much until he was back.

They had spent ten minutes making the long sweep over Whiteside. Rick
glanced at his watch, then banked around on the predetermined course.
He put the Cub in a slow climb.

"We'll arrive a little north of the grounds," he said. "Watch for ship
lights. We may see the supply ship before we see Brad Marbek."

"Maybe they've already met," Scotty remarked.

Rick shook his head. "They can't have met yet. Brad would have to go
pretty far out. Otherwise, the trawlers going to fish would be able to
see him and his supply ship on the horizon."

Scotty shivered. "It's getting cold."

They were climbing steadily. The altimeter read slightly less than
four thousand feet. At that height, the men on the ships below
wouldn't know what kind of plane was overhead. They flew in silence
for several minutes, then Rick warned, "We're getting there."

"I'm watching." Scotty had taken the binoculars from behind the seat
where they had been left. Suddenly he grabbed Rick's arm. "There. Dead
ahead."

Rick banked the plane a little so he could see from the side window.
Far ahead and below, red lights and white lights twinkled against the
sheen of the sea. Some distance separated the lights and he knew he
was seeing both vessels. They had not yet met. His pulse began to
pound a little. He pulled back slightly on the control wheel and let
the Cub climb.

"We'll continue straight on," he told Scotty. "Then we'll turn and
come back at a lower altitude."

"Okay." Scotty leaned out into the slip stream and put the binoculars
on the lights. When the ships were behind, he pulled his head in again
and rubbed his cold face. "That other ship is a freighter, but not
very big. I'd say less than four thousand tons. It's probably a
coaster."

Rick wondered, if it was a coastal vessel, why he hadn't found
anything in the New York paper at the _Morning Record_. It was
probable, he decided, that the ship was heading for some other port,
maybe Boston.

"Funny," Scotty said. "The other ship is heading south."

"South? No wonder we didn't find anything in the shipping news.
Listen, Scotty, what if that's just an American coaster? You know what
that would mean? That ship would have to rendezvous with some
ocean-going freighter, or maybe several of them." His voice hushed.
"What if we've run into something that's only a small part of a really
big smuggling ring?"

His ready imagination pictured the coastal vessel sailing regu