“What if we should be caught?”
“We’ll decide that part when the time comes,” Penny chuckled. “This should be fun.”
Circling the shack, they climbed into the low-hanging boughs of a giant, scraggly maple tree. Inch by inch lest they make a sound which would betray them, they climbed out on the heavy branches.
“Penny, we’re taking an awful chance,” her chum murmured nervously. “If that man should look up—”
“He won’t,” Penny whispered confidently. “He’s too busy with whatever he’s doing.”
Lying flat on the branch, she could look directly through the glass. In the room below she saw at least four large, oval-shaped mines without detonators, made of steel.
Evidently the man had finished whatever work had brought him to the shack, for he laid aside a tool, and then went out the door, carefully locking it behind him again.
“We were too late,” Penny whispered in disgust after the man was a safe distance down the beach. “I wish I knew why he came here! One thing is certain, he’s mixed up with Professor Bettenridge on this secret ray invention.”
“Do you still believe the man is the one who was pushed off the Snark?”
“Yes, I do, and that part we can learn!” Realizing that much valuable time was being wasted, Penny slid down from the tree, snagging a stocking in the process. She helped Louise to reach the ground.