The horizon was clearly defined and Rick breathed a sigh of relief. No trouble in flying level now. Their only bad moment would come in landing. He climbed to almost a thousand feet, then set a course for Whiteside. He wanted to get a look at the airport approaches by night. In a short space he saw the field beacon and then the red boundary lights. He throttled back and let the nose drop, crossing the field at less than two hundred feet. It looked easy. The tension left him and he flew easily, automatically. He had been flying the Cub for so long that it behaved like part of him, without conscious effort. He climbed steadily in a shallow turn until his altimeter read two thousand feet and he was heading out to sea. Far below, Spindrift Island was a dark extension of the land, almost completely framed by silvery, moonlit water. "Pretty," Scotty said. Rick nodded. He knew his mother and father were listening to the plane's drone down there. They wouldn't sleep much until he was back. They had spent ten minutes making the long sweep over Whiteside. Rick glanced at his watch, then banked around on the predetermined course. He put the Cub in a slow climb. "We'll arrive a little north of the grounds," he said. "Watch for ship lights. We may see the supply ship before we see Brad Marbek." "Maybe they've already met," Scotty remarked. Rick shook his head. "They can't have met yet. Brad would have to go pretty far out. Otherwise, the trawlers going to fish would be able to see him and his supply ship on the horizon." Scotty shivered. "It's getting cold." They were climbing steadily. The altimeter read slightly less than four thousand feet. At that height, the men on the ships below wouldn't know what kind of plane was overhead. They flew in silence for several minutes, then Rick warned, "We're getting there." "I'm watching." Scotty had taken the binoculars from behind the seat where they had been left. Suddenly he grabbed Rick's arm. "There. Dead ahead." Rick banked the plane a little so he could see from the side window. Far ahead and below, red lights and white lights twinkled against the sheen of the sea. Some distance separated the lights and he knew he was seeing both vessels. They had not yet met. His pulse began to pound a little. He pulled back slightly on the control wheel and let the Cub climb. "We'll continue straight on," he told Scotty. "Then we'll turn and come back at a lower altitude." "Okay." Scotty leaned out into the slip stream and put the binoculars on the lights. When the ships were behind, he pulled his head in again and rubbed his cold face. "That other ship is a freighter, but not very big. I'd say less than four thousand tons. It's probably a coaster." Rick wondered, if it was a coastal vessel, why he hadn't found anything in the New York paper at the _Morning Record_. It was probable, he decided, that the ship was heading for some other port, maybe Boston.