Free Treasure Sleuth by Amy Shaw Page A

asked trying to keep his cool as he opened her door. "What would it take to make it good?"
    Before she had chance to reply Mark's phone interrupted with its multi-tone alert.
    "What's the response?" Abby asked.
    "It's another offer. Two hundred and fifty."
    "Wow, they've come back with another fifty?"
    "No, this is a new offer, from a new bidder! This is good. This is really good."
    Mark replied back to Mr. Lyon's text simply saying, "That's great news you know what to do. See how far you can push."
    Mark pressed the car's flashing red starter button and the engine roared into life. Pulling out into the lane, he suggested they get some lunch in Exeter before heading back to the lighthouse to plan their nighttime raid.
     

11

The Sahara Find
     
     
    As the sleek black Jaguar rumbled through the quietness of Hope Cove, Abby looked down on the glistening flat calm sea and fresh yellow sands.
    "You know, there's something I've been itching to do since you told me about Grandpa finding all those rings," she said.
    "Oh yeah?" Mark enquired.
    "I want to have a go detecting on that beach. I want to know what it feels like."
    "What what feels like?"
    "You know, finding something that has been lost."
    "Well, we have a few hours to kill so let's go together and I'll show you what to do."
    Mark was carefully leaning the metal detector up against the outside wall of the lighthouse when Abby stepped out of the cottage. Mark lost his concentration and the long handled sand scoop made a loud clang as the metal crashed to the floor. For the first time Mark look flustered. Abby was wearing a bright white bikini under a black lace dress. "You look amazing," he said as he held up an underwater machine.
    "Thank you," she said smiling.
    "You may be a tad under dressed for our climate," Mark said. "It's not quite summer yet."
    "Are you complaining?"
    "No, not at all. Hey, as long as you're warm enough it's perfectly fine with me!" Mark said flirtatiously.
    "Is that for me?" Abby asked.
    "I selected the underwater one but I wasn't expecting you to actually go in the water."
    "I will if you will," she said seductively.
    Mark was wearing blue shorts with a white short sleeved buttoned shirt. Not the most ideal for underwater searching, but then again, not as bad as his usual jeans and t-shirt.
    Walking down the lifeboat slipway Mark was scanning the few tourists on the sands. Hope Cove's main appeal was its location, hidden away from the normal tourist routes. The beach is always fairly empty compared to the hustle and bustle of main beaches. This means the finds are more scarce, but normally of a better quality.
    "So how does this work?" asked Abby.
    "Most machines send one signal into the ground to detect metal. A middle frequency is an ok all-rounder but they can miss thin metal like necklaces or deep finds like heavy rings. Plus, the salt water from the sea can give false signals. This is a multi-frequency machine which means it sends loads of different readings into the ground simultaneously and can detect the really thin stuff, and the really deep stuff at the same time, while ignoring junk and getting no false signals."
    "This sounds complicated. How does it do that?"
    "I have no idea, it is too complicated for me," Mark smiled. "There are just these four knobs and three of them are already set, so your discrimination is ready. All you need to do is turn this and it's on, then use the same control to adjust the volume."
    "What's discrimination?"
    "There is a lot of metal under beaches. The problem is thin aluminum like drink cans and pull tabs and silver foil give the same readings as gold and silver so you can't discriminate against those. But we can discriminate against nails and rusty bits of crap that have been washed up from a million different places over the years. Don't worry about all that. It's a complicated machine but the only thing you need to focus on are two sounds. A low pitched grumble means the signal is most likely iron so