Rick could only mutter, "My sainted aunt!"

Scotty turned on the girls. "And here's the pair that made it
necessary. What in the name of a painted parsnip were you two trying
to do?"

Barby lifted her chin defiantly. "We had a good plan. Can we help it
if it didn't work?"

"Can't answer that until we know the plan," Scotty said reasonably.
"Suppose you tell us."

"Well, we needed evidence that the houseboaters were in the plot
against our fathers, didn't we? I knew we could get it, if we could
plant a radio. So we made a plan."

"Lot of good a turned-off radio would have done," Rick muttered.

Barby glared. "We decided that we'd go swimming with the lungs. Then
we'd come up right next to the houseboat, and we'd be so surprised! Of
course the people would come out to see us, then we'd say I had a
cramp, and could we please come up and rest."

Rick listened, and he had to admit it wasn't a bad plan at all--so
far.

"Of course they would let us rest. Then I'd wait for a chance to put
the radio behind a cushion, or in the crack of an armchair, or
somewhere like that. I didn't know exactly what I could do, but I knew
if we could get aboard there would be some way of leaving the radio
behind."

The pram had vanished around the turn of the cove. The speedboat would
come into sight any moment now.

"All right," Rick admitted. "Let's say it was a good plan. What
happened?"

Jan took up the tale. "We didn't want to try to swim all the way from
Spindrift, so we took the rowboat and did exactly what Cap'n Mike did
yesterday. We rowed along the shore with the aqualungs and got into
the water right where we could see the houseboat. We had to.
Otherwise, we would hav