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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Navy Boys Behind the Big Guns, by Halsey
+Davidson, Illustrated by R. Emmett Owen
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Navy Boys Behind the Big Guns
+       Sinking the German U-Boats
+
+
+Author: Halsey Davidson
+
+
+
+Release Date: March 11, 2006  [eBook #17967]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NAVY BOYS BEHIND THE BIG GUNS***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Brian Sogard, Emmy, and the Project Gutenberg Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net/)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustration.
+      See 17967-h.htm or 17967-h.zip:
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/7/9/6/17967/17967-h/17967-h.htm)
+      or
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+
+
+
+
+
+NAVY BOYS BEHIND THE BIG GUNS
+
+Or
+
+Sinking the German U-Boats
+
+by
+
+HALSEY DAVIDSON
+
+Author of
+"Navy Boys after the Submarines," "Navy Boys
+Chasing a Sea Raider," Etc.
+
+Illustrated
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+New York
+George Sully & Company
+Publishers
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: The gunners were literally "stripped for action," their
+glistening supple bodies alert as panthers.]
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+BOOKS FOR BOYS
+
+
+NAVY BOYS SERIES
+
+BY HALSEY DAVIDSON
+
+12mo. Cloth. Illustrated
+
+          NAVY BOYS AFTER THE SUBMARINES
+          Or Protecting the Giant Convoy
+
+          NAVY BOYS CHASING A SEA RAIDER
+          Or Landing a Million Dollar Prize
+
+          NAVY BOYS BEHIND THE BIG GUNS
+          Or Sinking the German U-Boats
+
+          NAVY BOYS TO THE RESCUE
+          Or Answering the Wireless Call for Help
+
+          NAVY BOYS AT THE BIG SURRENDER
+          Or Rounding Up the German Fleet
+
+          THE NAVY BOYS ON SPECIAL SERVICE
+          Or Guarding the Floating Treasury
+
+          GEORGE SULLY & COMPANY
+          PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
+
+
+          COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY
+          GEORGE SULLY & COMPANY
+
+
+          _Navy Boys Chasing a Sea Raider_
+
+
+          PRINTED IN U.S.A.
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+NAVY BOYS BEHIND THE BIG GUNS
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER                          PAGE
+
+    I  A RUN TO ELMVALE             1
+
+   II  THE STRANGER                11
+
+  III  THE WATER WHEEL             19
+
+   IV  S. P. 888                   27
+
+    V  THE STREAK ON THE WATER     38
+
+   VI  AN OLD FRIEND               44
+
+  VII  FOG HAUNTED                 54
+
+ VIII  PUZZLED                     64
+
+   IX  JUST TOO LATE               74
+
+    X  AHEAD OF THE FLOOD          81
+
+   XI  UNEXPECTED PERIL            90
+
+  XII  COURAGE                    100
+
+ XIII  THE KENNEBUNK SAILS        106
+
+  XIV  AN UNEXPECTED TARGET       115
+
+   XV  THE BIG GUN SPEAKS         127
+
+  XVI  AN ACCIDENT                135
+
+ XVII  BLOWN UP                   144
+
+XVIII  MORE TROUBLE               155
+
+  XIX  COINCIDENCE                162
+
+   XX  THE WITCH'S WARNING        173
+
+  XXI  THE EXPLANATION            180
+
+ XXII  THE RACE                   190
+
+XXIII  UNDER SPECIAL ORDERS       196
+
+ XXIV  TICK-TOCK! TICK-TOCK!      204
+
+  XXV  IN THE THICK OF THE FIGHT  211
+
+
+
+
+NAVY BOYS BEHIND THE
+BIG GUNS
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+A RUN TO ELMVALE
+
+
+When Philip Morgan announced his approach by an unusually cheerful
+strain, Al Torrance was already behind the steering wheel of his
+father's car, with the engine purring smoothly.
+
+"'Lo, Whistler," Al said. "Thought you had forgotten where we planned to
+go this morning. What made you so late?"
+
+"'Lo, Torry. Never hit the hay till after one. Just talking. My jaws
+ache," Morgan broke off his whistling long enough to say.
+
+"Sure it isn't whistling that's made your jaws ache?" queried his chum
+slyly. "Not having had much chance to pipe up while we were aboard ship,
+I guess you are making up for lost time."
+
+"Talking, I tell you," returned Morgan. "Thought the girls never would
+let me stop. And father, too. Mother won't own up she's reconciled to my
+being in the Navy," and Whistler grinned suddenly. "But she listened to
+all I told them, too. She was just as eager to hear about it as Phoebe
+and Alice."
+
+"Guess you made yourself out to be some tough garby," chuckled Torrance,
+using the term the seamen themselves employ to designate a sailor.
+
+"Oh, I gave 'em an earful," Whistler agreed, and puckered his lips
+again.
+
+"Come on and get in," ordered Torry impatiently. "Pa's got to use the
+car this afternoon. But he says we can have it to run over to Elmvale
+in, if we want."
+
+"Where are Frenchy and Ikey?" Whistler broke off in his tune again to
+ask.
+
+"Going to wait for us down on High Street--and Seven Knott, too."
+
+"Did Hansie say he'd go?" cried the other sailor boy. "Bet he's sore as
+he can be because he's not with the _Colodia_ and Lieutenant Lang."
+
+"He'd never 've taken this furlough, he says, if his mother hadn't
+begged so hard. Did you ever see a garby so stuck on a gold stripe as
+Seven Knott is on Lieutenant Commander Lang?" said Torry, rather
+scornfully.
+
+"I don't know. Mr. Lang has been a good friend to Hans Hertig. This is
+his second hitch under Mr. Lang," Whistler said.
+
+"Wonder if we'll enlist a second time, too, Whistler."
+
+"Bet you!" was the succinct reply.
+
+The car started under Torry's careful guidance, and they quickly whisked
+around the corner into the main street of Seacove, the small port in
+which the chums had been born and had lived all their lives until they
+had enlisted as seamen apprentices in the Navy not many months before.
+
+They passed the little cottage in which Mrs. Hertig, Seven Knott's
+mother, lived. Beyond that was the Donahue home, where Frenchy's widowed
+mother lived with his younger brothers and sisters.
+
+Then came the Rosenmeyer delicatessen shop, and there the car was pulled
+down by Torry, for there was a little group outside the shop, the center
+of which were three figures in blue.
+
+"Look at those happy Jacks, will you?" ejaculated Torry in feigned
+disgust. "Got an audience, haven't they? And even Seven Knott must be
+talking some, too. What do you know about that?"
+
+For the attitude of Seacove had changed mightily since these boys had
+joined the Navy early in 1917. War had been declared between the United
+States and Germany and her allies, the drafted men were being called to
+the training camps, and some had already gone "over there" and were
+fighting in the trenches of northern France.
+
+Philip Morgan, Alfred Torrance, Michael Donahue, Ikey Rosenmeyer, and
+their mates on the destroyer _Colodia_ had already aided in convoying a
+large number of troop ships across the Atlantic, had chased submarines
+and destroyed at least one of the enemy U-boats, and had hunted for and
+captured the German raider, _Graf von Posen_, which had among the other
+loot in her hold the treasure of the Borgias which had been purchased
+from an Italian nobleman by the four Navy boys' very good friend, Mr.
+Alonzo Minnette.
+
+The four friends, Morgan, Torrance, Donahue, and Ikey Rosenmeyer, the
+son of the proprietor of the village delicatessen store, had been given
+a furlough since landing at Norfolk with the captured raider, of the
+prize crew of which they had been members. Coming north to Seacove
+by train, they had met their shipmate, Hans Hertig, known aboard the
+_Colodia_ as Seven Knott, who had likewise been given a furlough after
+leaving the naval hospital where he had been convalescing from a wound.
+
+The _Colodia_ was still at sea--or across the Atlantic--or somewhere.
+The young seamen who belonged to her crew did not know where. They
+awaited her return to port in order to rejoin her.
+
+They had another iron in the fire, too; but that they did not talk about
+much, even among themselves. Mr. Minnette, who was their very good
+friend, and who worked now in a War Department office at Washington in a
+lay capacity, had told them he would try his best to get them aboard a
+new superdreadnaught that was just out of the yard and was being fitted
+for her maiden cruise.
+
+A number of Naval Reserves would be put aboard this new huge ship; and
+the Seacove boys, with their experience in the training school at
+Saugarack and aboard the _Colodia_, surely would be of some use as
+temporary members of the dreadnaught's crew.
+
+The boys had written Mr. Minnette about Seven Knott, for he was eager to
+get back into harness, too. And Seven Knott had held the rank of
+boatswain's mate aboard the _Colodia_.
+
+Naturally the friends were all eager to get behind the big guns. Almost
+every boy who joins the Navy desires to become a gunner. Whistler and Al
+Torrance were particularly striving for that position, and they studied
+the text-books and took every opportunity offered them to gain knowledge
+in that branch of the service.
+
+"Hi, fellows!" called Torry, having stopped the car. "Going to stand
+there gassing all day?"
+
+The three figures in seaman's dress broke away from their admiring friends
+and approached the automobile. Frenchy Donahue was a little fellow with
+pink cheeks, bright eyes, and an Irish smile. Ikey Rosenmeyer was a shrewd
+looking lad who always had a fund of natural fun on tap. The older man,
+Hans Hertig, was round-faced and solemn looking, and seldom had much to
+say. He had had an adventurous experience both as a fisherman and naval
+seaman, and really attracted more attention in his home town than did the
+four boy chums.
+
+"Get in, fellows," urged Torry. "We want to be sure to catch those chaps
+at Elmvale during the noon hour. They go home from the munition works
+for dinner, and we must talk with them then."
+
+Frenchy and Ikey and Seven Knott climbed into the tonneau and the car
+whizzed away, leaving the crowd of boys and girls, and a few adults,
+staring after them.
+
+"By St. Patrick's piper that played the last snake out of Ireland!"
+sighed Frenchy, ecstatically, "we never was of such importance since we
+was christened--hey, fellows?"
+
+"Oi, oi!" murmured Ikey, wagging his head, "my papa don't even suggest
+I should take out the orders to the customers no more. He does it himself,
+or he hires a feller to do it for him.
+
+"Mind, now! Last night he closed the shop an hour early so's to sit down
+with my mama and me and Aunt Eitel in the back room, after the kids was
+all in bed, and made me tell about all we'd done and seen. I tell you
+it's great!"
+
+"And before we began our hitch," Al Torrance chuckled, as he expertly
+rounded a corner, "we were scarcely worth speaking to in Seacove. Now
+folks want to stop us on the street and tell us how much they think of
+us."
+
+"Gee!" exploded Frenchy, "I could eat candy and ice cream all day long
+if I'd let the kids spend money on me."
+
+"We're sure some pumpkins," drawled Whistler Morgan, dryly, sitting
+around in the front seat so he could talk with those in the rear.
+"I say, Hans!"
+
+"Yep?" was Seven Knott's reply.
+
+"Do you really think we can get some of those fellows at Elmvale to go
+to the recruiting office and enlist?"
+
+"Yep. You fellows can tell 'em. You can talk better'n I can."
+
+Seven Knott knew his shipboard duties thoroughly, and never was
+reprimanded for neglect of them. But since the four chums had known him
+well, the petty officer had been no conversationalist, that was sure.
+
+"If this war was going to be won by talk, like some fellows in Congress
+seem to think," Al Torrance once said, "Seven Knott wouldn't have a
+chance. But it is roughnecks just like him that man the boats and shoot
+the guns that are going to show Kaiser Bill where he gets off--believe
+me!"
+
+Elmvale was a factory town not more than six miles above Seacove. It was
+on the river, at the mouth of which was situated the little port in
+which were the homes of Whistler Morgan and his friends.
+
+The biggest dam in the State, the Elmvale Dam, held back the waters of
+the river above the village; and below the dam were several big mills
+and factories that got their power from the use of the water.
+
+On both sides of the stream, and around the cotton mills, the thread
+mills, and the munition factories, were built many little homes of the
+factory and mill hands. It had been pointed out by the local papers that
+these homes were in double peril at this time.
+
+Guards were on watch night and day that ill-affected persons should not
+come into the district and blow up the munition factories. But there was
+a second and greater danger to the people of Elmvale.
+
+If anything should happen to the dam, if it should burst, the enormous
+quantity of water held in leash by the structure would pour over the
+village and cover half the houses to their chimney tops.
+
+Two bridges crossed the river at Elmvale; one at the village proper and
+the other just below the dam itself and about half a mile from the first
+mill, Barron & Brothers' Thread Factory.
+
+"Let's take the upper road," proposed Frenchy, as the car came within
+sight of the chimneys of the Elmvale mills. "We've plenty of time before
+the noon whistle blows. I haven't been up by the dam since before we all
+joined the Navy."
+
+"Just as you fellows say," Al responded, and turned into a side road
+that soon brought them above the mills on the ridge overlooking the
+valley.
+
+"I say, fellows," Whistler stopped whistling long enough to observe,
+"there's a slue of water behind that dam. S'pose she should let go all
+of a sudden?"
+
+"I'd rather be up here than down there," Al said.
+
+"Oi, oi!" croaked Ikey, "you said something."
+
+"I wonder if they guard that dam as they say they do the munition
+factories," Frenchy put in.
+
+Al turned the machine into the road that descended into the valley by a
+sharp incline. In sight of the bridge which crossed the river Whistler
+suddenly put his hand upon his chum's arm.
+
+"Hold on, Torry," he said earnestly. "I bet that's one of the guards
+now. See that fellow in the bushes over there?"
+
+"I see the man you mean!" Frenchy exclaimed, leaning over the back of
+the front seat of the automobile. "But he isn't in khaki. And he hasn't
+got a gun."
+
+All the Navy boys in the automobile, even Seven Knott, saw the man to
+whom Whistler Morgan had first drawn attention. The man had his back to
+the road. He was standing upright with a pair of field glasses to his
+eyes. His interest seemed fixed on a point along the face of the dam
+just where a thin slice of water ran over the flashboard into the rocky
+bed of the river.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE STRANGER
+
+
+For the life of him Phil Morgan could not have told why he was so keenly
+interested in that stranger. He could not see the man's face; he did not
+presume it was anybody he had ever seen before; nor had he any reason to
+be suspicious of the man.
+
+Nevertheless he felt a little thrill as he first caught sight of the
+stranger, and this feeling spurred his exclamation to Torry, which lead
+the others' attention to him.
+
+After they had all seen the man, Phil added: "Pull her down. Let's see
+what he is up to."
+
+Torrance stopped the automobile. His chum was their acknowledged leader
+in most things, and all the other Navy boys were used to obeying Phil
+Morgan's mandates without much question. As told in the former books of
+this series, Morgan was an observant and level-headed youth, and his
+friends might have followed a much more dangerous leader in both work
+and play.
+
+The four boys, at that time all under eighteen years of age, had begun
+their first enlistment in the Navy several months before the United
+States got into the war. They spent some months in the training camp at
+Saugarack, on the New England coast.
+
+The Government commissioned new craft of all kinds as rapidly as they
+could be obtained, and was obliged to man some of them partly with
+youths who had not yet finished their preliminary training ashore.
+
+Phil Morgan and his friends had made rapid progress in their studies and
+the drills, and they were lucky enough to be assigned to the same ship.
+This was the destroyer _Colodia_, one of the newest of her class, a fast
+ship of a thousand tons' burden. She made two cruises, both crammed full
+of excitement and adventure; and the story of these cruises is related
+in the first volume of the series, entitled "Navy Boys After the
+Submarines; Or, Protecting the Giant Convoy."
+
+In this first narrative of their adventures in the United States Navy,
+Phil had a very thrilling experience. He fell overboard from his ship
+and was picked up by the German U-boat No. 812.
+
+After the conclusion of the destroyer's second cruise the four chums
+from Seacove were enabled to spend a week at home. Returning to the
+port in which they had been instructed to join the _Colodia_ the
+evening before she again was to sail, the four chums were held up by a
+burning railroad bridge, which had been set on fire by German agents.
+
+It looked as though they would be unable to reach the _Colodia_ on time.
+This event would be a very serious matter, for the naval authorities
+frown upon any tardiness of enlisted men in returning from shore leave.
+Besides, the boys particularly desired to be aboard the _Colodia_ during
+her coming cruise.
+
+The second volume of the series opened with this situation. The boys
+made the acquaintance of an influential man, Mr. Alonzo Minnette, who
+was likewise a passenger on the stalled train. And he made it possible
+for the four apprentice seamen to reach their ship in time.
+
+In this second volume entitled: "Navy Boys Chasing a Sea Raider; Or,
+Landing a Million Dollar Prize," the four young members of the
+_Colodia's_ crew, whose adventures we are following, had many thrilling
+experiences. In the end, the destroyer, by a ruse, captured the _Graf
+von Posen_, a noted sea raider, and Whistler and his chums are allowed
+to board her as part of the prize crew.
+
+The boys were particularly interested in the cargo of the raider, for
+Mr. Minnette had promised them a thousand dollars to divide among them
+if they discovered aboard the raider the treasure of the Borgias, a
+collection of precious stones, that the captain of the _Graf von Posen_
+had taken from an Italian merchant ship which had been captured and sunk
+by the Germans.
+
+Naturally the Navy boys were interested in having others join the Navy;
+and Hans Hertig, whom they found at home visiting his mother, was
+particularly anxious to get some young men, who were working in Elmvale
+and who came of German stock like himself, to enlist and show their
+patriotism and love for the country of their birth.
+
+"Say! what do you suppose is the matter with that chap?" Frenchy
+demanded at last in his rather high, penetrating voice.
+
+Instantly the man in the bushes turned and saw the automobile. Like a
+flash he settled down in his tracks and disappeared. One moment he was a
+plain figure standing out against the background of the dam; the next he
+was not there at all!
+
+"By St. Patrick's piper that played the last snake out of Ireland!"
+gasped Frenchy, "he ain't there no more."
+
+"You poor fish!" ejaculated Al in disgust, "you scared him off with your
+squealing. Who do you suppose he was?"
+
+"And what is he doing over there?" added Ikey Rosenmeyer.
+
+"Funny thing," observed Whistler. "Must be something important up on
+that dam he was looking at through his glasses."
+
+"Might as well drive on," growled Al, punching the starter button again.
+"This Frenchman from Cork would spoil anything."
+
+"Aw--g'wan!" muttered the abashed Michael Donahue.
+
+"Well, that chap was no guard, that is sure," Whistler said.
+
+They drove slowly on across the bridge. All of them searched the base of
+the dam--or as much of it as could be seen, for the fringe of trees and
+shrubs that masked it--but not a moving figure did they see. The water
+poured over the flashboard with a splashing murmur at that distance, and
+ran down under the bridge in a rocky bed. It was clear and cool looking.
+Below the factories the river water was of an entirely different color,
+and people in Seacove had begun to object to the filth from the Elmvale
+mills being dumped into the cove.
+
+Al Torrance stopped the car at the side gate of the biggest munition
+works just as the noon whistle blew. Seven Knott got out and began to
+look about for his friends to whom he had tried to talk enlistment.
+
+He soon spied two of them, and beckoned them near. Others followed.
+Whistler and his chums were introduced by the boatswain's mate, who left
+the talking to the youths after he had introduced his friends.
+
+In five minutes there was a very earnest enlistment meeting going on at
+the gate of the munition factory. Perhaps no harder place to gain
+recruits could have been selected. In the first instance, all the boys
+working here were earning big money. And there was, too, some excitement
+in the work. As one of them said:
+
+"You Jackies haven't anything on us. We don't know but any moment we may
+be blown sky-high."
+
+"True for you," put in Frenchy smartly. "But you don't get any fun out
+of your danger. We do. And we get promotion and steadily increased pay
+and a chance to get up in the world."
+
+"Sure!" broke in Al. "Some day we're all going to win gold stripes;
+aren't we, fellows?"
+
+His chums declared he was right. But one listener said doubtfully:
+
+"You won't ever win commissions if you get sunk or blown up, on one of
+those blamed old iron pots."
