"I'll drive down to his place on the river and talk with him," she told Hannah Gruen. "He might also know something about the Heath estate."

            Nancy invited Bess to go along and proceeded toward the river. Salty's home was very quaint. Once it had been a small, attractive yacht. Now it was a beached wreck, weathered by sun and rain. Its only claim to any former glory was the flag which flew proudly from the afterdeck.

            "Anyone here?" Nancy called.

            "Come in, come in!" the former sailor invited. He was sitting with his feet up on a built-in table and eating beans out of a can.

            When he saw the girls, he stood up. "Ye honor me, comin' here," he said, his blue eyes twinkling. "But I'm goin' to have to disappoint ye. I've nary a clam today."

            "Oh. we didn't come to buy clams," Nancy replied, glancing curiously at the furnishings of the yacht. The room was small and cluttered, but very clean. Salty's bunk was neatly made. On a shelf above it was an amazing array of sea shells.

            "I collect 'em," the sailor explained, following Nancy's gaze. "Some o' those shells came from the Orient, an' some from right here in the Muskoka."

            He walked over to the shelf and pointed to a curious specimen. "That's called the washboard clam. It's one o' the biggest of our river clams. And this is a whelk from the seashore. You can get dye out of it when the critter's fresh."

            "How interesting!" the girls exclaimed.

            Pleased by their attention, the man showed them other shells which were too large to stand on the narrow shelf. One, measuring three feet across, had come from an island in the Pacific.

            Nancy grinned. "What a pearl that might hold!" She told of her own loss, saying she was glad the pearl was not large and valuable.