Rick checked on the girls. They were engaged in making themselves comfortable on an old bed they had dragged in front of the window from which North Cove could be seen. He borrowed the glasses and looked at the houseboat, then handed them back, satisfied. They could see everything that went on. Barby had her plastic set in place. Rick checked, and found that she had forgotten to turn it on. He grinned at her embarrassment. "I'll call you from downstairs, and again when we get set on the mainland. Good luck." The girls echoed the wish. Cap'n Mike was fishing, allowing the rowboat to drift slowly in the direction of the cove. Rick watched awhile, and was satisfied. If anyone could put it over, Cap'n Mike could. "Now," he asked Scotty, "how do we get to Whiteside without attracting attention?" Scotty scratched his head. "I don't know. Unless you want to walk. We could cross the tidal flats and hike to town." Rick vetoed that. "Too far and too slow. The barber would have time to cut twenty heads of hair before we got there." "How about asking Jerry to come for us?" "You've got it! He could come down the wood road and pick us up right behind the island. He knows the way." Rick went into the library and called the _Morning Record_ number. Duke Barrows answered. Rick explained that they had to get to Whiteside by the back way, without volunteering why. Duke hesitated, then agreed to send Jerry. Rick smiled as he hung up. "Duke will get a story out of this somehow," he said. "He's so curious he could burst a seam. Come on. Jerry will get started right away." Just before nine o'clock the boys and Jerry arrived at the newspaper office. Jerry was about to burst with curiosity, but he wasn't going to let it get the better of him. He hadn't asked a single question all the way from the wood road back of Whiteside into town. Duke Barrows was apparently taking the same tack. He looked up as the boys entered, grunted, then continued working on the following day's editorial. "Something just occurred to me," Rick said, after greeting the editor. "Isn't this pretty early for you and Jerry to be at work? I thought a morning paper didn't open for business until afternoon." "We never sleep," Duke said, without interrupting his work. "What do you think this is, _The New York Times_?" "Never occurred to me," Rick said politely. "Although the quality of the paper is about the same." The editor looked at Jerry. "When he talks like that, he wants something. What is it?" "Search me. I don't know what these two want, and I don't know when they got deaf. Notice they're both wearing hearing aids?" Duke hadn't. The boys grinned at his look of astonishment. "What we'd like," Scotty said, "if you care to co-operate, is to have someone take a look at the barbershop. We want to know if the new barber is on the job."