As tactfully as possible she suggested that the
child ought to find a girl playmate.
“Teddy Hooper’s okay. He’s the only one that
lives close to me,” Joan replied, skipping happily
along beside her companion. “I don’t like him
when he’s mean, but most of the time he’s a lot of
fun. He always thinks up exciting things to do.”
“You’d better hurry home to lunch,” Nancy
said. “I’ll go with you. My car’s there.”
When they reached the house, Joan hugged
Nancy, then ran inside. Nancy was sure she had
made a firm friend of the little girl.
“I’m not far from Salty’s,” the young detec-
tive said to herself. “I’ll drive there and find out
if he has seen that man who crashed into our
boat.”
In a little while she came to the clam digger’s
home. The sailor was on the shore repairing his
rowboat.
“Well, now, me lass, I’m glad to see you,” he
said. “But I’m afraid I haven’t got good news.”
“You mean about the boat?”
“I’ve looked high an’ low for that damaged
boat,” the man said regretfully. “It’s not tied up
anywhere along here.”
“How about Harper’s Inlet?” Nancy asked.
Salty admitted he had not been there. “Too
busy,” he explained. “Maybe I’ll go this after-
noon. I need a mess o’ clams an’ there be some
up the inlet. You want to come along? I’ll show
you the Heath factory.”
For Nancy the opportunity was too good to
pass up. She was eager to visit the spot.
“Just tell me when to be here,” she said.
After settling on three o’clock, she remarked,
“I’ll bring along one of my friends.”
Nancy hurried home for a quick lunch, then
telephoned George. Promptly at three o’clock
the two girls met Salty at the waterfront.
“I’ll put ye to work,” the sailor chuckled as he
gathered together his fishing and clamming
equipment. “Help me load these into the row-
boat, will you?”
The old man’s muscular arms rippled as he
dug the oars into the tranquil waters of the
Muskoka River. Presently he and his passengers
were skimming along at a rapid rate. Behind the
craft trailed a long copper wire which gleamed
in the sunlight.
“I’m trollin’ for my dinner tonight,” Salty ex-
plained. “There’s somethin’ yankin’ on my line
right now, I do believe 1”
He rested the oars and pulled in the line. Fi-
nally a four-pound speckled bass flopped into
the boat.
“She’s a beauty,” he said, grinning.
While the girls kept the craft from drifting
downstream. Salty removed the hook from the
fish and dropped his catch into a woven basket.
Then he wound up the copper troll line and put
it away.
“Fishin’s not much good in the inlet,” he re-
marked. “But we’ll find clams.”
The upper river was very still. As the boat
entered Harper’s Inlet some time later, there was
no sound except the occasional chirping of a bird.
Nancy hunched low now and then, to avoid the
overhanging bushes and watched the coves for a
hidden boat. There was none.
“It doesn’t look as if we’re goin’ to find your
friend,” Salty remarked after he had rowed a
quarter of a mile upstream. “We’re almost to
Heath’s button factory now. I’ll anchor here.”
The man had located a bed of clams in the
shallow water. He asked the girls to balance his
fish basket on the gunwale, then waded in to dig
the clams from the mud and sand with his rake.
As he tossed them, one by one, he kept singing
snatches of familiar sea songs.
“Basket’s full,” Nancy called several minutes
later.
Salty got into the boat and started off again.
As they rounded a bend, the girls saw a large,
square building set some distance back from the
shore. The banks nearby were littered with dis-
carded bits of clamshells.
“That’s the Heath button factory,” Salty said.
“She’s sure gone to pieces.”
Nancy gazed curiously at the neglected brick
structure. Vines which had grown up the build-
ing’s walls lay thick on the shingle roof and all
the windows were broken.
Suddenly Nancy spotted two figures near the
factory entrance. As they vanished into the build-