"So? Does he want to sell?"

"No, sir. Not without more information. If you could tell us the name of the purchaser ..."

"I can. I won't. None of your business. If Miller wants to talk business he can come see me. Now get out."

The boys lingered. "You must admit that it was an unusual offer, sir.

The price was rather high for worthless land."

Piggish eyes surveyed them. The bull voice grated, "Get out!"

They went. There was nothing else to do.

Scotty started to get into the car, but Rick stopped him. "Let's go to the drugstore. I want to get a spray can of insect repellent."

"Okay." Scotty chuckled. "You can see why Dr. Miller is not fond of Mr.

Collins."

"I'm going to join the anti-Collins club as soon as we get back. Look, druggists know everything about their town. Let's see if we can find out if the Frostola man is new."

Rick opened the screen door and they went into a drugstore that had not changed substantially for half a century, except for the addition of modern sales items. The druggist, a wisp of a man, was friendly. They sat down at the marble-topped soda fountain and Rick asked, "Got any Frostola cream pies?"

"Don't carry them," the druggist replied. "They're sold only by the route man."

"I see you have a new man in this territory," Rick said casually.

Bright eyes inspected him through rimless gla.s.ses. "Fairly new. Seems all right."

"He's pleasant enough," Rick a.s.sented. "Has he been on the job long?"

"Six weeks, more or less."

The boys settled for c.o.kes, then drove back to the Millers. Rick was pleased. They hadn't made much progress, but at least they had uncovered an interesting character in the new Frostola man. His arrival, according to the druggist, coincided with the appearances of the Blue Ghost. He traveled to the mine area when no customers could be found there. He was curious about a cement bag. He didn't fit the character of an ice-cream route man.

Rick headed straight for the picnic ground. There was no sign of the Frostola scooter, which meant the man had left right behind them, otherwise they would have met him on the road on the return trip.

On a hunch, Rick got out of the car and walked to the trash can where Scotty had put the cement bag. The bag was gone.

CHAPTER VIII

Plan of Attack

Rick awoke to the sound of wind, a sign that the storm traveling northward from the middle south was approaching. He groaned. If the storm arrived before nightfall, the annual Sons of the Dominion affair would be postponed.

After yesterday's events he had decided to drop the idea of spreading the word that he and Scotty were ghost watching, in the hope the ghost would appear for just the two of them. His new plan wasn't completely worked out, but it would be before long.

Scotty grinned at him from the other bed. "No night alarms last night.

Guess the ghost couldn't find anyone to play with."

"Maybe tonight," Rick replied. "Come on, sack hound. Rise and shine. We have things to do."

Scotty glanced through the window at the sky. "We'd better do 'em quick, then. Barring a shift in the weather system, we're due for some fine squalls."

After an excellent breakfast of pancakes and genuine pepper-cured Virginia ham, Rick borrowed an empty jar from Mrs. Miller, checked all the flashlights available, and explained to the Millers the purpose of the trip.

"I'm going to get a sample of the water from the pool and try to see if there's anything strange about it, then I thought we'd take a closer look at the mine to see if we can trace that water pipe. It still worries me."

To his surprise, Barby and Jan hurriedly finished their breakfasts and announced they were going, too.

"You're going into that mine," Barby explained. "We're going to be waiting outside, and if you're not out within ten minutes, we're going to come home for help."

Rick was touched. Both girls believed in the ghost, Barby more than Jan, while he and Scotty were convinced that it was man-made in some way they didn't yet understand. It took courage for the girls to accompany them, even if they only planned to wait at the mine entrance.

"Okay," he agreed. "Let's go."

Dr. Miller offered, "Take the car. I don't like the looks of the weather and there's no point in your getting caught in the rain."

Rick accepted and in a moment the four young people were on their way.

He saw that the sky was filled with haze, with only a glimpse now and then through the haze of flying scud. Something was on the way, all right.

"It's a tropical storm," Jan explained. "The morning weather report from Washington said it would strike northern Virginia this morning."

"And not long from now," Scotty commented.

By the time Rick had collected his first sample, a jarful of water from the pool mixed with a sc.r.a.ping of algae from the bottom, there was an ominous line of black clouds on the horizon.

He hurried to the embankment where Scotty had found the cement bags, his pal close behind him. The girls had waited in the car.

To his surprise there were no bags. Raw earth showed where they had been dug up.

"What do you make of that?" he asked.

Scotty shook his head. "I don't know. The Frostola man must have taken them, but I can't imagine why. Come on. Let's get out of here. This is no time to stand around wondering. That storm is close!"

"No mine for us this morning," Rick said. "Wonder if the rain will last long enough to cancel out the Sons of the Old Dominion, or whether we'll just have some thundershowers?"

"Time will tell. Let's go."

They beat the storm to the house by minutes. It arrived with a rattle of windows and the flash of lightning, followed by thunder that reverberated among the mountains endlessly. The rain came in blinding sheets, covering the windows with a steady flow of water that blocked all vision.

Rick set up his microscope on the kitchen table and plugged in the substage illumination. Then, while the others watched, he selected a well slide, took his pipette, and captured a drop from the jar of pool water. The drop went into the well slide. He put on a cover gla.s.s, then applied his eye to the ocular.

After a moment of focusing and shifting the well slide, the drop of water suddenly turned to a strange aquarium populated by fantastic animals. He watched, counting the species aloud. "Lots of paramecia. A Volvox. Two Stephanoceros. One hydra. Not bad for a single drop. Want to look, anyone?"

Everyone did. Rick waited while the girls exclaimed over the microscopic creatures, and Mrs. Miller remarked to her scientist husband, "And we drink that water?"