"You hadn't better," Scotty retorted. "These are new shoes I have on." He paused. "What do you think about that warning?"
They had discussed it thoroughly on the way home from Seaford, examining all possibilities. "I haven't changed my mind," Rick said. "I think it was Carrots Kelso."
He reasoned that Red Kelso, the boy's father, had too much sense to try warning them away. The only purpose the warning would serve would be to arouse their curiosity even more—which it had certainly done.
"That Carrots is a queer one," Scotty said. He had to raise his voice slightly because of the engine's drone. "Did you notice the rifle he carried?"
"And how! It looked like a .30-30."
"It wasn't."
Rick looked at Scotty in surprise. "No?"
"Nope. It looked like one because of the lever. Sport carbines have those to lever cartridges into the chamber. But this one had a lever for pumping air. I've only seen one like it before, and a professional hunter in Australia had that one. He used it for collecting specimens when he didn't want to make noise. Sometimes he found several wallabies or Tasmanian wolves together and he could get two or three before they knew what was up."
"You mean an air gun has enough power to use for hunting?" Rick knew modern air guns had high penetrating power, but he had never heard of one powerful enough to use on animals as big as wolves.
"This model has," Scotty told him. "It was made by the Breda Gun Company in Czechoslovakia before the war. The slug is about .25 caliber, but heavier than the kind we have in America."