+
+"Say!" put in Ikey Rosenmeyer hotly, "you fellows won't get no advance
+in rating at all, and you may get blown up any time. We've got
+something to work for, we have!"
+
+"We've got money to work for," declared one of the munition workers.
+
+"Oi, oi!" sneered Ikey. "What's money yet?" A sneer which vastly amused
+his chums, for Ikey's inborn love for the root of all evil was well
+known.
+
+As the group stood talking, along came a man, walking briskly from the
+direction the Seacove boys had come in their automobile. Two or three of
+the munition workers spoke to the man, who was broad-shouldered, walked
+with a brisk military step, and was heavily bewhiskered.
+
+Whistler stopped talking to a possible candidate for the blue uniform of
+the Navy, and looked after this stranger.
+
+"Who is he?" he asked.
+
+"That's Blake. Works in our laboratory. Nice fellow," was the reply.
+
+"Oh! I didn't know but he was one of the men guarding the dam," Whistler
+murmured.
+
+"Shucks! there aren't any guards up there. There are soldiers here at
+the factories, though."
+
+"Is that so?" questioned Whistler. "Where's he been, do you suppose?"
+
+"Who? Blake?"
+
+"That man," said young Morgan grimly.
+
+"Oh, he's a bug on natural history, or the like. Always tapping rocks
+with a hammer, or hunting specimens, or botanizing. Great chap. Hasn't
+been here in Elmvale long. But everybody likes him."
+
+Phil made no further comment aloud, but to himself he said:
+
+"He wasn't botanizing through that field-glass; or knocking specimens
+off of rocks. His interest was centered on the face of the dam. I wonder
+why?"
+
+For the military looking man, called Blake, was the individual he and
+his friends had seen in the bushes as they drove along the Upper Road,
+and who had seemed desirous of being unobserved by the passers-by.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE WATER WHEEL
+
+
+Phil Morgan was no more suspicious by nature than his chums. Merely a
+thought had come into his mind that had not come into theirs; and he
+disliked to be annoyed by anything in the nature of an unsolved problem.
+He always wanted to know why.
+
+In this particular case he wished to know why the man called Blake had
+tried to hide himself in the clump of bushes beside the Upper Road when
+the automobile load of boys had come along and caught him examining the
+face of the Elmvale Dam through a field-glass.
+
+It was through a break in the trees that partly masked the dam the man
+had been looking, and Whistler knew that the spot in which he was
+interested must be directly beside the overflow of the dam--where the
+water splashed down into the rocky river bed.
+
+Whistler did not lose interest in the attempt to inspire some of the
+factory workers to enlist in the Navy, and he worked just as hard as his
+mates all through the noon hour. But the puzzle connected with the man
+named Blake continued to peck at his mind like an insistent chick trying
+to get out of its shell.
+
+Hans Hertig's desire to get some of his old friends to enlist bore some
+fruit. Three men promised to go down to the enlistment bureau on
+Saturday afternoon, when they had a half holiday.
+
+The Seacove party then wanted to go to a dining-room for dinner; but
+Whistler excused himself. He was hungry enough; but he "had other fish
+to fry," he whispered to Torrance.
+
+"Come around by the Upper Road--same way we got here," directed
+Whistler. "I'll meet you at the bridge. Wait if I'm not there."
+
+"What is the matter with you, Whistler?" demanded Al.
+
+But although Morgan went away without making answer, he knew that his
+chum would do as he was asked, and bluff off the others when they asked
+questions, too.
+
+Philip Morgan hurried past the factories and the few houses which lay in
+this direction. The land near the dam which had been built across the
+valley was so sterile that few people lived in this neighborhood.
+
+Up on the ridges, on either side, were farms; but this was a wild piece
+of scrub at the foot of the dam. One could jump a rabbit in it, or get
+up a flock of quail at almost any time during the hunting season.
+
+Like most boys of Seacove, as well as Elmvale, Whistler was familiar
+with this stretch of untamed ground and plunged into it with full
+knowledge of its tangled brier patches and rough quarries. He started
+diagonally for the dam, and in a brief time came to the edge of the
+shallow channel, which now carried the overflow of the huge reservoir
+behind the dam down to the cove.
+
+As he followed this stream, he could not help thinking of the
+possibility of a break occurring in the high wall of masonry which
+loomed ahead of him. If there should be any undiscovered weakness in the
+wall! Or if an enemy should sink a charge of dynamite, or some other
+high explosive, at the base of the dam and blow a hole through it!
+
+He did not see any one moving about the dam either above or below. He
+knew that on the ridge, level with the top of the barrier, lived a man
+they called the dam superintendent. He sometimes walked across the
+embankment, from end to end; a privilege forbidden to others.
+
+But Whistler was quite sure that this dam superintendent seldom went to
+the foot of the wall, or examined the face of it for any break in the
+stonework. Of course, the dam had stood secure for so many years that
+it seemed improbable that it would fail in any part now.
+
+But Whistler Morgan was not considering any leakage of the water through
+the masonry which might endanger the foundation of the dam. Such seepage
+must have shown itself long ago if the barrier had not been properly
+constructed.
+
+It was of a sudden, unexpected, and treacherous blow-out that the young
+sailor was thinking. That man in the bushes, who had seemed so desirous
+of hiding from the passers-by and whose interest in the face of the dam
+had been so marked, puzzled Phil and excited his suspicions.
+
+Blake. And Blake was an English name! He looked about as much like an
+Englishman as he, Whistler, looked like Dinkelspiel!
+
+"I have seen plenty of Britishers," thought the young fellow, "and not
+one of them ever looked like this chemist, or whatever he is. And he's a
+stranger--worked here only a month.
+
+"He was not tapping rocks or getting botanical specimens over here when
+we fellows came along the Upper Road. His interest was in this dam--if
+it was at long distance. I wonder if we ought to report him to the
+marshal's office.
+
+"And get him, if he's innocent of any wrongdoing, into hot water,"
+Whistler added, wagging his head. "Say! that won't do. We fellows came
+near getting poor Seven Knott into trouble, thinking him a German spy,"
+he added, referring to an incident mentioned in "Navy Boys After the
+Submarines."
+
+Thus meditating he drew nearer to the place where the flashboard was
+down and the water poured into the rocky river bed. There were stepping
+stones here, so it was easy for an agile person to get across the
+stream.
+
+A blue haze of spray rose from the foaming water on the rocks, and there
+sounded a pleasant murmur from the falling water. Birds darted in and
+out of this spray, fluttering their pinions in the bath thus provided.
+
+On this side of the waterfall Whistler could discover nothing on the
+face of the dam nor along its foot that seemed in the least suspicious.
+The masonry was perfect.
+
+He crossed the river bed, leaping from stone to stone, and stepped up so
+close to the falling water that the spray splashed him. It was somewhere
+about here, he thought, that the man, Blake, had focused his field-glass
+from the roadside.
+
+There was absolutely nothing out of the way here that he could see. The
+brush was kept cleared out at the foot of the dam for a dozen feet or
+so; there seemed to be no cover here. Not a stone had been overturned
+along this cleared path.
+
+The water splashed and bubbled at the foot of the fall. Did it seem to
+splash more vigorously just here at the edge of the pool, hidden by the
+spray in part, and partly by the overhang of a great rock on which
+Whistler stood?
+
+The observant youth stooped, then knelt beside the stream. The rock was
+wet and his garments were fast becoming saturated. But he paid no
+attention to this.
+
+There was something down there in the pool, at its edge, struggling
+beneath the surface. Not a fish, of course!
+
+Suddenly he thrust in his hand, wetting his sleeve to the elbow. Quickly
+he made sure that his suspicion was correct. There was some kind of
+water wheel whirling down there.
+
+He moved a flat stone which seemed to have lain for ages in its present
+position. Yet under that stone was the end of the wheel's axle with
+cogwheels rigged to pass on the power engendered by the wheel to some
+mechanical contrivance not yet placed.
+
+Whistler returned the flat rock back to its former position, and moved
+slowly back from the place on hands and knees. Then he stood up and
+looked all around to see if he had been observed. Particularly did he
+look through the break in the trees toward the spot where Blake, the
+stranger, had stood when Whistler and his friends had first spied him.
+
+There was nobody in sight as far as the young fellow could see. He moved
+back into the shelter of a clump of brush. He heard an automobile
+chugging up from the village and believed Al and the others were
+approaching the bridge where he had asked his chum to wait for him.
+
+But he lingered a bit. He was deeply moved by his discovery. This was no
+boy's plaything. The mechanism was the effort of a mature mind, perhaps
+the result of inventive genius of high quality.
+
+Some inventor might be secretly experimenting with water power here; and
+if Whistler told of his discovery he might be doing the unknown a grave
+wrong.
+
+Yet Blake's peculiar actions and the fact that the foot of the dam had
+been chosen for the experiment troubled the young fellow vastly.
+
+There was nothing along the wall, as far as he could see, or upon its
+face, that excited Whistler's further suspicion. Just that little water
+wheel under the rock whirling and splashing by the power of the falling
+stream. It was perfectly innocent in itself; yet Philip Morgan had never
+been more excited and troubled in his life.
+
+He went slowly back to the road and found the car waiting on the bridge.
+The other boys were loud in their demands as to what he had been doing,
+and Frenchy and Ikey did their best to pump information out of him.
+
+"What for did you go up there to the dam yet?" demanded Ikey.
+
+"Cat's fur, to make kittens' breeches," declared Whistler. "Because
+I couldn't get any dog fur. Now do you know?"
+
+And this was all the satisfaction there was to be got out of their
+leader at this particular time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+S. P. 888
+
+
+The result of the boys' campaign for recruits to the Navy was very
+encouraging. They had been to places besides Elmvale; and several of
+their old friends in Seacove were getting into one branch or another of
+the service.
+
+Many of the young men in the neighborhood, of course, were of draft age;
+but, being longshore bred, they naturally preferred salt water service.
+So they enlisted before the time came for them to answer the call of
+their several draft boards.
+
+The interest of our four friends, and of Seven Knott even, was not
+entirely centered in this patriotic duty of urging others into the
+service. Their release from duty might end any day. Under ordinary
+circumstances the chum would have been assigned before this to some
+patrol vessel, or the like, until their own ship, the _Colodia_, made
+port.
+
+Mr. Minnette, however, was trying to place them on the _Kennebunk_, the
+new superdreadnaught, for a short cruise. If he succeeded the friends
+might be obliged to pack their kits and leave home again at almost any
+hour. The _Kennebunk_ was fitting out in a port not fifty miles from
+Seacove.
+
+Meanwhile the chums were "having the time of their young sweet lives,"
+Al Torrance observed more than once. The home folks had never before
+considered these rather harum-scarum boys of so much importance as now
+that they were in the Navy and becoming real "Old Salts." From Doctor
+Morgan down to Ikey's youngest brother the relatives and friends of the
+quartette treated them with much consideration.
+
+To tell the truth it had not been patriotism that had carried Ikey
+Rosenmeyer and his friends into the Navy. At that time the United States
+was not in the war, and the four friends had thought little of the pros
+and cons of the world struggle.
+
+They thought they had had enough school, and there was no steady and
+congenial work for them about Seacove. Entering the Navy had been a lark
+in the offing.
+
+As soon as they had joined, they found that they had entered another
+school, and one much more severe and thorough than the Seacove High
+School. They were learning something pretty nearly all the time, both in
+the training school and aboard the _Colodia_. And there was much to
+learn.
+
+However, Whistler and Al took the work more seriously than their
+younger mates. They were studying gunnery, and hoped to get into the gun
+crew of the _Kennebunk_ for practice if they were fortunate enough to
+cruise on that ship. Just at present Frenchy and Ikey Rosenmeyer were
+more engaged in getting all the fun possible out of existence.
+
+The thing that delighted the latter most was the way in which his father
+treated him. Mr. Rosenmeyer had been a stern parent, and had opposed
+Ikey's desire to enlist in the Navy. He always declared he needed the
+boy to help in the store and to take out orders. Ikey had got so that he
+fairly hated the store and its stock in trade. Pigs feet and sauerkraut
+and dill pickles were the bane of his life.
+
+Now that he was at home on leave, Mr. Rosenmeyer would not let Ikey help
+at all in the store. If a customer came in, the fat little storekeeper
+heaved himself up from his armchair and bade Ikey sit still.
+
+"Nein! It iss not for you, Ikey. Don't bodder 'bout the store yet. We
+haf changed de stock around, anyvay, undt you could not find it,
+p'r'aps, vot de lady vants. Tell us again, Ikey, apout shootin' de
+camouflage off de German raider-poat, de _Graf von Posen_. Mebby-so de
+lady ain't heardt apout it yet. I didn't see it in de paper
+meinselluf."
+
+So Ikey, thus urged, spun the most wonderful yarns regarding his
+adventures; and he was not obliged to "draw the long bow"; for the
+experiences of him and his three friends had been exciting indeed.
+
+Mr. Rosenmeyer had become as thoroughly patriotic as he once had been
+pro-German. It was a great cross to him now that he could not learn to
+speak English properly. But German names he abhorred and German signs he
+would no longer allow in the store. He even put a newly-printed sign
+over the sauerkraut barrel which read: "Liberty Cabbage."
+
+Into the store on a misty morning rolled Frenchy Donahue in his most
+pronounced Old Salt fashion. Frenchy had acquired such a sailorish roll
+to his walk, that Al Torrance hinted more than once that the Irish lad
+could not get to sleep at night now that he was ashore until his mother
+went out and threw several buckets of water against his bedroom window.
+
+"Hey, Ikey! what you think?" called Frenchy. "Channel bass are running.
+Whistler and Torry are going out in the _Sue Bridger_. What d'you know
+about that? Bridger's let 'em have his cat for the day. Never was known
+to do such a thing before," and Frenchy chuckled. "Oh, boy! aren't we
+having things soft just now? Want to go fishing, Ikey?" Ikey favored his
+friend with a sly wink, but only said crisply:
+
+"I don't know about it. I was going to wash the store windows. Where are
+Whistler and Torry going?"
+
+"As far as Blue Reef. They say the bass are schoolin' out there."
+
+"They'd better be on the lookout for subs, as far out as the Reef," Ikey
+said solemnly. "I don't believe they've got this coast half patrolled.
+We don't often see one of those chasers in the cove here."
+
+"Mebbe we'll catch a submarine instead of bass," remarked Frenchy.
+
+"You petter go along mit your friends in dot catboat, Ikey," said Mr.
+Rosenmeyer, who was listening with both ears and his eyes wide open. "If
+there iss one of them German submarines in dese waters idt shouldt be
+known yet. Ain't that right?"
+
+"Yes. We'd have to report it, Papa, to the naval authorities," admitted
+Ikey seriously.
+
+"Vell, you go right along den," urged his father. "Nefer mindt yet de
+winders. I can get a winder washer easy."
+
+"Well, if you don't mind, Papa," said Ikey, with commendable hesitancy.
+
+"Come along, Ikey," urged Frenchy under his breath. "And be sure you
+bring along your submarine tackle--I mean your bass rod," and he rolled
+out of the store, chuckling to himself.
+
+"Undt take a lunch, Ikey!" cried Mr. Rosenmeyer after his son. "Ham,
+undt bologna, undt cheese, undt there's some fine dill pickles----"
+
+"Oh, my!" groaned his son. "No dill pickles."
+
+He joined Frenchy in a few minutes with a basket crammed with things to
+eat, as well as his fishing tackle. It was not far to Bridger's float,
+off which the twenty-four-foot catboat, _Sue Bridger_, was moored.
+
+Ikey remarked: "Sometimes I almost faint when I see the change in papa.
+He never wanted me to have a bit of fun before. He didn't have no fun
+when he was a boy. He always worked. That is the German way, he says.
+
+"But he don't have any use for _any_thing German now--not even the way
+they bring up children."
+
+"Ain't it a fact?" chuckled Frenchy. "Me mother makes the kids git up
+and give me the best chair when I come into the sitting room.
+
+          'Git up out o' that,
+          Ye impident brat!
+              An' let Mr. M'Ginnis sit down.'
+
+That's the way she treats me. Me head's gettin' that swelled I couldn't
+draw a watch cap down over me ears."
+
+The exhaust of the auxiliary engine of the catboat was spitting when
+Frenchy hailed their mates. Whistler was loosening the points of the big
+sail while Torry worked at the engine.
+
+"How'll we get over there?" demanded Ikey. "There's no boat here."
+
+Whistler Morgan, barefooted and with his sleeves rolled up, came aft and
+tossed Ikey the end of a coil of line.
+
+"Draw her in to the float. I'll pay out the mooring cable. What have you
+in that basket?"
+
+"A litter of pups a neighbor wants him to drown," answered Frenchy
+solemnly. "You fellows brought lunch enough for all, didn't you?"
+
+"Couldn't get any at my house," Al confessed. "The girl's on a strike."
+
+There was no mother at the Torrance house, and sometimes the
+housekeeping there was "at sixes and sevens."
+
+"I was going to get some crackers and sardines," confessed Whistler.
+"I had no idea we could get this boat when I left the house. But I can
+run up and get Alice to put us up a snack."
+
+Frenchy was carrying Ikey's basket very carefully--indeed, lovingly. He
+allowed his mate to catch the line and draw the _Sue Bridger_ in to the
+float alone.
+
+They stepped aboard, and Al made a grab for the basket handle with his
+greasy hands. "Let's see the pups," he demanded suspiciously.
+
+"Have a care! Have a care!" cried Whistler as the two struggled for
+possession of the basket. "What is in it, Ikey?"
+
+"Oi, oi! Oi, oi!" moaned Ikey. "They will the basket haf overboard yet!
+Stop it! Stop it!"
+
+It was Whistler who rescued the lunch basket with a firm hand. In the
+struggle Frenchy came near going overboard, but he fell into the bilge
+in the bottom of the boat instead.
+
+"Wow!" he yelled. "Me clean pants! This old tub is leaking like a sieve,
+Whistler!"
+
+Whistler and Al were peeping into the basket. Their delight was
+acclaimed at once.
+
+"Good boy, Ikey!" declared Torry, smacking his lips. "You must have
+robbed the whole delicatessen shop."
+
+"You don't know my papa," declared Ikey with pride. "He would like to
+feed the whole American Navy--that's the way he feels about it."
+
+"He's all right," agreed Torry. "Come on, now, fellows, let's stir
+around. The best of the day will be gone soon. Don't worry about your
+wet pants, Frenchy. Get up and pump out the bilge. She hasn't been used
+for a fortnight, and of course some moisture has gathered."
+
+"'Moisture?' Good-night!" growled the Irish lad, setting to work as he
+was told with the tin pump. "I bet I have to sit and do this all day
+while you fellows fish."
+
+The engine was only for an emergency. Captain Bridger had told them
+that. Gasoline was expensive. So Whistler and Ikey got up the sail, it
+filled, and they cast off the moorings. The catboat began to edge her
+way out into the cove. There was no rain falling; but fog wreaths rolled
+in from the sea.
+
+"Get your scare!" shouted Whistler as he ran back to take the tiller.
+"Toot away once in a while. We don't want to stub our toe against some
+other craft, and that before we get out of the cove."
+
+"A submarine, for instance?" chuckled Frenchy, soon becoming pacified.
+"Ikey's father thinks maybe he might bag one while we're out here."
+
+"I'd like to get a close-up view of one of those submarine chasers,"
+remarked Torry, finding the horn in the forward locker. He tooted it
+raucously, and then continued: "They say some of 'em can go like the
+wind."
+
+"Go right through a tub like this, if once we got in the way," commented
+Whistler. "Mind you! faster than the _Colodia_--and that's some speed."
+
+"Wow!" cried Frenchy. "Don't believe anything on water ever does go
+faster than a torpedo boat destroyer."
+
+"Oh, yes, there are faster boats. How about a hydro?" Phil said, when
+Ikey broke in with an inquiry:
+
+"Say! lemme ask you: Why do they call the _Colodia_ and her sister ships
+'torpedo boat destroyers'? We don't see many torpedo boats anyway. They
+are all old stuff."
+
+"That's right," Torry said. "What is the why-for? All naval craft are
+supposed to be destroyers anyway--I mean service craft."
