"We bought him on pure faith," Steve pointed out. "It isn't often I stake the game on a man's face, but if Orvil Harris isn't a sound individual, I'll lose my faith in human nature."
Back at the farmhouse, Steve made fresh coffee and toast. While the boys relaxed sleepily, he went to a closet and brought out a case and a leather gadget bag.
The boys sat up and watched while he opened the case. Rick gasped. It was a telescope, a marvelously compact reflector type, precision made and very expensive. Rick had often studied the ads of this particular model, and he looked at it with some envy. He could hardly keep from picking it up.
Steve opened the gadget bag and brought out a Polaroid camera and set of rings. Then he returned to the closet and brought back a sturdy tripod with a geared head.
"Here's the equipment," he said. He took the telescope from its padded case, and screwed its base to the tripod, then he adjusted the tripod until it was standing securely.
"Watch this," he commanded. "You'll have to do it, because you can't carry the whole thing assembled."
Using the rings, which were adapters, he fitted the camera to the eyepiece of the telescope. "That's all there is to it. You focus the 'scope eyepiece by turning this knurled knob. Then you set the camera to infinity, adjust the iris for the proper light, and put the camera in place. Any questions?"
"What aperture?" Rick asked. "Normal exposure?"
"Make it one f-stop less than you'd use if you were taking the picture through a regular camera with a long lens. Anything else?"
Scotty grinned. "It's pointless to ask what you want us to do with this. We're to get pictures of that antenna—from the duck blind."