the morning.

When he and Scotty returned to the cottage, Tony greeted them with cups
of hot chocolate and they sat on the porch and enjoyed them.

"Let's sum up what we know," Zircon invited. "If anyone agrees that we
know anything worth summing."

"I think we do," Rick said, "and I think we ought to get it to Steve
Ames. We don't know what he's after, or what kind of gang he's fighting,
but we know one of them is here."

"Yes, and we also know that Steve's agency is primarily concerned with
protecting military secrets," Zircon added. "I agree with Rick. We must
get word of these mysterious frogmen to him."

"We discussed that earlier," Tony recalled. "In view of our discussion,
it would seem that either Rick or Scotty or both must fly to Charlotte
Amalie and tell him personally."

Scotty pointed at the sky. "Have any of you looked up there?"

All of them did. The moon was just rising, and there was enough light to
see heavy cirrus moving high overhead.

"There's a front of some kind moving down on us," Scotty said. "And did
you notice the swells tonight? Long ones. I'm no first-class weather
forecaster, but all the signs are there. We're in for a storm. The
question is, how soon will it arrive?"

"He's right," Zircon agreed. "I'm glad you're observant, Scotty.
Frankly, I hadn't even bothered looking at the weather. I suppose I
thought it would just continue to be perfect."

Rick stared at the gathering clouds for long moments, then put into
words the thing that had been bothering him.

"You know, there has been a cloud over this vacation almost from the
moment we landed at Charlotte Amalie. We didn't want to get involved in
anything but diving and exploring, but we got pulled by the ears into a
hot case. Steve warned us off that first day. The warning didn't help,
because we got dragged back into things when we went swimming, and again
at the hotel."

Three faces were turned toward him, listening. He was expressing what
all of them had been thinking, too.

"We thought we'd leave trouble behind when we came here," Rick
continued, "but it was waiting for us. We didn't look for it, until
tonight."

He drew a deep breath. "Well, from now on we have to become the hunters.
Steve Ames doesn't know there's anything strange going on here. We do,
and it's up to us to find out what. The goings-on in the octopus cave
have something to do with the case Steve is working on--and what Steve
is working on has somethi