+
+Morgan was the oracle on this occasion.
+
+"Ikey is right. I've read that torpedo boats antedate the Spanish War.
+Their exclusive business was to run up close to an enemy battleship and
+deliver against it an automobile torpedo. These boats were great stuff
+in the beginning.
+
+"Then they invented a craft as an antidote for the torpedo boat--the
+torpedo boat destroyer. Our Admiral Sims called this new vessel 'a tin
+box built around a mighty big engine.'"
+
+"Wow! And he is right," cried Frenchy Donahue. "That's just what our
+_Colodia_ is."
+
+"And these subchasers are still faster," Torry observed. "They tell me
+they can make thirty-five, and better, an hour."
+
+"Oi, oi!" cried Ikey Rosenmeyer at this juncture. "Speak of the Old
+Harry and hear his wings, yet! What's that off yonder?"
+
+The _Sue Bridger_ was now skimming out of the cove, and the fog was
+lifting. They got a sight of a patch of open sea across which a low,
+gray vessel was shooting like a shark after its prey.
+
+"What a beaut!" shouted Torry.
+
+"That's one of the new chasers all right," Whistler agreed. "Their base
+is at New London where the submarine base is."
+
+At that moment the sun broke through the murk overhead. Its rays shone
+brilliantly upon the patch of blue sea on which the submarine patrol
+boat steamed at such a rapid pace.
+
+The sunbeams pricked out the letters and figures painted so big upon the
+side of the craft and the Navy boys repeated in chorus:
+
+"S. P., Eighty-eighty-eight."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE STREAK ON THE WATER
+
+
+The Navy boys arrived at the patch of shallow water over the Blue Reef
+at about noon. By that time the fog was pretty well dissipated, and they
+had a clear view of miles and miles of sea as well as of the coastline
+behind them and the narrow entrance to the cove.
+
+The submarine chaser was out of sight. No other craft appeared upon the
+open sea beyond the _Sue Bridger's_ present anchorage. The boys threw
+out a little chum, and then dropped their hooks.
+
+"First nibble!" whispered Torry. "Now watch me play him."
+
+But the first few "nibbles" proved to be merely "hook-cleaners." The
+fish got the bait, and the boys had the exercise of swishing their lines
+in and out of the water.
+
+Channel bass run to large sizes. Torry told about seeing one hung up on
+the dock at Seacove weighing sixty-four and a quarter pounds.
+
+"That's all right," grumbled Frenchy, who had just lost a nibbler, "but
+a two-pound one will satisfy me. What would we do with a
+sixty-four-pound bass?"
+
+"Keep it alive and teach it to draw a little red wagon," chuckled Ikey.
+"Oi, oi! That would be fine!"
+
+"It would be as big as Dugan's goat. Don't know why it shouldn't be
+tackled up and made use of," Whistler agreed, dryly.
+
+"Only they lack feet--Gee-whillikins! what's this?" burst forth Torry.
+
+He certainly had a bite at last. His reel hummed and the fish started
+for the coast of Spain; or, at least, in that general direction.
+
+He had to play the fish well to save his line, for the latter was
+neither a very heavy one, nor new. The bass ran stubbornly out to sea.
+
+"That's a whale, Torry," Whistler declared, breaking off in a military
+tune to make the observation. "You should have harpooned it."
+
+"I'm going to get him aboard here if I swamp the boat!" declared Torry
+with vigor.
+
+The boys were so interested in his playing the fish for the next ten
+minutes that they did not cast a glance shoreward. Finally the bass was
+tired out, and Torry drew him in close to the boat. Whistler leaned over
+the side and, with a maul, tapped the bass on the head.
+
+But when he got his hand in the gills of the fish they clamped down upon
+his fingers, and, in the struggle, he was almost hauled out of the
+boat.
+
+"Hey! Help!" he bawled. "What are you fellows? Just passengers?"
+
+Frenchy gave him a hand on one side and Ikey on the other; between them
+the trio hauled a ten-pound bass over the gunwale. Torry was dancing
+around in glee and shouting at the top of his voice.
+
+"Hush!" commanded Whistler. "You'll scare even the sharks and dogfish
+away."
+
+"Or you'll dance through the rotten old bottom boards of the boat and
+we'll have to walk ashore," added Frenchy.
+
+But it was a great catch, and the others could feel nothing but envy of
+Torry's success. He had set a pace that none of them could equal; for
+after that there did not seem to be another bass of even two pounds'
+weight in the whole ocean.
+
+"Hey, fellows!" ejaculated Ikey suddenly. "Who's this coming?"
+
+"Somebody walking on the water, is it?" chuckled Frenchy.
+
+"Aw, you needn't be correcting my English," responded Ikey. "There are
+no medals on you for being a purist."
+
+"Wow, wow!" yelled Torry. "Listen to him sling language."
+
+"Hold on, fellows," Whistler said, diving for the glass he never went
+to sea without. "That's no smack."
+
+They all had turned to look at the approaching craft which Ikey had
+first sighted. It was a power boat and was running parallel with the
+coast in a southeasterly direction and inshore of the anchorage of the
+_Sue Bridger_.
+
+She was about forty feet long and was showing some speed; but her hull
+looked battered, and there was nothing natty or yacht-like about her.
+
+"No pleasure craft, that," ventured Torry, as Phil trained his glasses
+on her. "She's too slouchy."
+
+"She's got speed, just the same," observed Frenchy. "What's her name,
+Phil?"
+
+"Can't make it out," returned Morgan. Then immediately he uttered a
+surprised ejaculation.
+
+"What's up?" Torry asked him.
+
+Whistler said nothing but he drew his chum up beside him and thrust the
+glass into his hand. "Look at that fellow," he commanded.
+
+"Which fellow?" asked Torry trying to focus the glass on the strange
+craft.
+
+"The man forward. He's looking this way. See! The man with the
+whiskers," whispered Morgan.
+
+"I see him," returned Torry.
+
+The other boys were giving more attention to their fishing again.
+Whistler was very much in earnest, and he spoke softly in his chum's
+ear:
+
+"You've seen him before. It's the man we saw in the bushes up there by
+the Elmvale Dam the other day. Remember, Al?"
+
+"Gee! Yes!" breathed Torry.
+
+"They told me his name was Blake. He doesn't look it," said Whistler
+earnestly. "He looks more like a German than Hansie Hertig--and that's
+enough!"
+
+"Aw----"
+
+"Of course, he can't help that," agreed Whistler before Torrance could
+voice objection. "But he is a stranger in Elmvale. He works at the
+munition factory. You'd think of course they'd be careful who they
+employ. But he wouldn't be the first alien that has been employed in
+such a factory."
+
+"What are you driving at, Phil?" demanded his chum, much puzzled now.
+
+"I found something up there near the dam that I didn't tell you fellows
+about. And it is something that I think that man's interested in. Now,
+what's he out here for?"
+
+"For a sail."
+
+"In that old tub that is full of oil casks and the like?"
+
+"Whistler Morgan!" breathed Torry in amazement, "how do you know at this
+distance what kind of cargo that boat has?"
+
+"Why, she fairly reeks of oil!" said Whistler confidently. "See that
+streak along the water in her wake--that purplish, reddish streak?"
+
+"I see it!" admitted Torry in a moment.
+
+"Nothing but oil would do that. She's got leaky casks aboard. And where
+would an oil lighter be going out this way? Where is she coming from and
+where is she going? And what is that bewhiskered Blake doing aboard her?
+Tell me that, will you?"
+
+But the wondering and excited Torrance could not answer these
+questions.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+AN OLD FRIEND
+
+
+Fishing rather palled upon both Whistler and Torry after sighting the
+other boat. The younger boys had not paid much attention to the passing
+of the craft which Whistler was confident was an oil lighter of some
+kind.
+
+"You're so plaguy suspicious, Whistler," muttered Al Torrance, as they
+heaved up the anchor and the younger boys hoisted the big sail.
+
+"For all you know, that Blake may be as harmless as a baby."
+
+"Sure," agreed Morgan. "But what's he doing out in that boat, and what
+is the boat itself doing out here? She's headed off shore--and you saw
+she was loaded. The water almost lapped over her rail."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"She surely isn't headed for the other side of the Atlantic," Whistler
+declared. "Yet she's aiming straight out to sea right now. She isn't
+following the coast any longer."
+
+It was a fact. Although the strange power launch was now at a great
+distance, it was plain she was leaving the land behind her. There was
+no land in that direction save the European coast.
+
+"You believe she's a supply ship for German subs?" asked Torry.
+
+"Or taking out gasoline or oil to put aboard some Swedish or Norwegian
+ship that expects to give the cargo to the Germans at some rendezvous in
+the North Sea. That isn't impossible, Torry."
+
+"Just the same I fancy you are hunting a mare's nest," his chum
+declared.
+
+Torry--nor the other Navy boys--was not apt to call in question
+Whistler's judgment. But on this occasion it seemed to him as though
+Morgan was shooting wild.
+
+Frenchy Donahue and Ikey Rosenmeyer had caught several fish and were
+satisfied; but soon they began to notice that their companions had
+something on their minds besides the catch of channel bass.
+
+"What's bitin' you fellows?" demanded Frenchy. "Had a spat?"
+
+"I bet they've had a lover's quarrel," grinned Ikey. "Ain't you going to
+speak to us, ever again, Torry?"
+
+"Oh, my eye!" growled Torry.
+
+But he and Whistler really had very little to say while the boat was
+running back into the cove. The wind was not so favorable, so it took a
+much longer time for the trip than it had to come out to the fishing
+grounds.
+
+"But if we use a drop of his gas, old Cap Bridger will know it,"
+grumbled Frenchy. "Maybe we'll have to row her in."
+
+A little flicker of breeze helped after a while, however; but it was
+just then, too, and after they had rounded one of the crab-claw capes
+that defended the cove from the ocean, that Ikey sang out:
+
+"What's this coming? Oi, oi! D'you see it, Whistler? It's a streak of
+light!"
+
+The other boys turned to look seaward. Rushing in from that watery world
+was a gray shape--narrow, low-decked, with slight upperworks and a
+single stack.
+
+"A chaser!" cried Torry, finding his voice and growing excited.
+
+"She's aiming right this way," added Frenchy excitedly.
+
+Phil Morgan had his glass out again, and his lips unpuckered and the
+tune he had been monotoning died.
+
+"What do you make of her, Phil?" whispered Al Torrance.
+
+"It is a sub patrol boat all right," agreed their leader.
+
+Ikey, who had the tiller at this juncture, got so excited watching the
+swiftly approaching craft that he pretty nearly swung the _Sue Bridger_
+in a circle.
+
+"Look out, you chump!" yelled Torry. "Want to yank the stick out of her?
+If you haven't a care Captain Bridger will get the price of a new
+catboat out of us."
+
+Whistler gave Torrance the glass and went aft himself to relieve Ikey at
+the helm.
+
+"You're a fine garby," called Donahue to Rosenmeyer. "Lose your head
+mighty easy. That chaser isn't chasing us."
+
+"How do you know she isn't?" returned Ikey.
+
+"She certainly is following us," Whistler said. "But until she bespeaks
+our attention with her forward gun I guess we need not worry," and he
+smiled grimly.
+
+The boys watched the swiftly approaching boat. It came in through the
+narrows at top speed, circled around toward the docks, and passed the
+catboat at a distance.
+
+"'S. P. 888'!" yelled Torry. "Look there!"
+
+"I thought it was that same chaser we saw before," Frenchy said.
+
+"Wonder what she wants in here at Seacove?" Ikey asked.
+
+Whistler had changed their course to bring the catboat nearer to the
+naval boat, which was slowing down. Torry leaped upon the low-decked
+cabin and began signaling by the semaphore code. In his blue uniform
+his body stood out clearly against the catboat's sail, and he was at
+once observed by the crew of the S. P. 888.
+
+"Whew! Look at that!" gasped Frenchy. "They are answering."
+
+Then he and Ikey began to spell out the word that the seaman on the deck
+of the chaser was signaling in the same code Torrance had used.
+
+"M-O-R-G-A-N!"
+
+"Oi, oi!" yelled Ikey. "They're after you, Whistler!"
+
+"What's the next?" gasped Frenchy.
+
+Another name was not long in coming.
+
+"T-O-R-R-A-N-C-E!"
+
+"They want you, too."
+
+"Look, they are calling somebody else."
+
+Quickly the Navy Boys spelt out the next name.
+
+"D-O-N-A-H-U-E!"
+
+"That's me," came in a groan from Frenchy.
+
+"Maybe they don't want me," murmured Ikey.
+
+"Don't you fool yourself," returned Whistler promptly. "We couldn't do
+without you."
+
+"But they ain't wigwaging no more, Whistler."
+
+"Maybe the sailor doin' it got tired," offered Torry.
+
+"R-O-S-E-N-M-E-Y-E-R!" came the signal presently.
+
+"See them coming, boys!"
+
+"Some speed there!"
+
+"He's after us," said Torry. "Whip up this old tub, Whistler. Let's start
+the engine."
+
+"Hold your horses," advised Morgan. "He knows we are aboard. We'll get
+there all right, give us time."
+
+The chaser was circling around, and finally headed toward them. The
+excited boys in the catboat saw Mr. MacMasters examining them through a
+glass. The S. P. 888 came to a stop near the usual mooring of the _Sue
+Bridger_. Captain Bridger put off in a dory from the float and began to
+scull out toward the Government boat.
+
+"We're going aboard!" cried Torry. "Say, Whistler! do you suppose he's
+been sent for us? Shall we join up with the crew of that shark?"
+
+"Oi, oi!" groaned Ikey. "No dreadnaught for us, then? What will my papa
+and mama say? I've been tellin' 'em maybe I get to command a battleship
+this next cruise."
+
+"I had no idea Ensign MacMasters was in service again," Whistler said.
+"But I am glad he is on this particular boat."
+
+"Why?" asked Torry, to whom he spoke in a low tone.
+
+"I want to tell him about that oil boat," returned Morgan, nodding his
+head.
+
+In a few moments they dropped the sail and fended off from the chaser's
+side, just as Captain Bridger reached the spot too.
+
+"You want these four boys, Skipper?" demanded the old fisherman.
+
+"That's what I do," said Ensign MacMasters. Then to the chums: "Come
+aboard, boys; I've news for you."
+
+"They been using my catboat," said Captain Bridger. "All right, Phil
+Morgan. You can go aboard. I'll take charge of the _Sue_. Got some
+right nice lookin' bass, ain't you?"
+
+"But you won't take charge of them!" Torry exclaimed. "I caught that
+big fellow, and I donate it to the officer's mess of the S. P.
+Eight-eighty-eight, right now!"
+
+The fisherman looked somewhat disappointed, for he was eager to make a
+penny. Whistler, however, gave him some of the smaller fish. The
+remainder were tossed to a grinning sailor upon the deck of the chaser.
+
+"Come right aboard, boys," Ensign MacMasters repeated. "I am glad to see
+you looking so chipper."
+
+He shook hands with them, in rotation, as they came over the side. But
+the chums did not forget to salute the officer. They lined up before him
+in a respectful attitude as Captain Bridger got aboard the catboat and
+shoved her away from the chaser's side.
+
+"I am only acting commander of this little knifeblade," said Ensign
+MacMasters. "Junior Lieutenant Perkins has time off to attend to some
+private business, and I have been stuck aboard here for a few days.
+We're patrolling this stretch of coast, and I ran in to see if I could
+pick up you boys. Do you know what is going to happen?"
+
+"We're going to lick the Germans!" exclaimed Frenchy.
+
+The ensign laughed. "Smart boy," he said. "You will go to the head of
+the class for that. But my information is new stuff. I am assigned to
+the _Kennebunk_ and you four boys are to go with me."
+
+"Hurray!" shouted Torry, unable to suppress his delight.
+
+"That will sure please my papa," declared Ikey, with a broad smile and
+twinkling eyes. "It sure will."
+
+"But how about the _Colodia_, sir?" asked Whistler anxiously.
+
+"That's right! Be faithful to your first love, Morgan," laughed Ensign
+MacMasters. "I imagine they intend to send us all back to her in time.
+But--whisper!--the _Colodia_ is across the pond. So I am told. There is
+something doing over there."
+
+"Crickey!" gasped Torry. "And we not in it!"
+
+"It may not come off before we get across in this new battleship----"
+
+"Whew!" shrilled Frenchy, forgetting himself. "Will the _Kennebunk_ go
+across, too?"
+
+"That's telling," said Ensign MacMasters. "You will have several days
+yet to get ready for the cruise, no matter how long it may be. Yes,
+Morgan? What do you want to say?" for he observed that Whistler was
+restless and wished to speak.
+
+"I've something to report, sir," Whistler declared.
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"We made an observation just now. Well, perhaps an hour and a half ago,
+sir."
+
+"What was it?" queried the ensign, with interest.
+
+"A power boat passed us. She was not as long as this chaser and not very
+swift. She was steering into the sou'east, and she left a streak of oil
+in her wake. She was laden to the guards with oil casks, I believe."
+
+Ensign MacMasters made no comment for a moment; then he got the full
+significance of Whistler's meaning and he briskly demanded:
+
+"Sure her casks were filled, Morgan, and not empty?"
+
+"She had a full cargo of something, sir," said Whistler, nodding.
+
+"And headed southeast?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+Mr. MacMasters wheeled to speak to his navigating officer. In thirty
+seconds the swift craft started.
+
+"Hold on, Mr. MacMasters!" cried Torry. "We've got to get ashore somehow
+for supper, you know."
+
+The ensign smiled at him. "I am afraid you will have to remain aboard
+and help eat some of your own fish for supper. No time just now to put
+you boys on land."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+FOG HAUNTED
+
+
+The S. P. 888 was shaking throughout her structure before she came
+square with the exit of the cove. If a destroyer is "a tin box built
+around a mighty big engine," the term even more nearly fits one of these
+chasers.
+
+The four Navy boys from Seacove were amazed by the quickness with which
+she got under way and the brief time it took to tune her up to top-notch
+speed.
+
+"She's a hundred and ten feet long," said Mr. MacMasters, "about as wide
+as a happy thought, and can make her thirty-five knots an hour without
+any particular effort."
+
+"No effort?" muttered Torry. "And it feels as though she was shaking
+herself to pieces!"
+
+"She's faster than the _Colodia_," observed Whistler, somewhat as though
+he felt pained by that fact. That any other craft should be a sweeter
+sailer than his beloved destroyer seemed to him almost a crime.
+
+"She most certainly is," agreed Ensign MacMasters. "She is some speed
+boat!"
+
+"Why!" Frenchy cried, "she must be faster than the admiral's hydroboat
+we saw at Newport."
+
+"No, no!" said the ensign. "Those hydroboats have got every other craft
+in the Navy beaten to a standstill. And about all they use 'em for is
+pleasure boats."
+
+"They'll be dispatch carriers maybe?" suggested Whistler.
+
+"What do they want of dispatch carriers in a day of wireless?" returned
+the ensign, and went about his duty of conning the S. P. 888 as she shot
+through the breach between the claw-like capes that defended the cove,
+and so straight out to sea in a southeasterly direction.
+
+The "bone in her teeth," as sailors call the white water under the
+ship's bows, became a windrow of sea, foamed-streaked and agitated,
+parted by the knife-sharp bows, and rolling away on either hand. The
+S. P.  888 traveled so swiftly that at a distance "shark" really was
+the name for her.
+
+She was not camouflaged, as were the hull and upperworks of many Navy
+vessels with which the four friends were familiar; but her dull coloring
+made her well nigh unobservable at a few miles' distance when she lay at
+rest. When she was in action no amount of deceiving paint would hide
+her, because of the water she disturbed.
+
+The motor boat Phil had suspected had more than an hour and half's
+start. If she had kept straight ahead on the course she was going when
+last observed by the boys, she must now be twenty miles or more off
+shore.
+
+The chaser, propelled by her powerful engines, could traverse that
+distance, and the oil boat's additional miles, in less than two hours.
+If the pursued vessel did not change her course she could be easily
+overtaken before twilight.
