The Flying Stingaree.

by Harold Leland Goodwin.

What's shaped like a sting ray and flies over Chesapeake Bay? This is the eerie riddle which confronts Rick Brant and his friend Don Scott when, seeking shelter from a storm, they anchor the houseboat _Spindrift_ in a lonely cove along the Maryland sh.o.r.e and spot the flying stingaree.

The "thing," they learn, is not the only one of its kind--one is actually suspected of having kidnaped a man!

The residents of the Eastern Sh.o.r.e of Maryland believe the strange objects are flying saucers, but, weary of ridicule, have ceased reporting the sightings.

Rick and Scotty, their scientific curiosity aroused, begin a comprehensive investigation, encouraged by their friend Steve Ames, a young government intelligence agent, whose summer cottage is near the cove.

As the clues mount up, the trail leads to Calvert's Favor, a historic plantation house--and to the very bottom of Chesapeake Bay. How Rick and Scotty, at the risk of their lives, ground the eerie menace forever makes a tale of high-voltage suspense.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Little Choptank River_]

CHAPTER I

Chesapeake Bay

The stingaree swam slowly through the warm waters of Chesapeake Bay.

Geography meant nothing to the ray, whose sole interest in life was food, but his position--had he known it--was in the channel that runs between Poplar Island and the town of Wittman on the Eastern Sh.o.r.e of Maryland. The ray was also directly in the path of an odd-looking cruising houseboat, the _Spindrift_, that had just rounded the north point of Poplar Island and entered the channel.

The sting ray's color was an olive brown, so dark in tone that he looked like wet black leather. He was roughly diamond-shaped, like a kite, with rounded sides. He had a long, slim tail that carried vicious barbs along the base of its upper side. It was from the barbs, which served as defensive weapons, that the name sting ray, or stingaree, derived. The ray was harmless to men--unless one chanced to step on him as he lay resting on the bottom ooze. At such rare times, his tail would lash up, inflicting a serious and painful wound.

A tiny crab, hatched only a week before, swam upward toward the gleaming surface, his churning legs making a slight disturbance. The ray sensed the small vibrations and instantly changed course, speeding through the water like a fantastic s.p.a.ceship of the future. Intent on the crab, the ray ignored the stronger vibrations caused by a pair of outboard motors and a long, flat-bottomed hull. Not until the crab was within reach did the ray sense imminent danger. With a single flashing movement, he s.n.a.t.c.hed the crab and flung himself upward through the shining surface and into the air.

Rick Brant, at the helm of the cruising houseboat, saw the ray break water and he let out a yell. "Scotty! Look!"

Don Scott, asleep at full length on the houseboat's sun deck, which was also its cabin top, awoke in time to see the dark shape reenter the calm water. "Stingaree!" he exclaimed.

Rick had never seen an area more teeming with life than Chesapeake Bay, unless it was the jungles of the South Pacific. Books, guides to eastern land and water birds, regional fish and reptiles, rested on the cabin top before him, along with a pair of binoculars. He had used them all repeatedly, identifying eagles, wild swans, ospreys, wild duck and geese, terrapin, snapping turtles and water snakes, as well as a horde of lesser creatures. Trailing lines over the houseboat stern had captured striped sea ba.s.s, called "rockfish" locally, a species of drumfish called "spot" because of a black spot on the gills, pink croakers that the Marylanders called "hardheads," and the blue crabs for which the bay is famous. He had seen clam dredges bringing up bushels of soft-sh.e.l.led, long-necked clams that the dredgers called "manos," and he had seen the famous Maryland "bugeyes" and "skip-jacks"--sailing craft used for dredging oysters. The boats were not operated during the oyster breeding season from the end of March until September.

Rick's interest in the life of the great bay was to be expected. As son of the director of the world-famous Spindrift Scientific Foundation, located on Spindrift Island off the coast of New Jersey, he had been brought up among scientists. The habit of observation had developed along with his natural--and insatiable--curiosity.

The tall, slim, brown-haired, brown-eyed boy was completely happy. He enjoyed casual living, especially on the water, and life on the _Spindrift_ couldn't have been more casual. He was dressed in a tattered pair of shorts and a wrist.w.a.tch. Once, in the cool of the evening, he had slipped on a sweat shirt. Otherwise, the shorts had been his sole attire while on board since leaving his home island a few days before.

Scotty, a husky, dark-haired boy clad only in red swimming trunks, came down the ladder from the cabin top and stood beside Rick in the c.o.c.kpit.

"Now that you woke me up to look at a fish, suppose you tell me where we are? Last thing I remember, we were pa.s.sing under the Bay Bridge off Annapolis."

"That's b.l.o.o.d.y Point Lighthouse behind us," Rick said. "Poplar Island is on the starboard and the Eastern Sh.o.r.e to port. That black thing sticking up ahead of us is a light buoy. When we reach it, we should be able to see the range markers into Knapps Narrows."

Scotty checked the chart on the table hinged to the bulkhead formed by the rear cabin wall. "What time is it?"

Rick glanced at his watch. "Five after six. Time for chow. Want to rustle up something? Or shall we eat at Knapps Narrows? The cruising guide says there's a restaurant there."

"Let's eat out," Scotty replied promptly. "I'm sick of my cooking--and yours. I'd like some Maryland crab cakes like those we had in Chesapeake City."

Rick remembered with pleasure. "Suits me."

"Think we'll get to Steve's tonight?" Scotty asked.

"I doubt it. We probably could reach the mouth of the river about dark, but then we'd have to navigate up the river and into a creek before reaching Steve's. I don't want to tackle these Chesapeake backwaters at night."

The destination of the houseboat was the summer cottage of Rick's old friend, Steve Ames, who was also a chief agent of JANIG, the top-secret Federal security organization. The boys, and the Spindrift scientists, had worked on several cases for JANIG, starting with the adventure of _The Whispering Box Mystery_. Steve was responsible for Rick's ownership of the houseboat, which had been named for Rick's home island on the grounds that it was now his "home away from home."

Rick's first glimpse of the houseboat had been from the air. At the request of Steve Ames, he, Scotty, his sister Barby, and Jan Miller, daughter of one of the Spindrift physicists, had been searching the coast of New Jersey for signs of strangers in the area. Barby had spotted the houseboat, which at that time was painted a bright orange.

Later, the houseboat had played a major role in the adventure of _The Electronic Mind Reader_, and Rick had fought for his life and the safety of the two girls in the very cabin behind which he now stood. The houseboat had been impounded by Federal authorities, and recently Steve had mentioned to Rick that it was to be auctioned. After consulting with his family, Rick had entered a bid for the boat. His bid had been the only one, and he became owner at what was close to a salvage price.

It was Rick's pride that his chief possessions had been bought with his own money, and the houseboat was no exception. Like his first plane, the Cub, he expected the houseboat to pay its own way. Rick had recovered his investment in the Cub by using it to operate Spindrift Island's ferry service to the mainland. Rick flew the scientists to Newark Airport when they had to catch planes, or he flew to Whiteside for groceries, or into New York to pick up parts and supplies. The houseboat could not be used in the same way, but he was sure he could get its price back by renting it to summer visitors to the New Jersey area. He had repainted it in two shades of green with a white top, and had made a few other improvements.

Before renting the boat, however, he intended to have an extended houseboat vacation. He and Scotty had left Spindrift Island, headed south into Manasquan Inlet, and then sailed into the inland waterway. By easy stages--the houseboat could make only ten miles an hour--they had moved down the waterway into Delaware Bay, up the Delaware River, through the Chesapeake and Delaware Ca.n.a.l, and into Chesapeake Bay. Now, some twenty miles south of Annapolis, the boys were nearing Steve's summer cottage.

Rick's parents, with Barby and Jan, were now on their way to Wallops Island rocket range operated by the National Aeronautics and s.p.a.ce Administration. Hartson Brant had business there in connection with instruments the Spindrift group of scientists had designed for measuring solar X rays. The instruments would be launched in rockets. Wallops Island was near Chincoteague, Virginia, just across the Maryland-Virginia border on the long peninsula called "The Eastern Sh.o.r.e" that runs between Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. By car, Wallops was less than two hours from Steve's summer cottage.

As soon as his business was concluded, Hartson Brant planned to drive to Steve's, where the Brants and the two girls would join Rick and Scotty for a vacation on the houseboat. There was plenty of room. The _Spindrift_ was thirty feet long and ten feet wide, and had two cabins.

Four could sleep in the forward cabin, and two amidships where the galley, dinette, and bath were located. Steve had agreed to drive the Brant car to Spindrift on his next trip to New York. The houseboat, with the full clan aboard, would travel leisurely back to the home island.

Rick was delighted with the arrangements. The Brants--and that included Scotty, who had become one of them after his discharge from the United States Marine Corps--were a close-knit family whose members enjoyed doing things together. Rick considered Jan Miller, Barby's dearest friend, a welcome addition to the party.

"Range light ahead," Scotty said.

Rick nodded. The light was set atop a black piling. The color meant he would have to pa.s.s it to port, then pick up the red beacon at the entrance to the Narrows, pa.s.sing the red beacon to starboard. This was in accordance with the old sailors' rule: _red right returning_, which means keep red markers and buoys on the starboard, or right, when returning from seaward. It was fun navigating in strange waters. He had never heard of Knapps Narrows a few days before, or of Tilghman Island, where the Narrows were located. Nor had he heard of the Choptank River, which lay just below the island.

The houseboat plowed ahead, its twin outboards purring. Its bow, rounded like the front of a toboggan, slapped into a slight swell. Rick pa.s.sed the range light and headed for the red tower that marked the opening of the Narrows. In a few moments they were in the Narrows, pa.s.sing lines of docked crab, oyster, and clam boats. There was a bridge ahead, with a gasoline dock in its shadow. Rick gauged wind and current and decided how he would maneuver into place. The current was heavy in the channel, running in the direction in which he was headed.

"I'll nose in, and you jump off with a bowline," he directed Scotty.

"We'll let the stern swing around with the current. That will leave us facing the way we came, so we won't have to turn when we leave."

In a short time the maneuver was completed. Rick edged the rounded nose of the houseboat against the seawall as Scotty stepped ash.o.r.e carrying the bowline. He snubbed it tightly around a piling and held fast while the ungainly boat swung with the current. Rick stepped to the seawall with the stern line as the craft swung completely around, and the boys made the boat fast.

"Now," Scotty said, "let's gas up and eat."

After filling the gas tanks, loading the icebox with fresh ice, and topping off the water tank, the boys slipped into shirts, slacks, and shoes, then headed for the restaurant that adjoined the dock. Over delicious, spicy Maryland crab cakes and coffee, they talked with the proprietor, a friendly, heavy-set Eastern Sh.o.r.e man who spoke with the typical slurred accents of the region.

"Quite a boat you got there," the man said.

Rick grinned. "It does look sort of odd, but it's comfortable."

"Expect so. Thought it was a seagoin' flyin' saucer when I saw it comin'

through the Narrows."