ccording to compass reading, then he leveled off. "I
wonder what they thought about the plane overhead," he said.

"It probably scared them stiff," Scotty replied. "Chances are Brad
Marbek had a good idea who it was."

The one thing they had overlooked in their plan was Brad's possible
reaction to seeing the plane, Rick realized suddenly. Great grinning
goldfish! What if he really got scared? They might have defeated
their own purpose by making him jettison his contraband!

Then he reasoned that Brad wouldn't dump his cargo if he could help
it. Anything worth smuggling was too valuable to be dumped just
because two kids saw it transferred. But still . . .

"If I were Brad," he said, "I'd get up a full head of steam for Creek
House and unload that stuff. How about you?"

"Because you'd be afraid those two wild men in the airplane would
report it to the police? Maybe you're right, Rick. We'd better get
Captain Douglas and his men on the job right away!"

The street lights of Whiteside were in sight now. Rick took a bearing
from them and swung slightly northward to pick up the airport. Then he
saw the beacon. He had not bothered to climb after leaving the ships,
so he passed over Spindrift at an altitude of five hundred feet. He
knew his parents would hear the Cub and know he had returned this far
safely. His palms were moist with perspiration and he had to swallow
to clear his throat. Now that the moment of landing was here, his
nervousness was returning. He leaned forward, watching for the airport
marker lights and saw them directly ahead. The airport wasn't big or
important enough to rate runway lights or a lighted wind sock, but
those wouldn't have helped much anyway. He knew from watching the sea
that the wind was negligible. And anywhere he landed on the field
would be all right.

He throttled down and the nose automatically dropped to the correct
glide position. Then, as he saw the red marker lights rushing to meet
him, he threw on the landing lights. White swaths of light picked out
trees and the boundary fence. The Cub flashed across into the open,
dropping steadily. The ground seemed to come up appallingly fast, but
Rick kept his nerve. It was only an illusion, he knew. The Cub was at
the correct approach angle. But the illusion made it hard to tell when
to level off. He waited a second too long, and his wheels touched and
the Cub bounced. He threw power into the engine and the little plane
lifted into th