+
+Ensign MacMasters was too busy to talk further with the four chums;
+indeed it would not be conducive to discipline for the commissioned
+officer to give the apprentice seamen too much of his attention.
+
+But Mr. MacMasters and the four Seacove boys had been through some warm
+incidents together; and there is always a particular bond between those
+who have been shoulder to shoulder in a good fight.
+
+"Remember the rumpus we had, Mr. MacMasters and us fellows, when those
+Germans tried to recapture the _Graf von Posen_?" Ikey asked his mates.
+
+"Are we likely to forget it?" retorted Al.
+
+"What about it, Ikey?" asked Michael Donahue, complacently. "It was a
+lovely fight!"
+
+"Do you s'pose the fellows on this oil tender we are chasin' will
+fight?" asked Ikey.
+
+"Not a chance. Here's fifty men on this chaser. The Germans--if they are
+Germans--wouldn't stand any show. There are only a few of them," said
+Torry.
+
+"Including the black-whiskered chap Whistler tells about," Frenchy said.
+"Hey, Whistler!"
+
+"What is it?" asked the older lad seriously.
+
+"D'you really think that power boat we saw is going out to meet a
+submarine?"
+
+"Ask me an easier one," said Morgan. "I can't guess. But she might. We
+know very well that German submarines and German raiders, and even
+Germany itself, pass news back and forth by wireless. We can't control
+the vibrations of the air--worse luck!"
+
+"Now you've said something, boy!" agreed Torry.
+
+"They read all the news that passes between our ships, too, unless it is
+in a secret code. And they pick everything they need to know about our
+ship movements out of the air."
+
+"Too bad wireless was ever invented, then," grumbled Torry.
+
+"Six of one and half a dozen of the other," grinned Frenchy. "You bet
+our operators steal German messages."
+
+"It's likely. You know that chap on the _Colodia_ whom we all liked so
+well, the chief wireless operator, got lots of information that was
+supposed only to be picked up by German submarines.
+
+"In this case," added Whistler Morgan, "the sub may have wirelessed word
+for supplies. We don't know how many alien enemies may be running
+wireless stations in the United States. The Secret Service men are
+unearthing them all the time."
+
+"Well," sighed Ikey, "I only hope we'll catch up with this oil tub we're
+hunting just as she is unloading her cargo onto a sub. Then! Blooey!
+We'll drop a depth bomb or two, and settle Mr. Submarine."
+
+"Just like _that_!" drawled Whistler. "It sounds easy. How many times
+did the _Colodia_ chase a U-boat and lose it?"
+
+"Crickey!" breathed Torry, "even the _Colodia_ couldn't travel like this
+shark."
+
+"Oh! you admit it, do you?" grinned Frenchy. "Well, we are going some!"
+
+But there was an element working against the S. P. 888--an element which
+could not be controlled. No matter how speedy the oil boat might have
+been, the chaser could have overtaken her had she kept a straight
+course. That was understood.
+
+But the farther they went the more certain it was that this new element
+was going to balk them. It was fog. The horizon was masked by it, and
+soon the damp feel of it was upon them.
+
+Mr. MacMasters paced the deck anxiously. Not a smudge of smoke did he or
+the lookouts raise. But the growing fog cloud would soon have hidden
+anything of the kind, even if the oil boat had been near at hand.
+
+"Fog-haunted, Morgan," he said to Whistler, with disappointment. "We'll
+run on for a while; but it is hopeless, I guess. You say you know one of
+the men aboard that power boat?"
+
+Morgan told him what he knew of the bewhiskered man called Blake; and
+also of the little water wheel that was whirling under the waterfall at
+the Elmvale Dam, although really, it did not seem to him as though that
+little invention could have a serious connection with any alien-enemy
+activities.
+
+"I will report the whole thing," Mr. MacMasters said. "But, of course,
+the Department receives similar and even less assured testimony every
+day, of suspiciously acting persons. The information furnished the
+Department has all to be sifted. There may be nothing wrong with this
+man Blake."
+
+"If he is working at the munition factory, how comes it that he is out
+here on an oil-laden boat?" demanded Whistler, with what he thought was
+shrewdness.
+
+"Quite so. You boys are naval apprentices, but you were out fishing
+to-day," returned Mr. MacMasters, grimly. "There is an explanation for
+everything, my boy."
+
+They ran on for another hour, but more slowly. They did not raise a
+craft of any kind, and Mr. MacMasters lost hope.
+
+"I will put you boys ashore at Rivermouth," he said. "You can go home by
+rail. I shall not be able to put in at Seacove again to-night. And
+Rivermouth is off yonder--within a few miles."
+
+Even in the fog the navigator found the harbor in question without
+difficulty. Just as they would have apprehended the presence of a
+submarine had one been near. There are very delicate and wonderful
+instruments aboard American naval vessels--instruments that may not be
+described at present--that enable the officers to apprehend the near
+approach of other vessels and their own nearness to the shore as well.
+
+The S. P. 888 made her landfall correctly and slipped into Rivermouth
+Harbor like a ghost in the fog. There was a quantity of small shipping
+in the place, and Ensign MacMasters did not want to take any chances of
+collision. So he hailed a fishing smack and put the four friends from
+Seacove aboard of her.
+
+"Good-bye, boys!" he said, as they went over the side into the smack.
+"We shall meet in a few days. You will get your notice by telegraph when
+to join the _Kennebunk_, and where. I shall be relieved from the
+command of this shark, and we'll have a big cruise on the
+superdreadnaught, I have no doubt."
+
+He spoke prophetically, as it was proved later. But at this time neither
+Ensign MacMasters nor any of the four apprentice seamen imagined just
+how wonderful a cruise it would be.
+
+As the fishing smack chugged away with her auxiliary engine toward the
+docks of the town, the S. P. 888 swung in a narrow circle and put out to
+sea so swiftly that in five minutes she was completely out of sight in
+the fog and almost out of sound as well.
+
+The fishermen were curious about the boys and the business of the chaser
+in this locality; but the Navy boys had long since learned to say
+nothing that would circulate information of any moment. "Keep your mouth
+closed" is an inflexible rule of the Navy; the yarns Ikey told his
+"papa" and his "mama" notwithstanding!
+
+As they drifted in toward shore slowly, weaving their way among the
+moored craft, Whistler suddenly began to sniff the air and show
+excitement.
+
+"What's the matter?" demanded Torry, his closest chum. "You act like a
+hound dog on a hot scent."
+
+"Or a colored gem'man smelling po'k chops on the frypan," suggested
+Frenchy, chuckling.
+
+"Say, Mister," asked Whistler, turning to the skipper of the smack, "is
+there a tank ship in here?"
+
+"An oil tanker? No! Nothing like it."
+
+"I smell it, too!" exclaimed Ikey suddenly.
+
+"What you boys smell is the _Sarah Coville_ that came in just ahead of
+us. She's anchored here somewhere," said the fisherman.
+
+"What sort is she?" Whistler demanded. Then he described swiftly the oil
+tender he had marked that afternoon passing the Blue Reef fishing
+grounds.
+
+"That's her," said the man. "She often slips in here. Don't know who
+owns her now. Used to belong to the Texarcana Oil Company before the
+war. She's only a lighter."
+
+"Is she laden?" asked Whistler.
+
+"Didn't look so to me," was the reply.
+
+Whistler Morgan said no more, and he warned his friends to have no
+further talk upon the matter. After they got ashore, however, all four
+were much excited by the incident.
+
+"She was loaded to the Plimsoll mark when she passed us," Torry said.
+"What could she have done with her cargo in so short a time?"
+
+"I'd like to know," agreed Whistler thoughtfully.
+
+"We ought to tell somebody," declared Frenchy.
+
+"Let's be sure we tell the right person," Whistler advised. "Come on now
+and get some supper. We've an hour to wait for a train to Seacove."
+
+They marched up the main street of the port. The fog was not so thick
+inshore here. Just before they reached the restaurant they usually
+patronized when they were in the town, Whistler uttered an exclamation
+and held his friends back.
+
+"See those two men going into Yancey's Restaurant?" he queried.
+
+"What about 'em?" Frenchy asked.
+
+"The fellow ahead," said Whistler Morgan deeply in earnest, "is that man
+Blake. The other I bet is the captain of the _Sarah Coville_."
+
+"Well," asked Torry, after a moment, "what are you waiting for? Their
+eating at Yancey's won't stop us from going there too, will it?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+PUZZLED
+
+
+Whistler Morgan's three chums had by this time become somewhat
+interested in the bearded man, who called himself Blake and who worked
+in the laboratory of the Elmvale munition factory.
+
+They were not at all as sure as Whistler seemed to be that the man was
+an alien enemy, and dangerous; for one reason they did not know all that
+Whistler had discovered up by the dam. It was only to Ensign MacMasters
+that their leader had told of the water wheel under the rock.
+
+Frenchy began to grin when he saw how Whistler hesitated about entering
+the restaurant in Rivermouth.
+
+"What's the matter? You so mad with that fellow that you won't eat at
+Yancey's because he does?" he asked.
+
+"I'd like to get in there," said Whistler, "without attracting his
+attention and that of the man with him. I know he's the skipper of that
+oil boat."
+
+"How are you going to do that?" demanded Torry. "They'll spot our
+blouses and caps in a minute."
+
+"That's just it. Wish we didn't have 'em on," grumbled his friend.
+
+"Good-_night_! We'd make a nice fumble, wouldn't we, if we didn't wear
+the uniform? What would it be--a month in the brig on hard tack and
+water?"
+
+"Say!" murmured the eager Ikey Rosenmeyer, "there's a side door. I'll
+call Abe, the waiter, out there and tell him. If those fellows have gone
+into one of the booths----"
+
+"Bully!" cried Torry. "Maybe he can sneak us into one next to 'em. How
+about it, Whistler?"
+
+"Just the thing," agreed Morgan, nodding his head emphatically.
+
+Ikey ran down the alley beside the restaurant while his mates waited at
+the corner. The side door was not used save by the restaurant help; but
+Ikey insinuated himself in by that entrance and in half a minute poked
+his head out of the door again and beckoned furiously to the other boys.
+
+"Oi, oi!" he chuckled in high feather, when they joined him. "We are in
+luck all right. Those fellows got a booth, and Abe is layin' the table
+in the one next to it, this side, for us. Come on! They won't see us."
+
+"If they take a look out of the curtains they will," declared Torry.
+
+"Have a care, now, about talking," Whistler advised earnestly. "Say
+nothing about boats or the sea. No whispering, remember! Talk right out
+when you talk at all."
+
+"All right, me lud," said Frenchy. "Anything else?"
+
+"Yes," said Whistler grimly. "This is a Dutch treat. Every fellow pays
+for his own eats. Last time we were in a restaurant you all wished the
+check on to me."
+
+At that his mates chuckled much. Each had excused himself and gone out
+"just for a minute," and Whistler found himself, after waiting half an
+hour, expected by the waiter to pay the whole score.
+
+The four got into the booth the waiter had prepared for them, and
+Whistler sat with his back against the partition dividing it from that
+in which Blake and his companion sat. Between the clatter of dishes, the
+waiter's calls to the order man, and the talking of his own friends,
+Whistler could not hear much at first. But he knew the two men whom he
+suspected were talking in English.
+
+Of course they would not be unwise enough to speak in German. By this
+time the German language when spoken in public places was beginning to
+cause remark. Wise Germans, whether friendly or enemy aliens, were not
+using it.
+
+One of the voices Whistler heard in the other booth, however, was
+distinctly German in its accent. This he was quite sure was the skipper
+of the oil tender. The other man used perfect English.
+
+"They would not be likely to select a man too obviously German for a big
+part in any plot," thought Whistler. "And that Blake looks like a suave,
+well educated fellow."
+
+The latter man spoke low, too. The other had a bluff and coarse voice.
+He was a typical old sea-dog in his way. Only, a German sea-dog!
+
+"Are you going back there yet?" Whistler heard him ask.
+
+"For just one thing. You know what that is, Braun."
+
+"_Ach!_ Yes."
+
+"My work is done there," said the man, Blake, with pride in his voice.
+"Oh, it will be taken note of, don't fear."
+
+"I bet you!" growled the other, in evident admiration. "Undt so she goes
+oop, yes? Boom!"
+
+"Sh!" warned the other. "Never mind any talk about it."
+
+But the other was inclined to be voluble. Whistler thought the skipper
+of the oil tender, Braun, had been drinking. "And when alcohol is in
+the brain wit is very likely to move out," he muttered.
+
+"Grand work!" he ejaculated. "_Ach_, yes! Undt there will be more grand
+work when two-fifty is joined by the others."
+
+"Sh!" warned Blake again. "You talk too much, Braun. The wise man keeps
+a still tongue."
+
+Ordinarily Whistler Morgan would have found nothing in this overheard
+conversation to fan suspicion into a blaze. He quite realized this fact.
+But what he had seen at Elmvale, and the presence of Blake on the oil
+tender, led in his mind to but one conclusion.
+
+Blake and his companion referred to the former's work in Elmvale. And
+what was that work? Not merely the peaceful occupation of chemist in the
+laboratory of the munition factory. He was convinced that Blake referred
+to something entirely different when he said: "My work is done there."
+
+Nor was Blake merely an inventor, hiding away the actual working model
+of an invention until he could secure its patent, for instance. No,
+indeed!
+
+Yet Morgan could not imagine what that water wheel was for. To what end
+could it have been placed under the rock on the edge of the
+overflow-stream from the Elmvale Dam?
+
+Whistler had little to say himself during that meal at Yancey's. He
+heard nothing more from the next booth, for Blake seemed to manage the
+half drunken skipper of the _Sarah Coville_ with better judgment. By and
+by the two men left the restaurant.
+
+"Say! are we going to follow them?" asked the excited Frenchy.
+
+"Aw, you poor fish!" scoffed Torry. "Where'd we follow them to? Back to
+that stinking oiler? And how would we follow them to sea? We haven't a
+boat."
+
+"That's so," Frenchy admitted, crestfallen.
+
+"No good to try to keep tabs on them," admitted Phil. "I hope Ensign
+MacMasters will pick up news of that boat again. Just think of his
+chaser coming right in here and not seeing the oiler in the fog. Tough
+luck!"
+
+"Say!" queried Ikey, "what did you hear, Whistler?"
+
+"Just about what you did," returned the older lad. "Nothing much."
+
+"What are we going to do?" demanded Torry.
+
+"Pay our bills and go to the train. It is almost time," said Whistler
+rather grumpily.
+
+And this they did. The train for Seacove came along in a few minutes.
+The boys got aboard. Ikey ran ahead down the aisle of the car and got
+into a seat by an open window. The first thing he did was to thrust his
+head out of the window and look back along the platform as the train
+started.
+
+"Oi, oi!" he cried, under his breath. "Here he comes!"
+
+"Here who comes?" demanded Al Torrance.
+
+"The German spy," declared Ikey.
+
+"Hush up!" commanded Frenchy. "Want everybody to hear you?"
+
+"What do you mean?" asked Whistler.
+
+"That man," said Ikey. "He got aboard. He went into the last car."
+
+"You don't mean Blake?"
+
+"That's who I mean," declared Ikey with conviction.
+
+"Aw, he's crazy," scoffed Frenchy.
+
+But Torry went back through the train after it was well under way and
+the conductor had taken their tickets. He peered through the glass in
+the door of the rear car.
+
+He came back shaking his head and looking puzzled.
+
+"He's there all right," he said to Whistler. "Bet he's going to Elmvale
+instead of to sea again. What do you make of it?"
+
+"Not a thing," grumbled Whistler. "I wish I knew what to do."
+
+"Let's have him pinched," suggested the eager Frenchy.
+
+"Not a chance! On what charge?" asked Torry. "Accuse him of being in
+disguise because he wears that beard?" and he chuckled.
+
+But to Whistler Morgan's mind it was no laughing matter. He was silent
+all the way to Seacove. Torry suggested that they stay on the train to
+Elmvale and see if Blake got off at that station.
+
+"No," his friend said decidedly, "we can't do that. Our folks will be
+worried about us if we don't report soon. Cap Bridger may have told
+around town that we went off on the submarine chaser, and perhaps our
+folks will think we've gone for good."
+
+So they alighted at their station and left the mysterious Blake aboard
+the train. Whistler hurried home to consult with his father. There was
+nobody else in whom he had so much confidence; at least, nobody within
+reach.
+
+In this case, however, his father was not within reach. Dr. Morgan had
+been called away to see a patient in the country. It was a call that
+might keep him away from home all night. Whistler was greatly
+disappointed.
+
+He went down town again and hunted up Torry. He found his friend getting
+into his father's car in front of the garage.
+
+"I was just coming over to get you," Torry said. "D'you know, Whistler,
+I feel just as nervous as a cat?"
+
+"I guess that's what is the matter with me," Morgan confessed. "I'm
+bothering my head about that fellow Blake."
+
+"Me, too. Say! let's run over there."
+
+"To Elmvale?"
+
+"Yep. Pa's gone away----"
+
+"So has my father," admitted Whistler.
+
+"Well, neither of them can advise us, then," said Torry, practically.
+"How about talking with somebody in Elmvale? The manager of the munition
+works, for instance?"
+
+"That's so! Mr. Santley. Say! let's 'phone him and see if he is at
+home."
+
+"But you can't say anything over the telephone about Blake, or about us
+fellows thinking he is up to something wrong."
+
+"We'll make an appointment with the manager," said Whistler, running
+into the Torrance house.
+
+He knew where the telephone was, the girl at central quickly gave him
+the connection. A man answered the call.
+
+"Is this Mr. Santley?" Whistler asked.
+
+"It is. Who are you?"
+
+Morgan told him who he was and asked if he could see the manager if he
+drove right over to Elmvale in his friend's car.
+
+"What for?"
+
+"It has something to do with a man named Blake in the employ of the
+factory," said Whistler plainly. "But I can say nothing more about it
+over the 'phone."
+
+"'Blake'?" repeated the voice at the other end, and Whistler thought
+there was a startled note in it. "What about him?"
+
+"I can only tell you when I see you."
+
+"Come on, then!" exclaimed the man. "I shall wait here for you at my
+office."
+
+Whistler ran out of the house. Al was already at the steering wheel of
+the car.
+
+"What did he say?" he shouted.
+
+"For us to come over," Whistler replied. "And somehow, Torry, I feel we
+ought to hurry."
+
+"You said it!" agreed the other and turned on the power.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+JUST TOO LATE
+
+
+"Shall we stop and pick up the other fellows?" demanded Al as the heavy
+car shot up the road toward High Street. They had to cross the railroad
+tracks to get into the Elmvale road.
+
+"Stop for nothing!" exclaimed Phil Morgan. "I feel that we can't delay a
+minute."
+
+But as it chanced Michael Donahue was standing at the open door of the
+Rosenmeyer delicatessen shop as the Torrance car wheeled around the
+corner into Seacove's main street. Dusky as it now was, the Irish lad
+recognized the car and the two boys on the front seat.
+
+"Hi, Ikey!" he yelled to his chum, back in the store. "See who's
+joy-riding! And they never said a word about it."
+
+Ikey ran out in a hurry.
+
+"Stingy! Stingy!" he cried, almost getting into the path of the
+automobile.
+
+Torry had been obliged to slow down to turn the corner; so it was easy
+for the reckless Frenchy and Ikey to jump upon the running board of the
+car.
+
+"Tumble in, kids!" exclaimed Torry, out of the corner of his mouth, for
+he had to keep his eyes ahead for traffic. "We're in a hurry."
+
+"I--should--think--you--were!" gasped out Frenchy, as the car jounced
+over the railroad tracks by the station. "I almost swallowed my gum."
+
+"Who's sick?" demanded Ikey.
+
+"Nobody. Sit down," adjured Whistler. "We're going to Elmvale."
+
+"Wow, wow!" yelled Frenchy. "What for?"
+
+"We don't know till we get there," declared Torry suddenly grinning.
+
+Torry increased the speed the very next moment. There were not many
+constables around Seacove, and the first five miles of the road to
+Elmvale was perfectly straight. The amber lamps of the car gave a good
+light ahead, and Torry was really a safe driver.
