"Exactly. It's mounted on a truck, and I suspect the electronic gear is inside. I couldn't get a good look. There are also little cubicles inside the barn, probably horse stalls, and I could hear a man snoring in one of them. There wasn't much light, and I couldn't use my little flashlight beam too freely, but I did get a look at several gas bottles racked along one wall. They were big ones, of the kind used for commercial gases like propane or oxygen." "Or hydrogen?" Scotty asked quickly. "Or hydrogen," Steve agreed. "And that's probably what they contain, for inflating the balloons." He got up, turned off the coffee, and poured three cups. "Along about that time, I heard rifleshots. You can imagine what I thought. I had a vision of two bodies sinking slowly into the mud. If I'd had a weapon, I think I'd have run down to see what was going on. But common sense got the better of me, and I figured it was highly unlikely that a pair of divers could be picked off with rifles if they were underwater. I was sure you had sense enough to stay down. So I left the barn and went to the house." "You actually went in?" Rick asked, his eyes wide. "Sure. It was safe enough. The gang was sleeping upstairs and the two guards were interested in you and Orvil. No papers were left where I could get them. There's a built-in safe, but I'm no Jimmy Valentine who sandpapers his fingers and opens boxes by touch. I couldn't do anything with it. Finally, I figured all had been seen that could be seen, and left the house. I could hear a motor racing, and I recognized the runabout, so I knew you were still alive. I retired to the woods behind the barn and headed for the riverbank. I saw Scotty hurl his homemade bomb." Scotty shook his head. "I didn't see you." "You weren't supposed to. I decided Scotty must be creating a diversion, and that meant you, Rick, were still diving in the cove. I took off for the cove, keeping a weather eye out for the guards. There was plenty of cover along the bank, so it wasn't hard. I got a good view of the festivities. After the fire was stamped out, the two guards walked up to the bank of the cove and waited until Orvil got close, then they pointed their rifles at him and invited him to come closer still. He didn't have much choice." Rick thought that was an understatement. "They questioned him for a while. Who were the divers and what were they after? Orvil played dumb. He said he knew nothing about divers and of course he had seen bubbles. He always saw bubbles. Marsh gas was rising all the time. He couldn't understand what all the shooting was about." "Good for Orvil," Scotty muttered.