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 wristwatch. 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 cockpit. "Now that you woke me up to look at a fish, suppose you tell me where we are? Last thing I remember, we were passing under the Bay Bridge off Annapolis." "That's Bloody Point Lighthouse behind us," Rick said. "Poplar Island is on the starboard and the Eastern Shore 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."