ing, Salty pointed to an object hidden near some
bushes.
“A boat!” he exclaimed. “And her prow’s
damaged, too!”
The bow of the boat had been drawn up on the
sand. Nancy and George recognized it immedi-
ately as the blue-and-white craft that had struck
themi
“Oh, Salty, please pull in herel” Nancy begged.
As he did, she told him about the men.
“Humph!” Salty grunted. “I’ll bet ye a mess
o’ clams they ain’t got no right in there!”
Nancy nodded. “I want to talk to them. Will
you stay here near the damaged boat? If the men
come out, try to hold them until we get back.”
The sailor did not like being left out of the
search, but before he could protest, the girls were
splashing through knee-deep water to shore.
CHAPTER VI
A Mysterious Explosion
Nancy and George had to cross a stretch of low,
marshy land in order to reach the old button
factory. Their sneakers, already water-soaked, be-
came caked with mud. The girls were grateful for
the high wild grass that screened their approach.
“You know,” Nancy said, “those two men
looked familiar.”
“Who are they?”
“I’m not sure, but one of them was thin and
wore a blue cap like the fellow who crashed into
our motorboat. The other resembled Daniel
Hector, the lawyer.”
While still twenty yards from the factory, the
girls were startled to hear the sound of hammer-
ing. The pounding noise came from inside the
building.
“I wonder what those men are doing in there,”
Nancy said, cautiously pulling aside the tall vines.
“Maybe they’re workmen who were sent to re-
pair the place,” George replied.
Nancy offered no comment. It was possible that
Daniel Hector had brought another man to the
property either to inspect it, or to do some work.
But she seriously doubted this.
As the girls moved closer, the hammering
ceased. Though they waited several minutes, it
did not resume.
“We may have been seen by the men,” Nancy
said. “I hope they haven’t left.”
When George and Nancy had pushed through
to the end of the marsh, they saw that the front
door to the factory stood wide open. Nancy peered
inside. A long corridor opened into several of-
fices and led to a large workroom at the rear. No
one was in sight.
As the girls started along the hallway, they
heard retreating footsteps. They glanced out a
dirt-smudged window and noticed two men run-
ning in the direction of the river.
“Oh, Nancy,” George exclaimed, “they must
have heard us!”
“They’re going to their boat!” Nancy said ex-
citedly.
Already the men were well hidden by the high
marsh grass. The girls ran quickly toward a rear
door, with Nancy far in the lead. As they neared
it, deafening sounds of an explosion filled the
air. The walls of the factory rocked. A huge
amount of plaster crashed down between the
girls.
“Nancy!” George cried out in panic as she
gazed at the high pile of debris that separated
them. One whole corridor wall had caved in.
“Nancy must be buried underneath it!” George
thought in horror.
The air was thick with white dust. Coughing
and choking, George frantically began to pull
away boards and chunks of plaster.
In the meantime the two men, who had paused
in the tall grass, were just about to go back to the
factory when they heard someone running up the
path. Salty, fearful for the girls’ safety, was racing
toward the building, clam rake over his shoulder.
He passed within a few feet of the men, but did
not see them.
“Oh dear! Oh dear!” he kept mumbling. “I
hope nothin’s happened to the lassies!”
He found George still digging feverishly at the
pile of debris.
“Salty!” the girl cried. “I can’t find Nancy!
She must be buried!”
The old man began raking furiously at the pile
of plaster that blocked the corridor. At that mo-
ment Nancy was lying stunned on the floor of a
closet some distance from where her friends were
working. The force of the explosion had hurled
her into the large storage closet, then the door had
slammed shut. The corridor ceiling had fallen,