Scotty scribbled in the notebook. "Any other details you remember? What time in the afternoon was it?"
"Between four and five. Can't say exactly. He was still buzzin' when I came on duty at six. Wanted to call the newspapers, but I talked him out of it. People would think he was a fool."
"Did you?" Rick asked quietly.
"Nope. I know Chick. He's got a straight head on him. It may not have been a flyin' saucer, but you can bet it wasn't anythin' common, or anythin' he'd seen before."
"Score one," Scotty said triumphantly as they drove off.
"One flying saucer doesn't make a Martian invasion," Rick reminded him. "Let's keep it up."
By lunchtime they had interviewed a dozen people who claimed to have seen flying saucers. All details of the sightings had been noted in Scotty's book. During lunch, at a small restaurant in the old town of Oxford, they scored three more times after interviews with fishermen.
After lunch, they crossed the Choptank and headed south to the little town of Vienna. From there the route led to the shore town of Elliott, back to Vienna, and past the corner of Delaware to Salisbury, a good-sized town on the Maryland Eastern Shore.
There was a newspaper office in Salisbury. A chat with the editor and a quick skim through the back files added more data to the growing list. Rick had a hunch there was a pattern shaping up, but he could not be sure until the information was all laid out for examination.
By the time the boys met Steve at the small airport, both Rick and Scotty had writer's cramp, and the notebook was nearly used up. They had recorded over half a hundred sightings.