absurdity of it. What difference did it make if he had discovered they were gone;

He couldn’t possibly have replaced them in this length of time. And he was here, wasn’t he? This was the reason I’d sabotaged the spares rather than the set he was using—to head off any possibility he might be in town replacing them when I came back. Everything was right according to plan. I replaced my divots and returned to the pair on the chest of drawers.

Picking them up, I held them against the palm of my left hand while I hit each of the lenses a smart rap with the back of my knife. They cracked all the way through, but did not shatter. I replaced them carefully, turning them a little so they would be in profile to anyone on the other side of the room or near the door.

Now to set the stage. I stepped to the door and looked out. He was only partly visible through the screen of foliage. I went back to the shed, squatted under the bench, and lifted down the cereal carton. The two packages of tens were still in it. Hurrying back to his garbage dump, I gathered up the bits of hardware from the burned suitcase. I took everything into the cabin. Clearing the kitchen table of its accumulation of syrup-smeared dirty dishes, I moved it slightly toward the center of the room and put a chair beside it.

I set the pieces of blackened hardware on the table, spread out a little as if I had been examining them, and lifted the money from the carton. One package of the tens I left in its paper binder, but the other, which had the stain along the edge, I opened, preserving the band intact, and scattered loosely on the surface. I stood back and surveyed it. It made quite an impressive picture. There was nothing to do now but wait. I located a dirty plate to use for an ash-tray, lit a cigarette and sat down. I hoped he didn’t fish too long. Now that everything was ready, I wanted to get on with it; inactivity was going to make me nervous.

In about twenty minutes I heard the motor start. But he was only moving to a new location further along the weed bed. I cursed impatiently. Another fifteen minutes dragged by. The motor started again, and this time when I looked out I saw him headed in toward the cove. All right, I thought; here we go. Make it good, pal.

I stepped out the door and went around to the side of the cabin. I heard him cut the motor to glide into the cove, and then in a minute his footsteps as he came up the path toward the cabin. I let him draw nearer. There seemed only a remote chance he’d be silly enough to try to shoot me with that gun, but I wanted to be near enough to stop him in the event of that being an unwarranted assumption on my part. He was very near the door now. I stepped around the corner right in front of him.

“Mr. Cliffords?” I asked. “Mr. Walter E. Cliffords?”

He stopped short, holding the spinning rod in one hand and a very large bass on a stringer in the other. The guileless blue eyes went round with amazement. He looked like a startled baby.

“What’s that?” he asked blankly.

“Are you Mr. Cliffords?” I repeated.

“Sure,” he said, recovering a little. He frowned at me as if I were a trifle dense. Who else would he be? “I’m the only one that lives here,” he explained. “What you want?”

I took one more step forward and brought the black identification folder out of the pocket of my jacket.

“My name’s Ward,” I said, flipping it open briefly before bis face and then closing it again. “Federal Bureau of Investigation. You’re under arrest, Mr. Cliffords.”

”Arrest?” The baby eyes went even rounder.

His mouth fell open and he dropped the rod and the fish to the ground. I tensed up, but he was only shoving his hands into the air. He held them stiffly at arms’ length above his head.

This seemed a trifle on the dramatic side, but it was all right with me. Then, so suddenly he took me by surprise, he moved. He took a step backward, turned to face the wall of the cabin, and tilted himself forward and off balance until he was supported by bis outstretched hands against the