“Why, of course, we’d like to go,” Penny accepted, before her chum could find her voice.
Scrambling out of the dinghy, the girls made it fast to the dock and transferred to the other boat. Sara opened the throttle, and they shot away, leaving behind a trail of churning foam. Out through the slip they raced, rounding a channel buoy at breakneck speed.
“You can certainly handle a boat,” Penny said admiringly.
“Been at it since I was a kid,” Sara grinned. “I could cruise this river blindfolded.”
They passed the floating barge, observing that a Coast Guard cutter was proceeding up river to take it in tow. Turning upstream, Sara swung the boat toward shore.
“Keep close watch of the bushes,” she directed the girls. “If you see anything that looks like a hidden boat, sing out.”
At low speed they crept along the river, watching for marks in the sand which might reveal where a craft had been pulled out of water. Once, venturing too close in, Sara went aground and had to push off with the oars.
“It doesn’t look as if we’ll have any luck,” she remarked gloomily. “The boat’s probably so well hidden, it would take a ferret to find it.”
They kept on upstream toward the Seventh Street Bridge, a structure much in use since the more modern Thompson’s Bridge had been closed to auto traffic. Penny, watching the stream of vehicles passing above, remarked that Riverview commerce would be paralyzed should anything occur to damage it.
“The Seventh Street Bridge now is the only artery open to the Riverview Munitions Plant,” Sara added. “I understand it’s being guarded day and night. By a better watchman than Carl Oaks, I hope.”