"Splendid! Splendid!" Isaac rubbed his dry hands together. Broad grins, laughter and exultant comments broke out among the others.
Isaac gazed fondly at Matt. "You're the boss, Matt. What's to be done?"
"Strip the Argus of everything that can be moved and carry it into the fort. There should be guns in there and ammunition. It housed a detachment of the world police force, you remember. They used the obsolete weapons—never resorted to A-bombs unless necessary.
"We've crossed Salt River, but not the Ohio. That means we'd better destroy the monorail and the tube crossing and the railway bridge. We can leave the highway bridge up, but we'll have to fortify it temporarily."
"Then," broke in Captain Bascom, "you think the Amazons will follow?"
Matt nodded. "They could see us come down not too far off." He paused, pushing his hand through his short black hair. "But we were north of Salt River. Now we're south of it. They can't know that. Neither can they know whether we've crossed the Ohio or not. I imagine they'll send scout cars."
"That bridge"—he pointed to the arches spanning the Salt river—"is the only one this side of Shepherdsville.
"It should take a couple of hours for their scout cars to reach us. If we fortify the bridge so that they have to cross at Shepherdsville, their main body'll have to go over a hundred miles out of their way. We can count on from eight to ten hours."
"Not too much time!" Isaac muttered.
"No," Matt agreed, "it isn't." He turned to the palaeontologist. "Fetch the walkie-talkie and the rifles, Nesbit. You and I and Isaac had better look over the fort.