The Final Fact

Rick and Scotty slept late the following morning and were awakened for brunch by Dr. Miller. The boys took advantage of the few moments alone with the scientist to give him the complete story of their adventure in the tunnel, after which they pledged him to secrecy.

"It's one thing to tell people a ghost is a fake," Rick explained. "It's another to dramatize it. I'm working on an idea that may do it, but only if we keep quiet and make our plans carefully."

"I'll keep the secret," the scientist a.s.sured him. "And I won't even scold you for going into an obviously unsafe mine because I hope the hours before you found your way out were lesson enough. By the way, Belsely wants to talk with you. Call him when you've eaten."

"Yes, sir. And thank you."

During their combination lunch and breakfast, the boys had to put up with comments from Jan and Barby. Dr. Miller had refrained from scolding them for foolhardiness, but the girls were not so reticent. The boys bore it stoically, but Rick resolved not to divulge their secret to Barby at any cost. Let her get a shock with the rest of the ghost fanciers.

Belsely was out when they phoned, but he called back a short time later.

"Meet me at the edge of the orchard," he requested. "Got to talk with you."

The boys excused themselves and went to keep the rendezvous.

"Didn't get a chance to talk with you last night," the farmer said.

"Didn't you wonder a little at how fast rescue got to you?"

"We did at first," Rick explained. "Then we realized you had seen us. We waved at you and you waved back. So we guessed the mine was the first place you'd look."

"True, true. But that's only part of the story. I saw you go in the mine, you see. Then I went back to fence makin'. Pretty soon I heard the put-put of that scooter and along came the ice-cream man. He parked the scooter and sort of sniffed around here and there, and then he walked over and went into the mine. I did some sneakin' myself, to where I could see what he was doin'. He was looking at footprints, like he was an injun trackin' the hero on a Western TV show."

"Those must have been his tracks we saw on the way in," Scotty interjected. "Big feet, which he has, and a reason for wanting to know how far into the mine we'd gone the first time add up to Mr. Frostola."

"I suppose. Well, he went in a ways and stayed a bit, then he came out and went back to his scooter and just sat on it. Pretty soon there was a rumble, and a cloud of dust came pourin' out of the mine. I knew right away you was trapped in there. Had to be, from the noise. Don't know how he did it, though. There was no explosion."

Rick explained about the rotted timbers. "He could have done a little pushing, or even cutting into the rotten wood with a knife. That would have done it. Maybe he pushed until the beams started to crack and then hurried out, only it took a few minutes for the beam to let go all the way."

"That could have been it. Well, I wandered over and asked what the dust was, and he said cool as you please that he didn't know. Probably a cave-in inside somewhere. Well, I put on an act about you two poor lads goin' in and he pretended to get excited, too. We went in, and I tell you it looked bad."

"Looked bad from our side, too," Rick said.

"I believe it. It was a job for machinery, all right. I hurried to the house and told Dr. Miller, and we phoned town, but the man with the scoop was out on a job. The Frostola man was still hangin' around when I started for town, and he hadn't moved when I got back. I did nothin'

about him because I wanted to talk to you first. Took some time for the scoop to get there, but it certainly did the job."

"And we're mighty grateful," Rick told the farmer. Scotty echoed him.

"By the way, Mr. Belsely, was anything ever said about a second tunnel in the mine?" Rick asked.

The farmer considered. "Seems to me there was some mention about such a second tunnel, back when I was a boy, but I never heard about it since.

I was born and brought up in this town, and I've never seen a sign of one. Course that doesn't mean there never was, because it might have fallen in."

Rick made a quick decision. "It didn't," he stated. He went on to tell Belsely what had happened the day before, pledging him to quiet for a few days at least to give them a chance to solve the puzzle that remained.

The farmer was delighted. "This will give me a tale to tell from now on!

Once you say I'm free to talk, that is. Well, whaddaya know! That spring pipe has been there since Hector was a pup, and no one ever wondered about why it went in the hill sideways until you came along! Of course Collins must have known--him and Hilleboe, because they were the ones who replaced the pipe a few years back."

Rick remembered that Dr. Miller had spoken of the pipe being replaced.

If Collins and Hilleboe had put in the new pipe, they may have driven it into the hill as Dr. Miller had said, but they had most certainly connected it with the vertical pipe inside the tunnel.

"Likely," Belsely agreed. "One more thing. We got a daylight ghost today. Saw him arrive by car about half an hour ago. He went up to the cornfield with a suitcase of some kind. Thought you'd like to know."

They were delighted to know! The chance to see someone operating by daylight was too good to miss. They said a quick farewell to Belsely and hurried off across the field.

There was no one in sight as they crossed the picnic grounds, but when they climbed to the top of the hill and stood on the edge of the cornfield, they could see a man in khaki clothes bending over something between the rows of corn plants.

"Just what the ghosts were doing," Rick exclaimed. "Let's hurry and find out what he's up to!"

They walked swiftly down the rows of corn, making no attempt at concealment. This was a frontal attack. The stranger saw them coming and stood up.

Rick looked him over. The man was about forty, tanned and clean-shaven, with horn-rimmed gla.s.ses. Not at all a ghostly type.

The boys walked right up to the man and gave him a cordial h.e.l.lo, which the stranger returned.

"We couldn't help being curious," Rick said. "Do you mind if we watch?"

"Not at all." He indicated the open suitcase at his feet. It contained a built-in instrument with a meter and earphones. There was also a tubular attachment on the end of a thick wire.

Rick recognized it at once and a thrill shot through him. The stranger was somehow connected with the mystery.

"Isn't that a Geiger tube?" he asked.

The stranger answered casually, "That's what it is. This is called a survey meter. Most people know it as a Geiger counter. It's very sensitive."

Rick knew better, but he wanted to probe for more information. "Are you in Civil Defense by any chance?" he asked.

"Nope. I'm a geologist. My outfit is making a routine survey of the area for radioactive ores. We don't expect to find any, but there was a discovery in Maryland recently and we don't want to overlook any bets."

Rick was sure now that no bets were being overlooked. Any geologist would eliminate the area simply on the basis of its rock formations with no need of making a field survey.

He operated largely by instinct when there was a need, and this was clearly the right occasion. The man looked clean cut and respectable, and the daylight operation separated him from the nightly prowlers.

"You might find some Janigite around here," Rick said casually, and watched sharply for the reaction.

"Possibly. Saw an interesting sample of it yesterday." The stranger was offhand in his reply, but his eyes twinkled behind the gla.s.ses.

"So did we. It was wrapped in a cement bag."

The response was quick. The stranger held out his hand. "I'm Roger Bennett from the Atomic Energy Commission. You're the boys who notified JANIG about the cement bags."

Rick and Scotty identified themselves, and Bennett nodded. "I know John Gordon of the Spindrift staff. We worked together on a test project a few years ago. Now, what's the story?"

The boys told him what they knew, ending with yesterday's discovery.

The AEC man nodded. "This field is 'hot,' did you know that? It's obvious that powdered carnot.i.te was spread here before the corn was planted. And from your story, it was spread in the field across the creek, too."

Ghosts with a cart had marched up and down the fields, hunting for the ghostly dead ... the image flashed through Rick's mind and he exclaimed, "The cart! That was why the ghosts needed the cart! They were lugging bags of powdered carnot.i.te and spreading it around the fields when Belsely saw them!"