+
+But he seemed reckless on this evening. Inspired by the same feeling
+that impressed Whistler Morgan, he felt that they could not get to
+Elmvale too quickly.
+
+During the journey the older boys vouchsafed no explanation to the
+younger pair save that they had made an engagement with Mr. Santley at
+the munition factory over the telephone. In fact, they had no idea what
+they would do, or what they would say to Mr. Santley.
+
+The car roared on, the dogs barked behind them, and finally they came to
+the slope leading down into Elmvale. Lights were already twinkling in
+the valley. But the mills were closed, and even the munition factory
+seemed deserted.
+
+This time they did not take the Upper Road, but drove through the center
+of the little hamlet. The stores were open and there were lights in most
+of the cottages of the workmen. There were lively parties in all the
+long, barrack-like boarding houses. The town was wide awake.
+
+Torry brought the car to an abrupt stop before the brick office building
+of the munition works. The place had been a mill before the war. The
+long, many-windowed buildings behind the offices covered a good deal of
+ground. There was a high stockade fence about the whole plant. An armed
+guard stood at the main door when Whistler ran up the steps. The other
+boys chose to wait in the car for him.
+
+"I want to see Mr. Santley," Whistler said to the guard in khaki.
+
+"The manager? I don't know whether he is here at this hour or not."
+
+"I see lights in the offices yonder. And I have made an appointment with
+him."
+
+At that moment the bolts of the big door were shoved back and a man
+looked out. Whistler Morgan did not know the manager of the munition
+works by sight; but the guard at once said:
+
+"Here's a boy to see you, Mr. Santley."
+
+"What is your name, young man?" asked the manager, eying the boy with
+interest.
+
+Whistler told him.
+
+"Dr. Morgan's son, from Seacove? Come in," and Whistler was ushered
+inside and the heavy door was again barricaded.
+
+"We have to keep locked up here like a fortress at night," said Mr.
+Santley. "Come in and let me hear what you have to say, young man. What
+do you know about Mr. Blake?"
+
+"Did you know he had been out at sea on an oil tender to-day?" blurted
+out Whistler. "She was chased by a submarine chaser, but the tender
+escaped in the fog. Afterward she came into Rivermouth Harbor without
+her cargo."
+
+"What's this? What's this?" demanded Mr. Santley. "Why, that has nothing
+to do with the factory."
+
+They were in his private office. He stood with his hand upon Whistler's
+shoulder and asked the boy sternly:
+
+"What have you to tell me about Mr. Blake, anyway? I don't want to hear
+a lot of inconsequential gossip. I am worried about the man."
+
+"Yes, sir. So am I," declared Whistler very earnestly. "I've been
+worried about him ever since the other day when we fellows were over
+here trying to get some of the boys to enlist in the Navy."
+
+"Ah, were you one of that crowd?" asked Mr. Santley.
+
+"Yes, sir; and coming over here we saw that man Blake----"
+
+He went on to tell the manager of the munition factory about how his
+suspicions were aroused and about the water wheel he had found at the
+foot of the dam, ending with a detailed account of the affair of the oil
+tender.
+
+Mr. Santley's face expressed nothing but lively curiosity.
+
+"And to-day you saw him on a boat that you think is a feeder for German
+submarines?" muttered the manager. "It is whispered that they are off
+this coast."
+
+"We overheard this Blake and a man who I'm sure is captain of that oil
+boat talking in a restaurant to-night. They mentioned two-fifty which
+I believe is the number of the submarine off this coast. They spoke as
+though more were expected. The Germans are going to make a big drive on
+our shipping over here."
+
+"You may be right, boy," agreed Mr. Santley. "That man Blake--well, he
+doesn't seem to be in Elmvale now."
+
+"He came back on this evening's train," declared Whistler.
+
+"Are you sure? I have been waiting for him to show up here," cried Mr.
+Santley. "To tell the truth, young man, I have discovered some things
+here that I want him to explain. For one thing, I have picked up a
+letter in his locker which is addressed to him, it is evident, but not
+by the name of Blake. It is written in German and I want it explained."
+
+"Oh, Mr. Santley!" cried Whistler, "I believe there is something wrong.
+He told that Captain Braun, of the _Sarah Coville_, that his work was
+finished here. He was only returning for a particular thing to Elmvale."
+
+"But he hasn't come here!" exclaimed Mr. Santley. "And he has some
+private property in the office."
+
+"Maybe he isn't coming here," breathed the boy. "Maybe he is only going
+up to the dam!"
+
+"To the dam?"
+
+"That water-wheel business! It perplexes me," explained Whistler Morgan.
+
+"We'll go up there and take a look!" exclaimed Mr. Santley, grabbing his
+hat and banging down the roll top of his desk and locking it. "You've
+got me all stirred up now, boy."
+
+They hurried out of the office. Mr. Santley spoke in a low voice to the
+armed guard on the front steps.
+
+"If Blake comes here, hold him till I return," he said. "Do you
+understand? _Hold him_--even if you have to knock him down and sit on
+him."
+
+"All right, sir," said the man, nodding grimly.
+
+Mr. Santley started down the steps after the excited Whistler, who was
+already getting into the automobile, the engine of which was still
+running. At that instant the night was as peaceful as could be. The
+valley below the high dam lay quietly under the light of the stars, and
+a pale moon was just rising above the treetops.
+
+Then, with a shock which electrified the atmosphere and seemed to make
+heaven and earth tremble, a burst of flame rose at the foot of the dam,
+not more than half a mile away!
+
+The glare of it blinded them; the reverberating explosion that followed
+almost immediately well nigh stunned them. It was Ikey, standing in the
+tonneau of the car, and pointing a trembling arm toward the dimly
+distinguished wall of masonry, whose voice was first heard:
+
+"Look! Look! The dam's broke!"
+
+A balloon-shaped cloud of smoke had risen above the wall of masonry.
+Beneath it the dam crumbled, dissolved, and poured away into the bed of
+the river like the changing picture in a kaleidoscope.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+AHEAD OF THE FLOOD
+
+
+Each one in the little group at the main entrance to the munition
+factory had cried out--no doubt of that! Indeed, Torry said afterward
+that he forgot to shut his mouth until his jaws were positively stiff.
+
+Their fright did not deprive them of action, however; everybody
+immediately did something.
+
+Inside the door, in the hall, hung the bell rope. The bell swung in the
+cupola on the roof of the office building. The guard dropped his rifle
+and sprang to seize this rope. He slipped his foot in the loop and began
+to toll the bell as hard as he could.
+
+"I'll get Central and tell them what's up!" gasped Mr. Santley, and
+turned to run back into his office to spread the news of the catastrophe
+by telephone.
+
+Whistler plunged into the car, yelling to Torry:
+
+"Turn around! Turn around! Down the valley road to warn 'em! Get a move
+on, boy!"
+
+His chum was already starting the car. It wheeled perilously in a sharp
+curve, and with honking horn hurtled down the road which followed the
+course of the river.
+
+Without doubt the wall of the dam had been burst through by the
+explosion. The immense mass of waiter held in leash would immediately
+pour through the opening. The valley would be flooded!
+
+As the car plunged across the main street of Elmvale people were running
+out of their houses and out of the stores, shrieking that the dam had
+burst. They began to stream away toward the higher ground, stopping for
+none of their possessions. If they saved their lives they would be
+fortunate.
+
+Torry speeded up the car until she vibrated like a motor boat--like the
+submarine chaser, No. 888! They whirled along the half-lit road, the
+horn sounding its raucous warning, and the boys shrieking themselves
+hoarse.
+
+People came to their doors and windows The flying Navy boys pointed
+behind them, repeating:
+
+"The flood! The flood!"
+
+The roar of the bursting dam was now in the ears of all the awakened
+people of the valley. In three great explosions the weakened wall burst,
+and the water roared through.
+
+Spouting through the wrecked masonry, the boys could see it spread below
+the barrier, half as high as the dam itself. It would sweep the narrow
+valley clean of every small structure and of every living thing that
+could not get out of its path.
+
+Half a mile was small leeway; the flood would pour down upon the village
+and the mills in two or three minutes. But the Navy boys in the big car
+were flying over the road at a forty-mile-an-hour pace.
+
+They could have easily escaped to the high ground on one side or the
+other of the valley. There were many small farms down this river road,
+however, and although the valley widened a good deal before the
+outskirts of Seacove were reached, the flood might do a deal of damage
+in the lower town unless the people there were warned.
+
+At least, the automobile and its occupants made noise enough as they
+flew along to arouse most people along the way to the menacing peril.
+The explosion followed by the bursting of the dam had, in any case,
+shaken the valley to the very sea itself.
+
+They saw men, women and children run screaming from their houses and
+mount through the fields toward the hilltops. Behind, the roar of the
+waters was like a high wind. In a moment all the lights in Elmvale went
+out.
+
+"The powerhouse has gone!" shrieked Frenchy, when he saw this.
+
+"And everything else, I guess!" quavered Ikey, clinging to the back of
+the automobile seat and hoarse from shouting.
+
+Dim as the light from the stars and the moon was, they could see the
+front of the wave of released water. When it struck the big mill
+buildings at Elmvale the foamy water sprang up in geysers.
+
+Several of the big buildings went down under the impact of the flood.
+The smaller hovels were swept off their foundations. Those people who
+had not escaped from the middle of the village must be overcome by the
+sweep of the flood.
+
+Below the Main Street bridge in Elmvale, the channel of the river was
+much wider than above the bridge. It was navigable for small vessels,
+too, from Seacove to that point.
+
+Schooners and barges moored to the docks below the bridge were cast up
+on the crest of the flood, their hawsers snapped like packthread, and
+they were whirled away, some to be cast later far back from the
+established bank of the stream.
+
+It was tidewater below the bridge, and fortunately it was low tide. The
+channel of the river, therefore, could take the greater bulk of the
+flood, and the valley widening so quickly, the depth of the outflow of
+the dam was much decreased directly below the wrecked hamlet.
+
+The rushing automobile was two-thirds of the way to Seacove in five
+minutes. Then the advance wave of the flood caught them.
+
+They saw the saplings along the bank of the stream bend and snap under
+the force of the water. Some were uprooted. Chicken houses and other
+small structures were snatched from their places and flung wildly along
+with the charging water.
+
+With a roar and a cloud of spray the water surged around the automobile
+on the road. Running, as the car was, at top speed, the flood picked it
+up and drove it forward even more swiftly for several rods.
+
+"Shut her off! Shut her off!" yelled Frenchy excitedly.
+
+But Torry was wiser than that. The water flattened out, and the whirling
+wheels bit into the road again. They did not skid, and the car remained
+upright. For the next half mile they ran through more than a foot of
+water; but it was plain the danger was over.
+
+Near the river bank the water flooded the first floors of the houses in
+the suburbs of Seacove; but there was little other damage done at this
+distance from the dam.
+
+As the water subsided from about them, however, Torry turned the
+machine around and headed up the road again.
+
+"Yes, we'll go back," Whistler agreed. "Drive slowly, Torry. Maybe we
+can help somebody. I'm afraid there were some people who did not get
+away in time."
+
+They found enough to do, it was true, all that night. After getting back
+to the outskirts of Elmvale they could not drive the machine over the
+slime and mud in the roadway. There were deep washouts, too; and in some
+places the wreck of light buildings barred the way.
+
+The Navy boys had done good service in warning the endangered people
+along one side of the river. Mr. Santley had done much more in sending
+the news of the broken dam broadcast by telephone. The girl at Central
+had stuck to her post while the water rose to the second floor of the
+telephone building, where the switchboard was situated.
+
+Whistler and his three chums were carrying children to the high ground
+where it was dry, and packing bedding and blankets up to the
+"shipwrecked mess-mates," as Frenchy called them, until dawn.
+
+When the sun crept up and showed the wreckage in the valley, and
+particularly about Elmvale, it was enough to make one heartsick. The
+lower floors of all mills, and of the munition factory, were wrecked.
+Some of the buildings had fallen down.
+
+Much machinery was destroyed. It would take months to repair the damage
+done to property by the flood. And there was a death list of twelve.
+That was the hardest to bear and the saddest result of the catastrophe.
+
+Until the ruins around Elmvale were searched and the last body brought
+to light, little was said about the cause of the disaster. But the
+following evening Whistler and his chums were called to the office of
+the sheriff of the county to tell what they knew about the stranger,
+Blake, who had disappeared just before the dam burst.
+
+He had been seen getting off the train at Elmvale that evening. But he
+had disappeared immediately after. He had not returned to the munition
+factory, where the manager, Mr. Santley, was waiting for him; nor had he
+been observed at all after leaving the railroad station.
+
+Later it was proved that he had obtained his position at the factory by
+the aid of forged credentials. It was believed that he was rather a
+famous German inventor who had been living in the United States for some
+years. He had an almost uncanny knowledge of mechanics, as well as of
+chemistry.
+
+The ingenious little water wheel Whistler had seen at the foot of the
+dam had probably furnished power for some machine that had been fixed
+on the face of the dam with a charge of dynamite. This invention had
+been rigged to explode the dynamite after a certain length of time--time
+enough, without doubt, to enable the inventor to get well away from the
+vicinity of the dam.
+
+"If Linder is his name," Whistler said, when the boys were afterward
+talking it over among themselves, "I hope I'll see him again some time.
+He was never blown up with the dam, that is sure."
+
+"You don't think he was 'hoist with his own petard, then?" suggested
+Torry.
+
+"Hear the high-brow!" sniffed Frenchy.
+
+"Oi, oi!" cried Ikey. "He means was he blown up, too? I bet not!"
+
+"I ought to have told somebody about him before," sighed Whistler.
+"I had a feeling he wasn't using his real name."
+
+"Say! why should you worry? That Mr. Santley didn't think anything wrong
+of him until he found the letter in German in Blake's locker. And we did
+set Mr. MacMasters and the S. P. Eight-eighty-eight after him and the
+oil boat, didn't we?"
+
+"By the way," Whistler suddenly observed, drawing an official looking
+letter from his pocket. "Did I tell you I got this?"
+
+"No," said Torry. "What is it?"
+
+"Hurray!" yelled Frenchy, the quick-witted. "It's our assignment to the
+_Kennebunk_, I bet you!"
+
+"Is that right, Whistler?" asked Torry.
+
+"That's what it is," admitted Morgan. "We're to report, however, to Mr.
+MacMasters at Rivermouth day after to-morrow. But our ultimate
+destination is the _Kennebunk_, superdreadnaught, just built and fitted
+out for her first cruise. You know, she was only christened a month
+ago."
+
+Even the Elmvale disaster and the mystery regarding the German spy,
+Franz Linder, were at once ousted from the minds of the Navy boys. Their
+first cruise in a superdreadnaught was of much greater importance.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+UNEXPECTED PERIL
+
+
+The four apprentice seamen went down to Rivermouth in great spirits. The
+home folks were not actually glad to see them go, but they were a little
+relieved; for the chums had managed to keep things very lively about
+Seacove during their shore leave.
+
+The terrible disaster at Elmvale, however, had sobered the four friends
+a good bit at the last. Seven Knott had gone away before it happened, so
+he had had no part in their later adventures. They were not even sure
+that he had gone to join the crew of the _Kennebunk_, the new
+superdreadnaught to which they were assigned for a brief cruise.
+
+They had heard nothing from Ensign MacMasters, so the Navy boys did not
+know when or how they were to meet him; but they went to Rivermouth on
+the early train and had plenty of time to look about the port and see
+all of the shipping in the harbor.
+
+One craft they did not see. The oil tender, _Sarah Coville_, was not
+here, and, on making some inquiries of the dock loungers, the boys
+learned that she had not been seen at Rivermouth since the night they
+had come in off the submarine chaser in the fog.
+
+Rivermouth was fast becoming a base for patrol boats and submarines, it
+seemed, although New London and Groton, across the harbor from New
+London, were really the headquarters for all such craft along the North
+Atlantic seaboard.
+
+"Maybe we can spy the Three Eights," Torry said, referring to the
+submarine chaser in which they had pursued the _Sarah Coville_ a few
+days before. "Mr. MacMasters must have been relieved of the command of
+her before this, don't you think?"
+
+"Don't know," Whistler rejoined, breaking off in his whistling briefly.
+
+"But where is he?" queried the anxious Frenchy.
+
+"Don't worry," Whistler said. "He'll be here."
+
+"Oi, oi! If he don't come," said Ikey, "we're marooned, eh?"
+
+"That'll be fierce!" growled Frenchy Donahue. "I've got just fifty-five
+cents left, and one of the nickels is punched. I can see my finish if he
+doesn't show up to-day."
+
+The chums soon discovered that they were not the only boys from the Navy
+in town. By ones and twos other bluejackets made their appearance on
+the water-front. But there was not even a petty officer assigned to the
+port to meet them.
+
+The four friends from Seacove learned that every enlisted man and
+apprentice they talked with was assigned to the _Kennebunk_, and
+immediately all fraternized.
+
+At noon time the bluejackets marched up town in a body to Yancey's and
+flocked into that eating place like a swarm of hungry locusts. Abe, the
+waiter, was just about swamped, and Ikey and Frenchy volunteered to help
+him serve the vociferous crew. Yancey's other customers were very much
+out of it for the time being.
+
+They were a noisy crowd, but perfectly good-natured; and with the
+freehandedness characteristic of the sailor ashore, bought the best
+Yancey could provide. The restaurant proprietor had no complaint to
+make.
+
+In the midst of the jollification a hush began to spread over the room.
+It began at the tables near the main entrance of the restaurant; then
+the men began to get briskly to their feet. With automatic precision
+they came to attention, saluting the officer who had entered with that
+jerky little downward gesture of the forearm typical of the bluejacket.
+
+Ikey, starting from the order window with a tray load of food, nearly
+dropped the whole thing on the floor in trying to salute.
+
+"Ensign MacMasters!" hissed Torry for the benefit of the boys near, who
+did not know the officer.
+
+And over Ensign MacMasters' shoulder glowed the moon-like face of Seven
+Knott.
+
+"Keep your seats, men," said the ensign quietly, returning the salute in
+general. "You have half an hour to finish before we march to the dock.
+I take it you are all assigned to my present command?"
+
+He nodded to Seven Knott. Then he took a chair at an empty table and
+ordered coffee, while the boatswain's mate went around among the other
+tables making a list of the men's names and their former billets.
+
+Under the eyes of a commissioned officer the boys behaved with much more
+decorum; but it was still a jolly party that finally lined up on the
+sidewalk outside Yancey's, prepared to march to the dock.
+
+Ensign MacMasters sought out Whistler Morgan to speak to personally:
+
+"I shall expect you to keep the younger boys straight, Morgan. We're
+going to be in crowded quarters aboard the patrol boat. Mr. Junior
+Lieutenant Perkins has come back to his command and we are only guests
+aboard," and Ensign MacMasters laughed.
+
+"We are about to have a taste of rough weather outside, too, I fancy.
+But our instructions are to make the port where the _Kennebunk_ lies
+before the morning tide."
+
+"Has the submarine patrol boat, Eight-hundred-eighty-eight, come into
+the harbor, sir?"
+
+"I have just been relieved of her command. I am assigned to take you
+chaps on her to the battleship. I understand that we shall have a three
+months' cruise in the _Kennebunk_ before we are returned to the
+_Colodia_," said the ensign.
+
+Whistler's eyes sparkled. "Then some of us will have a chance of
+handling the big guns, sir?"
+
+"That is the object, I believe. That, and the fact that the full
+complement of the battleship's crew cannot be at once made up. There
+will be changes made in the crew of the _Colodia_ when she returns from
+her European cruise. If you youngsters do well on the _Kennebunk_ some
+of you may soon be gunners' mates. The present cruise of the _Kennebunk_
+is mainly for practice work."
+
+"Oh, sir! won't we see any active service in her?" cried Whistler.
+
+Mr. MacMasters looked very mysterious. "You must not ask too many
+questions. I am telling you, Morgan, what is generally known about the
+orders under which the superdreadnaught sails. But we may see plenty of
+real work At least, we need not suppose that the _Kennebunk_ will run
+away from any enemy submarine that may appear along this coast."
