Rick was touched. Both girls believed in the ghost, Barby more than Jan, while he and Scotty were convinced that it was man-made in some way they didn't yet understand. It took courage for the girls to accompany them, even if they only planned to wait at the mine entrance.
"Okay," he agreed. "Let's go."
Dr. Miller offered, "Take the car. I don't like the looks of the weather and there's no point in your getting caught in the rain."
Rick accepted and in a moment the four young people were on their way. He saw that the sky was filled with haze, with only a glimpse now and then through the haze of flying scud. Something was on the way, all right.
"It's a tropical storm," Jan explained. "The morning weather report from Washington said it would strike northern Virginia this morning."
"And not long from now," Scotty commented.
By the time Rick had collected his first sample, a jarful of water from the pool mixed with a scraping of algae from the bottom, there was an ominous line of black clouds on the horizon.
He hurried to the embankment where Scotty had found the cement bags, his pal close behind him. The girls had waited in the car.
To his surprise there were no bags. Raw earth showed where they had been dug up.
"What do you make of that?" he asked.