As the two men disappeared back over the rise, Lugh bellowed to the other gremlins, “Well, what are you standing there for, with your mouths hanging open? Back to work, all of you, before I turn you into toadstools.”
Gremlins seemed to sprout out of the sand everywhere and hustled about busily. O’Rigami began to unfold his kite once more, just as calmly as if nothing had ever disturbed him.
“Lugh, me princely protector,” Baneen called out, “You wouldn’t be wanting that great heap of sand to stay there, would you now?”
“Well said. Get rid of it, trickster. And the beast’s tracks, too.”
Baneen smiled happily and danced a small circle around himself. “Ah yes, we wouldn’t want them that near us, again, would we? Even to cover their own tracks.”
Rolf looked up and saw the pile of sand growing dim and shimmering in the heat from the blazing sun. Before he could blink three times, the little mountain had completely disappeared. And so had the tracks of the bulldozer’s caterpillar treads.
“Won’t they wonder how their tracks vanished?” Rolf asked.
“Ah, no, lad,” Baneen answered lightly. “Men never question their good luck. It’s only the bad luck they wonder about.”
“Maybe you ought to leave the tracks, though,” said Rolf. “So I’ve got something to show to the authorities when I report this.”
“Report? Report, lad? Sure, and there’s nothing to report,” said Baneen, hastily. “Their murderous machine’s nothing but a pile of rust now, and the villains themselves have gone. Or, indeed, maybe they were no villains at all, but a couple of humans from the ranger station down the beach a ways, just doing their jobs.”
Mr. Sheperton growled, swinging his head about so that he and Baneen stood nose to nose, almost touching.
“Why were they so anxious to get away before the next patrol plane came over, then, might I ask?”
“That’s right,” said Rolf.
“Hmm, they did say something like that, didn’t they?” Baneen cocked his head to one side, as if thinking. “Scalawags! To think they’d push sand into our Hollow, our one little wee spot on the whole face of this vast and watery… But come, come, there’s wisdom in letting well enough alone. They’re gone now.”
“But you can’t let them get away with doing something like that, here in the very heart of the Wildlife Preserve,” said Rolf. “I’ve just got to report them. What if they come back?”
“Ah, now, they won’t be back at all, at all,” said Baneen.
“How do you know?” Rolf demanded.
“Well, it’s my gremlinish second sight tells me. Indeed—” Baneen closed his eyes and touched his nose thoughtfully with the tip of one green finger. “I see the Hollow here… and the beach… tomorrow… and the next day…” He opened his eyes. “No sign of the rascals or another such fearful mechanical monster. You can rest easy, lad, and not trouble yourself further.”
“Why,” demanded Rolf, “are you so set against me reporting them?”
“Yes,” rumbled Mr. Sheperton. “Answer that, will you? You’re not telling everything you know. No more gremlin trickery, Baneen. Who are these men, and what are they up to?”
“And what makes you think I’d know?” Baneen said.
“I know you know,” the dog answered.
“Do you now?”
“Yes I do.”
“Hmp! These English and their superior airs.”
Mr. Sheperton growled, low and menacing. Baneen danced away from him and skipped behind Rolf.
“Well now… I’m not saying that there’s anything I know for certain. But—well, sure and it’ll do no harm to show you something.”
Baneen trotted out toward the far edge of the Hollow, and Rolf followed him up the slope, across a couple of sandy little hillocks, and out toward the beach.
Padding along beside Rolf, Mr. Sheperton grumbled, “That little green rascal knows far more than he’s told us.”
“But,” Rolf said, squinting against the glare of the dazzling sun that beat off the white sand, “If he really knew what was going on, would he have let the bulldozer get so close to nearly burying the Hollow?”
Mr. Sheperton seemed to shake his head. “There’s no telling what a gremlin will do—except that it will be bad for any humans nearby.”
Rolf turned to stare at Baneen, just ahead. The boy could hear the hissing boom of the surf now, and felt the tangy salt breeze on his face. He started to run up toward where Baneen was, but the gremlin turned and put a finger to his lips, waving at Rolf to get down.
Bursting with curiosity, Rolf crawled on his stomach up to the top of the dune. Laid flat out, he peered through the grass. Mr. Sheperton lay beside him, panting wetly in his ear.
At first glance, the beach looked perfectly ordinary. But then Rolf saw that someone had dug a narrow channel into the beach, and put a sort of bridge over it. The bridge was covered with a thin layer of sand. The surf was breaking far out in the water, at least a hundred yards before the channel.
“Somebody’s built a breakwater out there, like an underwater sandbar,” Rolf said.
“Yes,” agreed Mr. Sheperton. “And a place to bring in a boat and hide it under that sand bridge.”
“Camouflage.”
The putt-putting of an engine made Rolf turn his head toward the right. A boat was puffing through the sea, heading straight for the disguised channel. As the three of them watched, the boat came in and two grimy looking sailors in tattered shirts and shorts leaped from its deck and tied it securely to the posts that held up the bridge.
“They’re the villains that sent the mechanical beast at us,” Mr. Sheperton muttered. “They wanted more sand to cover their bridge and dump into their breakwater.”
Another man appeared on the ship’s deck. He was chunky and fat-faced. He wore a blue jacket and white slacks, and even had a perky little captain’s hat perched on his head. He squealed orders at the two sailors, who were now back on the boat, sweating and struggling with heavy boxes.
“Come on, come on,” the captain piped at them in a nasty nasal, high-pitched voice. “I want all the telescopes and binoculars stored away here so we can use all our space to carry people on the day of the launch. Move it, move it!”
“So that’s it,” Mr. Sheperton said. “He’s the one that your father was worrying about. Bringing in tourists to watch the launch from here on the beach.”
“There must be more to it than that, though,” said Rolf. “They wouldn’t go to that much trouble for a boatload of tourists two or three times a year.”
“Quite right! How about that, you gremlin?” Mr. Sheperton demanded of Baneen.
“Ah well,” said Baneen uncomfortably, “sure and the one in the sailor hat there does bring in people with guns to hunt and fish, now and then.”
Rolf felt suddenly sick—in his mind’s eye he saw images of the brown pelican and the young piglets, bloody and slaughtered.
“But this is a Preserve!” he said, fiercely. “It’s the one little piece of the environment around here that’s protected! And you say I shouldn’t report someone like that?”
“But we’ve never let them harm the wee beasts and birds,” said Baneen, hastily. “Not since we’ve been here has one of his hunters gained a single prey—”
“That doesn’t make any difference!” said Rolf. “I don’t care what you’ve been doing. I’m reporting this man and his crew.”
“No lad, you can’t!” said Baneen. “Listen to me, now. We mustn’t have police and rangers and suchlike stamping up and down the beach here and tramping all over our Hollow.”
“I’m sorry,” said Rolf. “But this is one thing I just have to do.”
“But you’ll listen to me for a moment before doing it, won’t you?” pleaded Baneen. “Wait, Rolf, just a second whilst I bring you one who can plead our desperate case better than myself…”