+
+"Do you believe there are German subs over here again, sir?"
+
+"It is my private opinion that at least one is here and more are
+coming," declared Ensign MacMasters. "And there is a supply boat for
+them lying somewhere off our coast, too. We ran down that _Sarah
+Coville_ yesterday, by the way, with another cargo of oil aboard. Her
+captain and crew will surely be interned."
+
+Mr. MacMasters had no more time to talk with Phil Morgan then. The men
+being ready, the march to the dock was made, Seven Knott bringing up the
+rear to see that there were no loiterers.
+
+"See that narrow streak!" ejaculated one fellow, when they came to the
+dock where the chaser was moored. "Oh, boy! got your sea legs with you?"
+
+The slate-colored S. P. 888 looked to be no friend to a landsman,
+especially with the sea as it was just then. Beyond the craft the harbor
+was tossing in innumerable whitecaps, while through the breach between
+the capes the Atlantic itself could be seen to be in ugly mood.
+
+They got aboard; and as soon as the moorings were cast off the
+newcomers were welcomed in friendly fashion, by the regular crew of the
+chaser, to most of whom Whistler Morgan and his three friends were
+already known.
+
+"Hey, garby! where d'you sleep on this hooker?" demanded one of the
+strangers, hoarsely and behind the sharp of his hand, of a member of the
+chaser's crew. "Or do you go ashore at nights?"
+
+"If we can't get ashore for the watch below," was the perfectly serious
+reply, "every man gets a hook to hang on."
+
+"You mean to hang his hammock on?"
+
+"No such luck! There isn't room for hammocks on one of these chasers.
+Why, even the officer commanding has to sleep on a hammock slung out
+over the stern in pleasant weather."
+
+"Good-night!" gasped Al Torrance. "Where does he sleep when it isn't
+pleasant?"
+
+"He doesn't sleep at all--or anybody else, as you'll probably find out
+to-night, garby," was the reply.
+
+There was bound to be a deal of joking of this nature; but it was all
+good-natured. The crew of the chaser were of course just as proud of
+their craft as the crew of the battleship is of their sea-home. They
+ignored the inconveniences of the S. P. 888 and dilated upon her speed
+and what they hoped to do in her. She was even better than a destroyer
+for getting right on top of a submarine and sinking that rat of the sea
+with depth bombs.
+
+The latter--metal cylinders weighing more than a hundred pounds
+each--were lashed in their stations at the bow and at the stern of the
+chaser. They were rigged to be dropped overboard a little differently
+from the method pursued upon the destroyers.
+
+As the chaser shot across the harbor the strangers aboard remarked in
+wonder at the way in which she picked up speed. Within a couple of cable
+lengths from the shore she was going like a streak of light.
+
+It was evident that the S. P. 888 was fully prepared for rough weather.
+Not only the depth bombs, but everything else on her decks were lashed.
+Passing between the capes, she plunged into a regular smother of rough
+water, and at once the decks were drenched from stem to stern.
+
+"What do you know about this?" demanded Al Torrance of Morgan. "A
+fellow wants to hang on to a handline like grim death to be sure to keep
+inboard. Hope they won't pipe us to quarters while this keeps up."
+
+There seemed to be, however, no prospect of the sea's abating; and the
+commander of the chaser had a considerable distance to go before
+morning, so he urged the engineer to increase rather than diminish the
+speed.
+
+With no regard to the comfort of her crew, the craft plowed along on her
+way to the port where the _Kennebunk_ awaited them. Naval vessels cannot
+wait on weather signals. "Orders are orders."
+
+The forward deck was comparatively dry; but the after part of the vessel
+was in a continual smother of spume and broken water. Now and then a
+wave would charge and break over her, drowning everything and everybody
+aft of the engines.
+
+These waves seemed racing to overtake and smother the chaser. The tons
+of water discharged upon her decks would have sunk a less buoyant craft.
+All she did was to squatter under the weight of the water like a duck,
+her propellers never missing a stroke!
+
+Whistler Morgan and his chums did not remain below through this run. No,
+indeed! The hardiest stomach would feel squeamish at such times in
+quarters like those of the crew of the S. P. 888.
+
+At least the Navy boys got fresh air on deck if they were battered
+around a bit. They were supplied with slickers, and they had been wet
+many a time before.
+
+Frenchy Donahue raised his shrill voice in the old dirge: "Aren't you
+glad you're a Navy man? Oh, mother!" and had not intoned the first
+lachrymose verse through to the end before Ikey Rosenmeyer interrupted
+with a shout:
+
+"Look there! She's broke loose! Hey, fellers! don't you see it?"
+
+They were hanging to a lubber line near the quarterdeck, which on the
+chaser was a part of the after deck having imaginary boundaries only,
+established by order of the chaser's commander.
+
+The depth bomb lashed there was the object to which Ikey called his
+mates' attention. A line had snapped, and the heavy cylinder rolled
+slowly across the deck.
+
+Suddenly the vessel heaved to starboard, and with a quick snap the bomb
+rolled in the other direction, crashing against the port rail in a way
+which made Whistler Morgan cry out in warning:
+
+"Have a care, fellows! If the safety pin isn't firmly inserted in that
+bomb, and drops out, she may blow off."
+
+"Great glory!" muttered Torry, "where will we be then?"
+
+"It's pretty sure if she explodes we'll never join the _Kennebunk's_
+crew," was his chum's grim answer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+COURAGE
+
+
+The four friends from Seacove were not the only members of the ship's
+company that saw the depth bomb break loose from its fastenings. The
+second in command of the submarine chaser, Ensign Filson, and two seamen
+on lookout were on duty aft.
+
+"Stop that thing!" shouted the ensign.
+
+He was young and inexperienced, and he did not start for the rolling
+cylinder himself. Had it been Ensign MacMasters, Phil Morgan and his
+friends knew that he would have jumped for the bomb as he shouted the
+order.
+
+The two lookouts were not supposed to leave their positions at such a
+call; but it was a direct command. They turned from their posts at the
+rail where they were scanning the sea on either hand just as the depth
+bomb made its second plunge across the deck.
+
+It crashed into the port rail and then, as the chaser jerked her tail in
+the heavy cross seas like a saucy catbird, the dangerous cylinder dashed
+to starboard again.
+
+"Stop it!" cried Mr. Filson for the second time; and just then _the
+safety pin dropped out_!
+
+The first lookout had almost clutched the plunging cylinder as it passed
+him on its backward roll.
+
+"Ware the bomb!" shouted his mate, and both of them leaped away from the
+vicinity of the peril.
+
+Nor were they to be blamed. With the pin out it was to be expected that
+the big bomb would immediately explode. It banged against the rail, then
+charged across the deck again. Every time it collided with an obstacle
+the spectators expected it to blow up and burst the after part of the
+ship asunder.
+
+To the credit of Ensign Filson be it said that he did not fall back from
+his post on the quarter. Nor did he directly order, now that he thought
+of it, any particular man to try to hold the plunging bomb. It was work
+for a volunteer--a man who was willing to take his life in his hands.
+
+There is a quality of courage that is higher than that which takes men
+into battle along with their fellows. The companionship of others in the
+charge breeds courage in many weak souls.
+
+But to start alone on a dangerous mission, the lone man in an almost
+hopeless cause, calls for a steadiness of courage that few can rise to.
+
+The four young fellows clinging together behind Mr. Filson were shot
+with fear, as they might very well be. At any second the bomb was likely
+to explode, and they were so near that they could not possibly escape
+the full force of the blast.
+
+Even if the chaser herself escaped complete destruction, they could not
+dodge the effect of the explosion; but like the ensign they would not
+retreat.
+
+These bombs are timed to explode at about an eighty-foot depth. A very
+few seconds would bring about the catastrophe. Every man on the deck of
+the S. P. 888 felt that.
+
+Suddenly, along the deck charged a sturdy figure--a human battering ram.
+The other men were knocked aside. One of the lookouts was toppled over
+by the newcomer, falling flat upon his back and was shot by the next
+plunge of the craft into the scuppers amidships.
+
+"Hi! Hi! Seven Knott!" yelled Al Torrance.
+
+"Good old _Colodia_! Go to it!" joined in the excited Frenchy.
+
+Philip Morgan was already crouching for a leap. Seven Knott passed him
+and threw himself upon the unleashed peril that rolled about the deck.
+
+He grasped the cylinder as he fell, but it was snatched out of his arms
+by the next plunge of the vessel. Seven Knott got to his knees and
+sought to seize the bomb again when it charged back across the deck.
+
+The thing seemed actually to evade him; and swinging at an unexpected
+angle as Seven Knott threw himself desperately forward, the heavy
+cylinder banged the boatswain's mate on the head.
+
+The man was knocked down by the blow. He suddenly straightened out and
+then relaxed, at full length, upon the sliding deck. Like an inanimate
+lump his body followed the runaway bomb, but more slowly, to the lower
+rail.
+
+Again the deck heaved upon that side, and the cylinder roared across it.
+It missed the unconscious petty officer. At that instant Whistler Morgan
+made his leap.
+
+He had taken time to study the angle at which the bomb was rolling; he
+fell upon and grappled it as though it were a football.
+
+"Oh! Oh! _Colodia!_" yelled his three mates in wild excitement.
+"Hurray!"
+
+"Well done, _Colodia_!" echoed a voice behind them, and Ensign
+MacMasters appeared from the after hatchway, with the commanding officer
+of the S. P. 888 in his wake.
+
+Some of the chaser's crew were now approaching the scene from forward.
+Ensign Filson leaped for the safety pin that had been jerked out of the
+depth bomb just as Phil Morgan, on his knees, set the bomb up on its
+flat end.
+
+"Good boy, Whistler!" shrieked Torry.
+
+Ensign Filson reached the spot and slipped the plug into place. Between
+them they held the bomb upright on its flat end until the seamen could
+pass a line around it.
+
+The dangerous thing had yet to be held right there until Lieutenant
+Perkins ordered the submarine chaser headed up into the sea. Then the
+bomb could be removed to a place of safety.
+
+The whole affair had occupied seconds, that is all. But all felt as
+though an hour had passed!
+
+"Good boy, Morgan!" declared Ensign MacMasters, his face shining with
+approval. "Is the mate hurt badly?"
+
+The petty officer was still unconscious. They picked him up to carry him
+below. Then the whole crowd began to cheer, and the officers did not
+forbid it. Even Lieutenant Perkins wrung Phil Morgan's hand as he stood
+abashed in the center of the congratulatory group on the quarter deck.
+
+"I'd be proud to have you as one of my own crew, Morgan," said the
+commander of the submarine chaser. "Ensign MacMasters is to be
+congratulated that he takes aboard the _Kennebunk_ such an altogether
+admirable young man. You will hear from this, Master Morgan. You
+deserve the Medal of Honor and whatever other honor and special
+emolument it is in the power of the Secretary of the Navy to award."
+
+He turned to MacMasters: "And your boatswain's mate deserves mention,
+too. That he did not succeed in doing what this young man accomplished,
+was not for lack of courage to attempt it. They are both men that the
+Navy may be proud of. With a will, men!" and he led in another cheer.
+
+"Oi, oi, Whistler!" whispered Ikey when the greatly abashed Morgan went
+forward, "you'll be an admiral next. If you beat me to it, what will my
+papa and mama say?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE KENNEBUNK SAILS
+
+
+Put back upon her course, the S. P. 888 was soon beating her way through
+the cross-seas--"bucking the briny" the boys called it--toward the port
+from which the _Kennebunk_ was to sail in the morning.
+
+It was a wild night. The peril through which the ship's company had just
+passed, and from which Philip Morgan had been able to save them, made
+the threatening aspects of sea and air seem small indeed. Let the wind
+shriek through the wire stays and the waves roar and burst about and
+over the submarine chaser as they listed, none of these dangers equaled
+that of the depth charge which had run amuck.
+
+Seven Knott was brought to his senses in a short time, and, after
+staring about a bit, murmured:
+
+"Well, I didn't get it, did I?"
+
+"Not your fault, my man," declared Ensign MacMasters cheerfully. "Wait
+till Lieutenant Commander Lang, of the _Colodia_, hears about it. You
+have done well, Hertig. He will be proud of you."
+
+At that the petty officer smiled, for he was inordinately fond of the
+commander of the destroyer.
+
+Mr. MacMasters made it plain to the boatswain's mate that apprentice
+seaman Morgan had saved him, as well as the rest of the ship's company,
+from disaster, and Hansie Hertig grinned broadly.
+
+"That Whistler--he can do something besides make tunes with his mouth,
+eh?" he observed.
+
+Most of the crew of the submarine chaser, as well as the members of the
+squad going aboard the _Kennebunk_, personally congratulated Whistler on
+his courage and quick action.
+
+"This is an awfully small boat, Torry," he complained to his chum.
+"There isn't any place for a fellow to get away by himself. There are
+too many folks here."
+
+He did not take kindly to so much approbation. He felt that Lieutenant
+Perkins had already said enough.
+
+Although Whistler and his mates had no duties to perform on the S. P.
+888, they did not turn in that night at all. To tell the truth the
+chaser was making an awfully rough passage of it, and although they were
+inured to the discomforts of their beloved _Colodia_ in stormy weather,
+this was even worse.
+
+They kept out of the way of the watch on duty, but remained for the
+most part on deck, as they were free to do. The watchlights on the
+shore, those in the lighthouses and the lamps in certain seaside
+hamlets, gave them their position from time to time. They were aware
+long before daylight that they were drawing near to the harbor mouth of
+the port where the superdreadnaught lay.
+
+It was blowing a whole gale (in nautical language, sixty-five miles or
+more an hour) and as the submarine chaser was meeting the seas on a
+slant, it might almost as well have been a hurricane. As Frenchy said:
+
+"The smaller the boat, the bigger the wind seems. And a 'happy thought'
+like this chaser will kick up like a frisky colt in a dead calm, I do
+believe. By St. Patrick's piper that played the last snake out of
+Ireland! I'll be a week gittin' over this pitchin'. What d'you say,
+Mister Torrance, acushla?"
+
+"Don't blather me!" growled Torry.
+
+"Hast thou a feeling that all is not well in the daypartment av the
+intayrior?" teased the Irish lad, who would joke at all times and upon
+the most serious subjects.
+
+"Torry does look a bit green about the gills," put in Whistler.
+
+"Serves him right for eatin' crab-meat salad there at Yancey's,"
+declared Ikey Rosenmeyer. "That's nice chow to go to sea on, yet."
+
+"I don't have to ask you what to eat," said Torry gruffly.
+
+"Oi, oi! That's right," agreed Ikey. "Just the same I could tell you
+lots better than that."
+
+The boys had sampled the cook's coffee, but not much else, since
+embarking on the S. P. 888. It was true that the pitching of the chaser
+was not conducive to a ravenous appetite.
+
+"If Uncle kept all his bluejackets on these submarine chasers," said
+Whistler, "he'd save money on grub. I wonder these fellows," referring
+to the crew of the S. P. 888, "manage to keep up with their rations."
+
+The little craft swerved at last and took the waves directly astern as
+she ran shoreward. The mouth of the harbor opened up to her, and in the
+gray light, as the chaser shot in between the headlands, almost
+smothered in foam, the men and boys on her deck sighted through the haze
+the towering hull of the great battleship.
+
+"There she is!" gasped Frenchy. "My! isn't she a monster?"
+
+"She's a regular leviathan," agreed Whistler.
+
+Even Torry forgot his discomfort and showed enthusiasm. "She's the
+biggest thing I ever saw afloat," he said. "Listen, fellows!"
+
+Two strokes of a silvery bell rang out from some ship asleep in the
+morning mist. It was five o'clock. From the decks of the battleship
+sounded the bugles of the boatswain's mates, piping reveille and "all
+hands."
+
+"Gee!" groaned Frenchy, "reg'lar duty again, fellows."
+
+"Don't croak," advised Whistler. "It's what we signed on for, isn't it?"
+
+The chaser, now riding an even keel in the more quiet waters of the
+harbor, swept at slower speed to the side of the towering hull of the
+_Kennebunk_. A sentinel at the starboard ladder, which was lowered,
+hailed sharply. A moment later a deck officer came to the side.
+
+"S. P. Eight Hundred and Eighty-eight, ahoy!" he said.
+
+"Lieutenant Perkins in command," said that officer, standing in his
+storm coat and boots on the wet deck. "With squad of seamen under Ensign
+MacMasters for the _Kennebunk_."
+
+"Send them aboard, Lieutenant, if you please. We trip anchors in half an
+hour. The tide is just at the turn."
+
+Mr. MacMasters was already lining up his men, and Seven Knott, with a
+bandage on his head, was looking for stragglers. Some of the chaser's
+crew shook hands with the boys assigned to the superdreadnaught before
+they went up her side.
+
+"Good luck! If you get a chance, smash a Fritzie battleship for me!"
+were some of the wishes that followed Whistler Morgan and his companions
+aboard the superdreadnaught.
+
+The boys from Seacove and their companions reported to the chief
+master-at-arms, while Mr. MacMasters made his report to the executive
+officer.
+
+At first glance it was plainly to be seen by the newcomers that the
+superdreadnaught had a full crew. Their squad made complete her
+complement of men. She was ready to put to sea.
+
+Hammocks were already piped up and the smoking lamp was lit. The cooks
+of the watch were serving coffee, and the newly arrived party had their
+share, and grateful they were. Their experience aboard the submarine
+patrol boat had been most chilling and uncomfortable.
+
+Immediately, the call for hauling over hammock cloths and stopping them
+down was sounded. "Pipe sweepers" was the next command, and the decks
+were thoroughly swept while the deck washers removed their shoes and
+socks.
+
+"Wet down decks!" and the washers sprang for the coils of hose attached
+to the fire hydrants. Every part of the decks was flushed with clean sea
+water and swabs, or deck-mops, were used where necessary.
+
+All this was a familiar routine to Whistler Morgan and his mates. Later
+they would be assigned to their places in the watches and to their posts
+at all deck drills.
+
+At the execution of morning orders at three bells, or half-past five,
+the decks were cleared of all loiterers and the order passed to break
+away the anchors. The steam gear was already in action. The derrick had
+hoisted aboard the running steamer before the chaser had arrived with
+the boys from Seacove and their companions, and it was now stowed in her
+proper berth amidships. There was no other craft outboard, even the
+captain's gig having been stowed preparatory to going to sea.
+
+Feathery smoke was rising from the funnels of the ship when Whistler and
+his chums had come aboard. Now great gray masses of oily smoke ballooned
+upward, drifting away to leeward before the gale. As soon as the anchors
+were tripped the bows of the great ship swung seaward. She began to
+forge ahead.
+
+The _Kennebunk_ was a huge craft, indeed, being of thirty-two thousand
+tons' displacement. She carried twelve 12 and 14-inch guns in her
+turrets on the center line, while her torpedo battery of 5 and 6-inch
+guns numbered twenty. The "all-big-gun" feature of our big battleships
+began with the construction of the dreadnaught _Delaware_, in 1906.
+
+The _Kennebunk_ was heavily armored on the waterline and barbettes. She
+likewise had 5 to 8-inch armor along in wake of the berth-deck and
+armored broadside gun positions.
+
+She had two steel cage masts and cofferdams along the unarmored portion
+of her waterline to protect the ship from being flooded if pierced by a
+shell between wind and water.
+
+All machinery necessary to the superdreadnaught while in action was
+installed below the armored deck and behind the thick belt of armor at
+the waterline. Her system of water-tight compartments was perfect, and
+she had a complete double bottom.
+
+In addition to her offensive machinery, she had several underwater
+torpedo tubes. Although she was supposed to be too heavy for great
+speed, her coal carrying capacity was enormous, and she could travel on
+the power of her oil engines alone in a pinch. Altogether, the
+_Kennebunk_ was the very latest result of battleship construction, and
+was preeminently a "first line ship."
+
+But she had yet to prove herself.
+
+Her brief trial cruise had shown her to be safe and that she could be
+handled by the minimum of men allowed on such a ship. Now with a full
+crew and direct orders for a month or more ahead, she was going to sea
+to make her initial record as a sea-fighter for Uncle Sam.
