“It certainly looks as if your hunch about Higginbotham, when we met him in his office, was justified,” said Jack, clapping Frank on the shoulder.
“The boy’s a wonder,” agreed Bob. Then, more seriously, he added: 60
“But, I say. Higginbotham isn’t the man who flew the radio-controlled plane before. I mean the fellow whose tracks I found in the sand. That chap was peg-legged.”
“That’s right,” agreed Jack. “And where does Higginbotham figure in this matter, anyhow? It’s some mystery.”
“Well, let’s see what we do know so far,” suggested Frank. “It’s little enough that we have found out. But I like mysteries. First of all, Bob finds a secret radio plant, and––”
“No,” interrupted Jack. “First of all, I discover interference in the receivers at a 1,375-meter wave length.”
“Yes, that’s right,” said Frank. “Well, second is Bob’s find of the radio plant to which he is led by tracks in the sand made by a peg-legged man. Look here. Bob thought at the time that man had arrived in a boat. He saw marks on the sand indicating a boat had been pulled up on the shore. Might not that have been the indentation made by the radio plane?”
“Just what I was thinking to myself a minute ago,” said Bob.
“Anyhow,” continued Frank, “we then discovered the radio plane in Starfish Cove. From Uncle George we learned a mysterious stranger had recently bought 61 the Brownell place, the ‘haunted house,’ and had built a fence about the property and set armed guards to keep out intruders. The plot was thickening all the time.”
By now the boys had reached the shore and well above the tide mark they began to strip, dropping their clothes in heaps. Frank continued talking as he shed his garments: