Rick looked at Scotty in surprise. "No?" "Nope. It looked like one because of the lever. Sport carbines have those to lever cartridges into the chamber. But this one had a lever for pumping air. I've only seen one like it before, and a professional hunter in Australia had that one. He used it for collecting specimens when he didn't want to make noise. Sometimes he found several wallabies or Tasmanian wolves together and he could get two or three before they knew what was up." "You mean an air gun has enough power to use for hunting?" Rick knew modern air guns had high penetrating power, but he had never heard of one powerful enough to use on animals as big as wolves. "This model has," Scotty told him. "It was made by the Breda Gun Company in Czechoslovakia before the war. The slug is about .25 caliber, but heavier than the kind we have in America." "Wonder where he got it," Rick mused. "Hard to tell. They're expensive guns, believe me." The Cub had been flying only a few hundred feet above the water. Behind them, the New Jersey coast was still in sight. Rick climbed to a thousand feet and told Scotty to start looking for the fishing fleet. "How many shots can you get out of that air rifle?" Rick asked. "Just one. It's automatic loading, but it has to be pumped up each time. That's not as hard as it sounds, though, because the pump is made so that two strokes will give it a full air charge. It's about as fast firing as a single-shot .22 rifle." Rick's eyes scanned the horizon. "How do you suppose Carrots tracked us to Cap'n Mike's shack?" "Easy enough. He could hike along the shore and keep us in sight." "He was risking being seen when he put that warning on the seat. Suppose one of us had looked out the window?" "Then he would have pretended to be just hiking, or looking at the boat or something. It wasn't really much of a risk." "I suppose not," Rick agreed. Small specks on the horizon caught his eye suddenly and he pointed. "There's the fleet!" Scotty held the binoculars to his eyes. "Sure enough. About eight trawlers so far, pretty well scattered." In a few moments they could see clouds of gulls and petrels around the boats, a sure sign of plenty of fish. Then they made out the details of the big nets used by the fishermen for catching the menhaden. "See if you can spot the _Albatross_," Rick said. "You'll have to go down and pass each boat, then. I couldn't make out the names from this height." "Okay. Here we go." On each of the craft, fishermen waved as the Cub sped past. Scotty read the names aloud. None of the trawlers was the _Albatross_. Rick put the Cub into a climb. "There must be other trawlers around. Let's go up and take a look." Scotty shook his head. "I have a better idea. We'll see the _Albatross_ tonight, anyway. Why not go into shore and fly over Creek House? Sometimes you can see things from the air you can't see from the ground."