+
+Her commander's report would be made daily by wireless to Washington,
+and the working out of the new superdreadnaught would be watched by
+experts with the keenest anxiety.
+
+There were several points regarding the _Kennebunk's_ construction
+different from any craft that had ever been built for similar work
+before; and if these matters did not prove satisfactory there would be
+bitter criticism of the board in charge. This was no time, Congress
+would say, for the trial of "new frills." The country was at war, and it
+was believed that all our first line ships would soon be called into
+action. Germany was believed to be in such desperate straits that it was
+thought she would venture to send her fleet to sea after three and a
+half years of hiding in the Kiel Canal.
+
+High hopes and some doubt went with the _Kennebunk_ as she steamed out
+of the harbor and into the storm. Not alone were her officers and crew
+anxious to find out what she could do. The rulers of the United States
+Navy were deeply concerned as well.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+AN UNEXPECTED TARGET
+
+
+At quarters for muster and inspection that day the four Navy boys from
+Seacove were given their numbers and drill placements. These were, of
+course, not permanent assignments. Changes would quickly be made after
+the capabilities of the boys were established. Especially would this be
+so in assignments of duty relating to the ship when in action.
+
+The four friends had Mr. MacMasters to say a good word for them. Their
+record, too, aboard the _Colodia_ and with the prize crew on the
+captured German raider would be taken into consideration when permanent
+appointments were made upon the _Kennebunk_.
+
+Hans Hertig immediately took his rightful position as boatswain's mate.
+His rating was assured. But, after all, the apprentice seamen must prove
+themselves before the officers of the superdreadnaught were likely to
+give them much consideration.
+
+The act of particular courage that had brought Whistler Morgan into
+prominence on the submarine chaser the night before would scarcely be
+taken public notice of by Captain Trevor of the _Kennebunk_ until it was
+mentioned in orders from Washington. Ensign MacMasters, however, liked
+the boy too well not to take the first opportunity offered him to relate
+the happening on the S. P. 888 at officers' mess. After this it of
+course quickly reached the captain's ears.
+
+Whistler and Torry immediately put in their claim for gunnery work. They
+had studied faithfully and had had considerable training with the
+secondary battery of the _Colodia_.
+
+"Of course, these huge guns of the _Kennebunk_ mean something else
+again," declared Ikey. "You fellers have been playin' with popguns yet.
+If you get in a turret gun crew you've got to show 'em."
+
+"We'll do just that little thing," answered Torry rather boastfully.
+
+There was not likely to be practice with the big guns until the weather
+changed. The _Kennebunk_ roared on through the storm for all of that
+day; but her hull was so huge that she scarcely rolled while she
+remained under steam.
+
+Most target shooting is arranged for ordinarily fair weather. Not often
+have battles at sea been fought in a storm. Besides, the _Kennebunk_
+must run off the coast, beyond the approved steamship lines, to a point
+where she could be joined by a naval vessel dragging the target.
+
+There were lectures on gunnery that day to the gun captains, and the
+boys off duty who were interested in the subject might listen to this
+instruction. Phil Morgan and Torrance availed themselves of the
+privilege.
+
+The two younger chums, Michael Donahue and Ikey Rosenmeyer, were not, it
+must be confessed, so well employed. During this first day aboard the
+_Kennebunk_ there was bred between these youths a scheme which certainly
+would not have met with the approval of the executive officer.
+
+In their quarters aboard the destroyer _Colodia_ they would not have
+been able to stow the junk they now secured away from the watchful eyes
+of the master-at-arms. In the destroyer their ditty boxes had to hide
+any private property the boys wanted to stow away.
+
+But a man could lose himself in the various decks of the
+superdreadnaught. Even the officers' quarters were forward with the
+crew's, the ship was so huge. There were unused rooms and compartments
+for which Ikey and Frenchy did not know the names, or their uses.
+
+In one of these unoccupied compartments the two found a lot of lumber
+and rubbish amid which were some joints of two-inch galvanized pipe the
+plumbers and pipe fitters had left when the ship was being furnished.
+
+"Gee, Ikey!" murmured the agile-minded Irish lad, "I've got an idea."
+
+"I bet you," returned Ikey. "You always have ideas. But is this one
+worth anything?"
+
+"Listen here!" and Frenchy, with dancing eyes, whispered into his
+friend's ear the details of the new-born scheme.
+
+"Oi, oi!" cried Ikey. "It is an idea, sure enough. But it is trouble you
+are looking for."
+
+"Not a bit of it. We needn't tell anybody--not even Whistler or Al. Gee!
+it will be great."
+
+"Mebbe the old man won't say so." He was referring to Captain Trevor,
+but in no disrespectful way. "Old Man" is rather a term of admiration
+and affection applied to the commander of a ship.
+
+"Lots he'll be botherin' about what we do," sniffed Frenchy.
+
+Ikey was already enamored of his friend's plan. His objections were very
+weak.
+
+"Ah, g'wan!" reiterated Frenchy. "You won't get into the brig for it,
+that's sure. I'll do it alone. Only see that you keep your mouth shut
+about it, if you won't help."
+
+But Ikey had no intention of seeing his friend have all the fun of the
+thing. He stopped objecting, and thereafter gave his hearty assistance
+in the plot.
+
+At odd times during that day and the next the two rigged a weighted
+platform into which could be fixed upright lengths of the two-inch pipe
+they had found.
+
+Rigged to suit them at last, the two boys took their appliance to pieces
+again and hid the parts away until a to-be-determined time. They were
+planning to have a joke upon the whole ship's company; but they were
+forced to wait for the appropriate moment in which to spring the
+surprise.
+
+The third morning out revealed a clearing sky and subsiding waves; and
+the regular ship's routine at sea was taken up.
+
+"Officers' call" was sounded five minutes before the "assembly" bugle
+call at 9:15. At the later call men of the various divisions fall in
+smartly at double time for muster in the respective parts of the ship.
+The men are inspected at this time regarding the condition of their
+clothing, length of hair, personal cleanliness, and whether or not they
+are carefully shaved.
+
+This last requirement troubled the four friends from Seacove but little,
+save that Whistler and Torry occasionally wore a little fuzz on their
+cheeks, which Frenchy declared they lathered surreptitiously with
+cream, then let the ship's cat lick it off.
+
+"If they had a real ship's cat on this iron pot," retorted Torry,
+"I know who would most frequently have the attention of that. You
+need the cat-o'-nine-tails right now, Frenchy."
+
+"Gee! ain't he bloodthirsty and savage?" whispered Michael, who dearly
+loved to tease.
+
+The petty officers who personally inspected the men at this morning
+review reported to the division officer, who in turn reported to the
+executive officer of the ship, who is always the navigating officer.
+
+After the reports the physical drill, or setting-up exercises, is the
+order. These calisthenics are similar to that drill in the army.
+
+It was on this third day that the boys were assigned to the watches and
+to their divisions for the cruise. The ship's company is divided into
+port and starboard watches, each watch being organized into divisions.
+Each turret is manned by a division, numbered in rotation, beginning
+with Number One from forward aft. To the delight of Philip Morgan and Al
+Torrance they were both assigned to Number Two division, and would be
+members of the crew of a big gun in the second turret.
+
+The broadside batteries were partly manned by marines, of whom there
+were a large number aboard the _Kennebunk_. These "soldiers of the sea"
+had always interested Whistler and his friends.
+
+For convenience in making out station bills and the like, each man of a
+division has a number assigned him by which he is known. Whistler and
+Torry were given respectively Numbers 2111 and 2112. These numbers
+showed that they were Numbers 11 and 12 of the first section of the
+second division--the first figure for division, the second for section,
+and the remainder the personal number of the man in his section.
+
+The watches, meaning the length of time into which the twenty-four hours
+aboard ship is divided, are arranged on a naval vessel as in all
+maritime affairs.
+
+The first watch is from 8:00 P. M. till midnight. The mid-watch, or
+"graveyard watch," is from midnight till 4:00 A. M.; the morning watch
+from 4:00 till 8:00 A. M.; the forenoon watch from 8:00 A. M. till
+mid-day; the afternoon watch from noon till 4:00 P. M.; and the
+dog-watches, each of which is but two hours long, are from 4:00 till
+6:00 P. M. and from 6:00 till 8 P. M.
+
+The Seacove boys were already well trained in the general duties that
+fell to their share, even though they had never cruised upon a
+superdreadnaught. Now they had the special duties of looking after the
+guns in the turret to which they were attached. Gun drill would
+hereafter occupy a part of their time each forenoon.
+
+As the weather cleared the lookouts all over the ship kept sharper watch
+than they had before for any moving object on the sea. They had seen the
+smoke of steamships and the sails of other vessels during the storm, but
+had not spoken a single craft since leaving port.
+
+The _Kennebunk_ frequently received and sent wireless messages; but the
+messages were evidently unimportant for they caused no flurry of
+excitement. The Seacove boys were expecting some news of submarines, or
+the capture of the "mother ship," which they believed was cruising off
+the coast to supply German U-boats with fuel. But no news of this kind
+came to their ears.
+
+The big battleship was now nearing the point where they could expect to
+meet the auxiliary naval vessel towing the target.
+
+"Pretty soft! Pretty soft!" said one chap in Whistler's gun crew
+disgustedly. "Pretty soft for us! We fellows going out to target
+practice, while those battleships already on the other side of this
+periscope pond may be fighting the Fritzies off Heligoland."
+
+"We'll get a chance at a sub maybe," said another more hopefully.
+
+"No such luck," growled the first speaker. "We'll just about get shot at
+with a torpedo from one of those pirates. We'd never have the good luck
+to plant a shell in a U-boat where it would do the most good. No, sir!"
+
+There was so much that was new for the four boys from Seacove to learn
+aboard the superdreadnaught that they did not worry much about getting
+into immediate action. Target practice with the big guns would spell
+excitement enough for the time being, they thought.
+
+Meanwhile Michael Donahue and Ikey Rosenmeyer were having a secret all
+to themselves that kept them breaking out in "the giggles" at
+unseasonable times, so that the master-at-arms gave them two reprimands
+within the twenty-four hours. Another would be likely to put their names
+on the report--an incident that was always to be regretted.
+
+The battleship was steaming through a flattening sea at half speed. Word
+had been passed from one of the masthead lookouts that smoke was
+sighted. The executive officer said it was probably the auxiliary ship
+with the target in tow. The report brought almost everybody who was free
+to the open decks.
+
+But Frenchy and Ikey showed an unexplained lack of interest in this
+incident. They remained below and, seizing their chance unobserved,
+slipped into the spare compartment on the lower deck in which the
+lumber was stowed.
+
+Just abaft this compartment was an ash-chute. As the sea was now calm,
+the ash-hoist had been at work that morning and the trap-door of the
+chute had not been relocked. This door kicked open outboard, giving vent
+upon the sea, the opening being about ten feet above the waterline of
+the _Kennebunk_.
+
+The two chums were deeply engaged in the compartment for some time while
+the crew and officers on deck watched the approach of the target boat.
+The course of that and the battleship would bring the two within
+speaking distance in an hour or less.
+
+Suddenly Ikey croaked a warning: "Hist! What's that, Frenchy?"
+
+"What's what?" puffed his friend, just then very much engaged in
+fastening together two joints of pipe. "Don't try to scare a fellow.
+Nobody's coming."
+
+"Listen!" commanded Ikey.
+
+Michael sat back on his heels, cocking his head to listen. It was no
+footstep outside the compartment slide. It was not that kind of sound at
+all. And it was faint--so faint indeed that perhaps the noises of the
+storm since they had left port had quite smothered the queer sound.
+
+"A clock?" Frenchy suggested.
+
+"Funny sounding clock," whispered Ikey Rosenmeyer. "And where can it
+be?"
+
+"Tick-_tock_! Tick-_tock_! Tick-_tock_!" The emphasis upon the second
+division of the sound was unmistakable. It did not seem like any clock
+the boys had ever heard.
+
+"That's never a ship's chronometer, you know, that," declared Frenchy.
+
+"What is it, then?" was his chum's worried demand.
+
+"Oh, bother! Don't care what it is," returned Frenchy. "Give us a hand
+here, Ike. Want me to do all the work alone, do you?"
+
+Frenchy was really getting cross. There are plenty of noises of one kind
+or another about a ship. One more noise he did not think mattered.
+
+But Ikey continued to raise his head now and then to listen to the
+"tick-tock" sound. It puzzled him, and he determined to tell Whistler
+about it.
+
+Their work was completed at length, and Frenchy crept out into the
+passage to look about. There was nobody in this part of the ship save
+themselves.
+
+The two mischievous youths tugged the result of their labor out to the
+ash-chute. The time was propitious. The battleship and the auxiliary
+were approaching each other and signals were being exchanged. Captain
+Trevor was on the quarterdeck and word was passed that target practice
+would immediately begin. In a moment Frenchy and Ikey darted out on deck
+and joined their mates without being observed by the master-at-arms.
+Whistler and Al Torrance were already hovering about their stations. If
+the guns of Number Two turret got a chance, they hoped to have a hand in
+the manipulation of them.
+
+Suddenly there came a hail from the masthead:
+
+"Q'deck-ahoy-sir!"
+
+The boy up there ran his cry altogether in his excitement. The
+navigating officer replied.
+
+"Submarine astern, sir! Can see the periscope bobbing, sir!" was the
+statement that changed the entire atmosphere of the battleship from that
+of mere curiosity and interest to the wildest excitement.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE BIG GUN SPEAKS
+
+
+The thing the lookout had spied bobbing in the sea was not exactly in
+the wake of the battleship, for those who rushed to the port rail could
+see it quite well. It wabbled about in a most eccentric way, as though
+the submarine attached to it had risen just as the _Kennebunk_ passed
+and had received the full force of her swell.
+
+"Jingo! that's a funny lookin' periscope," drawled one second-class
+seaman, a new recruit, craning his long neck to see over the heads of
+the group which Frenchy and Ikey had joined.
+
+"What did you think they'd look like?" demanded another.
+
+"Something like a smokestack with a curlycue on the end of it," was the
+reply.
+
+Frenchy and Ikey were giggling immeasurably. The former said: "Isa Bopp
+couldn't beat that, could he?"
+
+"Oi, oi!" sighed Ikey ecstatically. "A periscope like a smokestack!"
+
+But more than this new recruit aboard the _Kennebunk_ began to doubt
+the validity of the bobbing thing in the water astern. The big
+battleship was being swerved to bring the port broadside to bear upon
+the now distant object. The bugle rang for stations. The sudden activity
+of the whole ship's company was inspiring.
+
+Of a sudden there came a hail from the other masthead where two lookouts
+stood in the cage with glasses.
+
+"On deck, sir! Submarine just awash on the starboard quarter, sir!"
+
+The cry was in truth a startling one. Whistler and Torry, who had sprung
+with their mates to the guns of the second turret, were on the starboard
+side. A second submarine? Why, it seemed the ship was being surrounded
+by these wasps of the sea.
+
+A sharp whistle sounded in the turret. The officer in charge sprang to
+the tube.
+
+"Ready for deflection and range? Stand by!" was the order.
+
+"Aye, aye, sir!" responded the turret captain.
+
+Ammunition boxes appeared as though by magic and were broken open. Plugs
+were swung back and the gun bores were examined. The starboard gun was
+quickly charged. Whistler and Torry both worked on her. They stood back,
+the gunner standing with his finger on the button of the trigger.
+
+"That submarine's going down!" gasped one watcher. "We'll lose her."
+
+The next moment the executive officer's report for deflection and range
+came through the tube. Then: "Are you on?"
+
+"On, sir!"
+
+"Fire!"
+
+It seemed that almost instantaneously with the roar and recoil of the
+huge gun the shell burst beside the sinking submarine. The explosion was
+terrific; the whole hull of the undersea boat heaved up, exposing its
+length for a few seconds. Then the sea-shark sank, going down like a
+shot.
+
+"A hit! A hit!" yelled the men in turret two.
+
+A cheer burst from the throats of the whole ship's company. Those who
+had not seen it, realized that the first gun fired in earnest by the
+_Kennebunk_ had reached its target.
+
+"The old ship's bound to have good luck!" shouted a boatswain. "This is
+only the beginning! We'll sweep the seas of every Hun!"
+
+The officers did not try to quell the cheering. The satisfaction and
+pride of all was something too fine to be quenched.
+
+The battleship swerved again and ran across the track of the sunken
+U-boat. Bubbling up from the depths were blobs of black oil which lazily
+spread and broke upon the sea's surface.
+
+The German submarine was done for. Her crew were buried with her at the
+bottom of the sea. The cheering ceased when this fact was realized.
+
+"The poor square-heads!" muttered one fellow near Frenchy and Ikey
+Rosenmeyer. "They couldn't help it, I s'pose. They say they are driven
+into the subs. Aren't no volunteers called for."
+
+"Where's that other sub?" demanded another. "Has she sunk, too?"
+
+Frenchy and Ikey began to grin again. One of the boatswains said: "I bet
+that warn't no submarine ship at all. She's a joke. There! We're going
+to circle around and hunt her up."
+
+"Do you think the Fritzies set something afloat to fool us?" demanded
+another man in surprise. "They're cute rascals, aren't they?"
+
+"Not very cute just now," returned somebody, dryly. "They're food for
+the fishes."
+
+"Just the same, if we'd got our attention completely fixed upon this
+here floating joker, the real sub might have sneaked up within range and
+sent us a lover's note in the shape of a torpedo."
+
+Frenchy and Ikey began to look at each other with some worriment of
+countenance. Later it was reported that the first "periscope" could not
+be found. The two mischief-makers were greatly relieved.
+
+"Say! that wasn't any joke," Ikey whispered to the Irish lad. "Oi, oi!
+S'pose they had grappled for it and brought it aboard and found
+"_Kennebunk_" stamped on those iron belayin' pins we used for weights?"
+
+"Don't say a word!" urged Frenchy.
+
+"You bet I won't!" agreed Ikey. "Not even to Whistler and Al. We come
+pretty near putting our foot in it that time, Frenchy."
+
+The Irish lad agreed warmly: "By St. Patrick's piper that played the
+last snake out of Ireland!" he reiterated, "no more practical jokes,
+Ikey. This is a lesson. And say!"
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"I left my knife down there in that room. I've got to go down after it
+before it's found and the master-at-arms asks questions."
+
+"All right. I'll go down and watch out for you," declared the loyal
+Ikey.
+
+The target ship was being signaled again and she was coming back. At the
+first alarm of a submarine in the vicinity she had started coastward.
+
+The wireless was snapping. Messages were being sent out announcing the
+sinking of the U-boat and warning other craft, especially merchant
+vessels, of the possibility of other undersea boats being in the
+vicinity.
+
+It was proved, at least, that the Germans had sent more submarines to
+this side of the ocean. The visit of the _Deutschland_ and of U-53 to
+America before the United States got into the war, had been in the
+nature of a warning as to what the Hun could really do. Now perhaps a
+squadron of U-boats was to be sent across to prey upon American shipping
+or to shell helpless seaboard towns.
+
+The two younger Seacove boys, who had come so near committing a huge
+piece of folly by their small practical joke, slipped down to the lower
+deck again to recover Frenchy's knife. If it should be found by the
+master-at-arms, or was handed to him, it would go into the lucky bag;
+and then Frenchy would have to explain how he lost it in that unused
+compartment of the ship if he wished to get back the knife again.
+
+Just as they got to the passage abaft the compartment in question, Ikey
+uttered a warning "hist!" and drew Frenchy back. Somebody was coming out
+of the room in which they built the dummy that had so fooled the ship's
+company.
+
+"Who is it?" gasped Michael.
+
+"Oi, oi!" murmured Ikey, peering again, "It's Seven Knott."
+
+"Shucks! I'm not afraid of him," said Frenchy stepping forth into the
+passage. The next moment he cried out: "What's the matter, Hansie?"
+
+The petty officer was plainly frightened. He turned with rolling eyes
+and a pasty countenance to the two boys.
+
+"What you seen?" demanded Ikey, likewise disturbed by the petty
+officer's appearance.
