“Maybe he landed and changed his mind about using it,” Dick suggested. “On account of taking us in—we organized a sort of Sky Patrol, to oversee things—but everything went wrong.”
“That accounts for it. I didn’t know he was going to make the hop or I might not have come myself—but now—well,” the man broke off his phrase and started to clamber into the control seat, “let’s get going.”
“And leave your passenger?”
“He’s comfortable, lying quiet in the fishing shack.”
Sandy, who had spoken, felt his suspicions returning at the reply. Could there be any reason why they must not identify the other man? Might he be the ringleader, or have some outstanding mark that they had seen before and might recognize?
Dick performed the “mech’s” duties for the pilot in getting the engine started again, then he clambered into his old place. Sandy was already behind their new pilot.
“Whoever and whatever he is,” Sandy mused, “he knows how to lift a ‘crate’ out of the sand.”
The man claiming to be Mr. Everdail made a skillful getaway from the beach, and it took them very little time to get over the marsh, already free of fog.
Dick located the crack-up, Sandy indicated the spot and the pilot dropped so low that his trucks almost grazed the waving eel-grass.
“There’s no amphibian in sight, though!” Dick murmured. “I wonder——”