After "setting the hook" securely, Carol and Bill donned swim suits, dove overboard and swam lazily the 300 yards in to shore.
"Let's try to find that thing we saw. It shouldn't be too far from here," said Carol the moment they hit the beach.
They climbed inland on the rocky island. Little green lizards scooted underfoot and vines scratched at their ankles.
Bill was leading, when suddenly he called, "Carol, I see something up ahead! There's something lying on the ground!" He hurried toward what he had seen.
The dying sun reflected on a luminescent bolt of cloth, somewhat like a spun-aluminum fabric. Thin wire lines were entangling it, and about ten feet away lay three fragments of what appeared to have been a dull metal box.
Carol knelt at the closest piece, evidently a corner of the box. It was lined with wiring and tubes.
"It looks like electronic equipment," decided Carol, peering intently at the strange piece. Bill had approached the second and largest fragment.
He carefully turned it over. It was filled with black and yellow ... fur?
"Oh no!" he cried, knowing in a flash, yet denying it in his mind at the same time. Stunned, he stared at the perky ears, the dull staring and unseeing eyes, the leather thongs that held the head and body of a dog to the metal encasement. Carol saw it the next instant.
"It's some horrible joke!" she gasped. "It couldn't be the second Russian satellite, it couldn't be Muttnik! My God, no, it couldn't be!"