illumined alternate patches of woods and small settlements.

There were no major towns between Whiteside and Seaford, but there
were a number of summer beach colonies, most of them in an area about
halfway between the two towns. The highway was little used. Most
tourists and all through traffic preferred the main trunk highway
leading southward from Newark. They saw only two other cars during the
short drive.

Many months had passed since Rick's last visit to Seaford. He had gone
there on a Sunday afternoon to try his hand at surf casting off
Million Dollar Row, a stretch of beach noted for its huge, abandoned
hotels. It was a good place to cast for striped bass during the right
season.

"Smugglers' Reef," he said aloud. "Funny that a Seaford trawler
should go ashore there. It's the best-known reef on the coast."

"Maybe the skipper was a greenhorn," Scotty remarked.

"Not likely," Jerry said. "In Seaford the custom is to pass fishing
ships down from father to son. There hasn't been a new fishing family
there for the past half century."

"You seem to know a lot about the place," Rick remarked.

"I go down pretty often. Fish makes news in this part of the country."

Scotty pointed to a sign as they sped over a wooden bridge. "Salt
Creek."

Rick remembered. Salt Creek emptied into the sea on the north side of
Smugglers' Reef. It was called Salt Creek because the tide backed up
into it beyond the bridge they had just crossed. He had caught crabs
just above the bridge. But between the road and the sea there was over
a quarter mile of tidal swamp, filled with rushes and salt-marsh
grasses through which the creek ran. At the edge of the swamp where
Salt Creek met Smugglers' Reef stood the old Creek House, once a
leading hotel, now an abandoned relic.

A short distance farther on, a road turned off to the left. A
weathered sign pointed toward Seaford. In a few moments the first
houses came into view. They were small, and well kept for the most
part. Then the sedan rolled into the town itself, down the single
business street which led to the fish piers.

A crowd waited in front of the red-brick town hall. Jerry swung into
the curb. "Let's see what's going on."

Rick got his camera from the case, inserted a film pack, and stuffed a
few flash bulbs into his pocket. Then he hurried up the steps of City
Hall after Jerry and Scotty. Men, a number of them with the weathered
faces of professional fishermen, were talking