+
+"No--nothin'," murmured the frightened Seven Knott. "But--but it's a
+ghost."
+
+"What's a ghost?" demanded the boys together, and although they did not
+believe in ghosts, they could not help being shaken a bit by Seven
+Knott's earnestness.
+
+"It's what I heard," whispered the older man, still trembling.
+
+"Oi, oi!" exclaimed Ikey Rosenmeyer suddenly. "Was it a clock ticking?"
+
+"That's it! That's what it sounded like. But there's no clock there,"
+the boatswain's mate said. "I couldn't find anything. It's all about
+you--in the air! I tell you it's a ghost, a ghost-clock. 'The death
+watch.' They say you hear it on board a ship when she's doomed to sink.
+Something bad is going to happen to the _Kennebunk_," finished Seven
+Knott earnestly.
+
+"Crickey!" cried Frenchy under his breath. "Something bad just happened
+to that German U-boat. Maybe this death watch you talk about was
+counting out the submarine, not the battleship."
+
+But Hertig was not to be easily pacified. He was superstitious anyway.
+He believed that he could not be drowned himself, for instance, because
+he had been born with a caul over his face.
+
+Frenchy went into the room, presumably to listen for the "tick-tock"
+sound; but actually to find his knife. He came out with the latter in
+his pocket; but he also showed a rather pale face and he had not much to
+say until Seven Knott went away.
+
+The latter crept away, plainly in great trouble of spirit. Ikey asked
+his chum:
+
+"Did you hear it again?"
+
+"Ye-es," admitted Frenchy. "It does sound queer. What do you suppose it
+can be?"
+
+"Don't know. Let's tell Whistler," said Ikey, who had a deal of
+confidence in Morgan.
+
+"That's all right. But don't tell him anything about our being in that
+room before. Remember, Ikey, we don't know a livin' thing about that
+first periscope the lookouts spied."
+
+"Sure I won't tell," agreed the other. "It wasn't such a good joke after
+all, was it, Frenchy?"
+
+And Frenchy agreed with a solemn nod of his head.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+AN ACCIDENT
+
+
+The _Kennebunk_ shook throughout her structure at that moment and Ikey
+darted for the between-decks ladder.
+
+"Another submarine!" he shouted. "Oi, oi!"
+
+"Hold on!" drawled Frenchy. "Nothing like it. There goes another. They
+are at practice. The target's in range."
+
+The four Seacove boys had seen something of gun practice on the
+destroyer _Colodia_; but the secondary batteries of the smaller vessel
+made no such racket as did the big guns of the _Kennebunk_.
+
+The discharge of a turret gun aboard the superdreadnaught was an
+important matter, and a costly one as well. The gun crews practiced all
+the movements save the actual discharge of the guns every day. To burn
+up several hundred pounds of powder and fire away the expensive
+projectiles in rehearsal was a serious matter.
+
+The gun crew that had made a clean hit on the submarine with its first
+shell, had already shown what value practice shooting was. The high
+standard of the gunnery in our Navy pays for all it costs.
+
+These gunners had practiced at the schools and on other vessels before
+being assigned to the superdreadnaught. No matter how much good powder
+and shot had already been flung away in training that particular crew of
+Turret Number Two, the sinking of the German submarine had paid for it
+all.
+
+Whistler and Torry did not, of course, actually fire the gun. The gun
+captain did that. But the exact team work of the crew had much to do
+with the score of the gun in target practice; and the two friends did
+their work commendably.
+
+There was a sharp lookout kept during target practice for other
+submarines. The disappearance of the first periscope which had been
+hailed from the masthead was the cause of much discussion. It was
+generally believed that this first submarine had wisely made off when
+its sister ship was so promptly sunk by the battleship.
+
+Frenchy and Ikey almost burst from their desire to tell what they knew
+about the mystery. But they did not dare.
+
+It had been a lesson which the two mischief-loving boys would not easily
+forget. While the whole ship's company was watching the imitation
+periscope Frenchy and Ikey had slipped overboard through the ash-chute,
+the real submarine might have torpedoed the _Kennebunk_.
+
+The score of each gun crew was transmitted to Washington by favor of
+the auxiliary steamer which towed the target, and she disappeared
+coastward just at sunset. The superdreadnaught was under orders to
+proceed on a southerly course, and parallel with the coast, for some
+considerable distance. She was doing outside patrol duty on this, her
+first real cruise.
+
+Men and officers were first of all expected to get used to each other
+and to the ship. This familiarity could only come about through drills
+and practice work in every branch. The men must have confidence in their
+officers, and the officers know their men thoroughly before the
+commander could feel that he had a smoothly working ship's company.
+
+The excitement caused by the first blow struck at the enemy and the
+successful target practice that followed would not soon wear off. And
+both incidents helped the morale of the crew.
+
+Almost every enlisted man showed delight in his face. Only Hans Hertig
+displayed a woful countenance. The solemnity of the boatswain's mate
+attracted even Ensign MacMasters' attention.
+
+"What's the matter with you, Hans?" he demanded of the petty officer.
+
+It was difficult to get any explanation out of Seven Knott; but finally
+the tale of the ghostly "clock" on the lower deck was blurted out by
+the superstitious petty officer.
+
+"What do you mean, a ghost?" growled the ensign. "Don't let me hear of
+your repeating such nonsense, Hertig. Let me tell you it will interfere
+with your advance in rating if you do circulate the story. I'll take the
+matter up with Captain Trevor if I hear anything more about it."
+
+But it was impossible to stop the circulation of such a story on
+shipboard. Rumor flies from deck to deck on wings. A hint of the strange
+noise below decks made others besides Seven Knott investigate. Many
+declared they heard the "tick-tock" sound.
+
+There never was a crew at sea yet in which some of its members were not
+superstitious. Seven Knott was not the only one troubled by the ghostly
+clock. Stories of haunted ships became common among certain groups of
+seamen and marines during the hours off duty.
+
+To most of the boys and enlisted men it was all a huge joke;
+nevertheless there were enough of the crew really superstitious for the
+tale of the clock-ticking sound to interfere with the general morale of
+the ship's company.
+
+The chief master-at-arms finally made what he deemed a thorough
+investigation of the report. But it was evident that he had made up his
+mind to counteract the influence of the strange sound upon the men by
+denying its existence.
+
+This, of course, did no good at all. The men, or, at least, some of
+them, could hear the "tick-_tock_! tick-_tock_! tick-_tock_!" for
+themselves. Those who wandered into the room where the lumber was stowed
+were strongly impressed by the unexplained sounds. By and by the men as
+a rule fought shy of entering that part of the ship.
+
+When Whistler was told by Frenchy and Ikey that they had first heard the
+"ghost-clock" after the subsiding of the storm, he declared it to be
+nonsense, pure and simple.
+
+"Don't you fellows forget the scare we all got aboard the _Graf von
+Posen_ over that old lead coffin in her hold? I should think you would
+know better than to circulate such yarns about the ship," he declared in
+some heat.
+
+"We didn't say a word about it," Frenchy denied. "Only to you and Torry.
+Seven Knott started the row, not us."
+
+"And he ought to be keelhauled for it," growled Torry.
+
+Nothing would satisfy Frenchy and Ikey, however, until Phil and Al went
+down with them to listen to the strange sound themselves. It was there,
+all right. When their ears became used to the steady thumping of the
+engines, they were able to distinguish the clock-like noise.
+
+"It's some trick," declared Torrance, with conviction. "Sure you chaps
+haven't started a joke on us?"
+
+"No joke!" denied Ikey.
+
+"We've sworn off practical jokes," joined in Frenchy earnestly.
+
+"Huh! what's the matter with you?" sniffed Torry suspiciously. "Why this
+eleventh-hour conversion?"
+
+But the two smaller fellows refused to be "drawn." They merely
+reiterated that they knew nothing about the cause of the ghostly sound.
+The four overhauled all the stowed tackle and lumber in the compartment,
+but found nothing but a locked carpenter's chest that was too heavy to
+move. And the noise did not seem to come from that.
+
+"It's in the air--it's all about us," declared Whistler seriously.
+"I doubt if the source of the noise is in this room at all; it is
+somewhere near and by some freak of acoustics the sound is heard more
+plainly in this place."
+
+"You can try to explain it as you will," returned Torry. "It's mighty
+mysterious."
+
+"'Mysterious' is no name for it," said Frenchy. "It'll be more than that
+before all's said and done. By St. Patrick's piper that played the last
+snake out of Ireland! some of these garbies are getting blue around the
+gills already."
+
+"Laugh at them," commanded Whistler. "We're Americans. We ought not to
+have a superstitious bone in our bodies."
+
+"Arrah!" grunted Frenchy. "I don't know rightly that it's me bones that
+are superstitious. But that 'tick-tock' gives me the creeps, just the
+same."
+
+In a week the bulk of the _Kennebunk's_ crew were keeping strictly away
+from the compartment on the lower deck from which came the strange
+sound. In addition, a run of small accidents broke out which seemed to
+the minds of many of the crew to assure that the ship was doomed to bad
+luck.
+
+"The ship is haunted," continued to be whispered from division to
+division. The sternness of the petty officers could not halt the
+spreading feeling.
+
+"How about our very first gun sinking a submarine?" demanded Philip
+Morgan of one group.
+
+"Oh, that was just a chance," was the reply.
+
+"Hump!" said Whistler with disgust. "I have an idea the old _Kennebunk_
+is going to be blessed with similar chances."
+
+There followed, however, a really serious accident. A pipe in the boiler
+room burst, and several men were scalded, one so badly that the ship's
+surgeons declared he must be transported to a shore hospital as soon as
+possible.
+
+The operation of skin grafting could not be performed successfully on
+shipboard, and nothing else would save the unfortunate victim of the
+accident from having a terribly disfigured face.
+
+Many of the man's shipmates would gladly have aided by giving patches of
+healthy skin for the benefit of the patient; but the operation was too
+delicate to be undertaken on the battleship, and the healing of the
+unfortunate man would be too tedious.
+
+After communicating with the Navy Department by wireless, Captain Trevor
+decided to send the steam runner into Hampton Roads with the injured
+man, while the battleship continued her southerly course in compliance
+with her orders.
+
+The steam-screw tender of the _Kennebunk_ was a good sized craft and
+perfectly seaworthy. They were too far from shore to trust a motor boat;
+and to use one of the big whaleboats under sail would take too long.
+
+The derrick swung the big boat overside, and she was lowered into the
+sea as lightly as though she were a featherweight. Meanwhile Ensign
+MacMasters was assigned to her command and he had the privilege of
+picking his crew to suit himself.
+
+The steamer mounted a gun forward and one aft. To the delight of Phil
+and Al, the ensign chose them as members of the gun crews.
+
+Immediately Frenchy and Ikey clamored to be taken, too. Ensign
+MacMasters without doubt displayed favoritism at this time. He
+acquiesced in the desires of the two younger boys from Seacove.
+
+"I suppose you would pine away and refuse your chow if you were
+separated from Morgan and Torrance," the ensign said laughingly. "Get
+your hammock-rolls and go aboard. I'll fix it with the executive
+officer."
+
+So, when the steamer started from the towering side of the battleship,
+the four Navy boys were members of her crew, and likely to experience a
+variety of adventures.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+BLOWN UP
+
+
+The change from the huge _Kennebunk_ to the comparatively tiny steamer
+was great indeed; and for the first few hours of the run shoreward the
+boys were afraid they would be ill. There was a heavy swell on, and the
+tender rode up the hill of each roller, and slid down the other side,
+dizzily.
+
+They were two hundred miles off shore and three hundred from Hampton
+Roads. The time occupied in the journey could not be much less than
+three days and two nights. She was much slower than the motor boats; but
+she sailed much more safely, and the injured man could be made more
+comfortable on deck under the awning.
+
+The poor fellow complained a good deal about having had his voyage cut
+short.
+
+"No chance for me to get a crack at the Huns," he repeated again and
+again.
+
+The boys from Seacove tried to comfort him. Ensign MacMasters told him
+that he had done his share, even if his fate was not so brilliant as
+that of men shot down in battle.
+
+"I wouldn't mind being shot for my country," said the poor fellow. "But
+I hate like a dog to be boiled for it! There ain't nothing heroic in
+this, Ensign."
+
+The cruise of the steamer was not unattended with peril. They were
+confident that German U-boats were beginning to infest the sea bordering
+on the Atlantic coast of the United States. One might pop up at any time
+and take a shot at the tender.
+
+A sharp lookout was kept, and the gun crews scarcely slept. Every sail
+or streamer of smoke created excitement on board.
+
+But the first night passed in safety and the day broke charmingly. The
+steamer was kept at top speed. Everything was going smoothly when, about
+midforenoon, they sighted a strange vessel hull down and somewhat to the
+northeast of their course.
+
+It was rather hazy, and the strange craft was at some distance. Her
+course was not one to bring her very near that of the battleship's
+steamer.
+
+She did not appear to be more than two hundred feet long, and the
+concurrence of opinion was that she was some small tramp freight boat
+and was laden heavily. She had a high bow, rail all around, and, as far
+as could be seen, she flew no flag at all.
+
+"Some old tub taking a chance with a rich cargo," suggested the warrant
+officer, as Ensign MacMasters' second in command. "Why, at the present
+time, freight rates are so high and wages so much advanced, that
+shipowners can find skippers and crews willing to take regular sieves to
+sea!"
+
+"She looks peculiar," Mr. MacMasters said. "If it wasn't for Grant,
+here, being in such pain, poor fellow, I'd throw a shell at her and hold
+her up. But we've got our orders to hasten to the Roads and return again
+to the _Kennebunk_ as soon as possible."
+
+Therefore the strange craft was allowed to pass unchallenged. Later they
+had reason to believe that they had made a small mistake regarding the
+unknown vessel, yet they had made no mistake in allowing her to go
+unmolested.
+
+In time they raised the Capes of Virginia, and a few hours later steamed
+into the dock at Fortress Monroe. Grant, the injured fireman from the
+_Kennebunk_, was taken ashore and sent to the marine hospital.
+
+Ensign MacMasters had his full orders from the commander of the
+battleship; but he had a wireless message relayed to the _Kennebunk_
+stating his arrival. The wireless instrument aboard the steamer was of
+too narrow a radius to reach the superdreadnaught in her present
+position.
+
+Orders were soon repeated for the auxiliary craft to make for the
+battleship again, and laying the course for Ensign MacMasters to follow.
+There were storm signals flying; but the steamer was to keep near the
+shore until she got around Hatteras. It was presumed that she would find
+the _Kennebunk_ within a week at the most, and the tender was well
+provisioned and took on extra fuel at the dock.
+
+She went to sea without the boys having had an hour of shore leave; but
+they did not mind that. The fun of running on the steamer was all right;
+but they were getting eager now to return to the superdreadnaught.
+
+They ran out between the Capes into what the warrant officer called "a
+Liverpool particular," meaning a fog almost thick enough to cut with a
+cheese-knife.
+
+Every once in a while the nose of a steel-gray ship, small or large,
+poked through the mist, and her growling siren warned the smaller craft
+to get out of the way.
+
+These patrol boats were very plentiful off the Virginia Capes at that
+time. A mine-laying enemy submarine would have small chance getting into
+Hampton Roads.
+
+But that such a craft was in the vicinity the crew of the _Kennebunk's_
+tender learned was the fact within a few hours. Their course was
+southerly, and almost in sight of the coast in clear weather. But they
+broke out of the fog bank the next morning to see dead ahead two boats,
+each pulled by four pair of oars, wearily approaching the course of the
+coastwise steamships.
+
+"I smell a U-boat about!" declared Ensign MacMasters, when he had
+directed the steamer's course to be changed to run down to the
+row-boats.
+
+He was right. The boats contained the crew of the schooner _Hattie May_,
+out of Baltimore, which had been shelled and sunk twenty-four hours
+before by a German undersea craft.
+
+And the report of the wearied crew included a description of the
+submarine. She was camouflaged by a high bow and a rail all around, as
+well as by a canvas smokestack to make her look like a tramp freighter.
+
+"The craft we raised going into the Roads!" ejaculated the warrant
+officer. "It's her, for a penny!"
+
+"No argument," growled Ensign MacMasters. "We fell down that time.
+Although we might have had our hands full if we had tackled her with our
+two small guns."
+
+It seemed that the disguised undersea boat mounted four guns on her
+deck, but she was a slow sailer. She had moved up close to the schooner
+before showing her teeth.
+
+Then she dropped two shells near the _Hattie May_ to show the skipper
+that she had the range of his schooner. He had to surrender, and the
+U-boat moved up and gave him and his crew ten minutes to get into the
+boats. Then they sank the _Hattie May_ by hanging bombs over her sides
+and exploding them simultaneously by an electric arrangement.
+
+The skipper of the schooner was taken aboard the U-boat and said he was
+shown all over the ship. The German captain seemed to be inordinately
+proud of his craft and what she could do.
+
+"She's got torpedoes, but she don't use 'em because they are expensive,"
+said the skipper. "They are saved for a last resort. But she is a mine
+layer, for I saw two wells and saw the mines, too. She has been out five
+weeks and is numbered U-Two Hundred Fifty."
+
+"Two hundred fifty!" gasped Whistler to his chums, who were hanging over
+the rail to listen to this report. "What do you know about that?"
+
+"That's the very number that man Blake used in the restaurant, talking
+with the skipper of the oil tender, wasn't it?" asked Frenchy of the
+quick memory.
+
+"You mean Franz Linder, the German spy!" ejaculated Torry, with
+emphasis. "He spoke of this very sub."
+
+"You bet!" agreed Ikey.
+
+The steamer's wireless operator was sending out an S O S call and a
+destroyer quickly answered. The steamer remained by the two boats from
+the sunken schooner until the fast-flying naval vessel appeared in the
+west.
+
+After that the boys on the steamer kept their eyes open for sight of the
+camouflaged U-boat. As the boat picked up speed again and kept to her
+course. Whistler Morgan and his mates discussed the matter with much
+excitement.
+
+"Do you s'pose Mr. MacMasters will let us shell the Hun?" demanded
+Frenchy eagerly.
+
+"She'll more likely shell us," declared Torry, inclined to be
+pessimistic.
+
+"I bet we can run away from her," cried Ikey Rosenmeyer.
+
+"Say! this tender is no sub chaser. In a race with the S. P. 888, for
+instance, she wouldn't have a chance."
+
+"Aw, well," Frenchy broke in, "that U-boat will not have a speed of over
+fourteen knots on the surface. We can do better than that."
+
+"But if she sneaks up on us as that other one did on the _Kennebunk_,"
+Whistler observed, "we might easily be potted."
+
+"Right-o!" declared Torry. "Whichever way you put it, I don't want to
+see that U-boat till we're aboard the _Kennebunk_ again--if ever."
+
+After leaving the crew of the _Hattie May_ to be picked up by the
+destroyer, the tender continued to run parallel with the coast. Land was
+seldom wholly out of sight, for Mr. MacMasters had orders as to his
+course, expecting to meet the superdreadnaught on that vessel's return
+from the south.
+
+The fog in which they had run out from the Capes was the forerunner of a
+storm which increased as the day advanced. The gale was behind them,
+however, so there was no fear of the tender being cast ashore.
+
+The sea around Cape Hatteras is notoriously rough in a gale, and the
+outlook was not promising when they sighted Hatteras Light that evening.
+Seaworthy as the steamer was, she pitched terrifically in the seas that
+threatened now to overwhelm her.
+
+There was a pale and watery moon that evening, with wind-driven clouds
+scurrying across its face and quenching its light every few minutes. The
+steamer pitched so that her propeller was frequently entirely out of the
+sea.
+
+Phil Morgan, in his watch on deck, thought the situation was as nasty as
+any he had experienced since joining the Navy. With every hatch and door
+battened to keep the seas from flooding her, they ran on, making
+scarcely five knots an hour. Now and then they were completely
+overwhelmed with the seas; and always the craft plunged and kicked as
+though she actually had to fight for supremacy with each wave.
+
+As the bitter night crept on they wore around the Cape, and then, when
+it seemed safe to do so, Ensign MacMasters ordered the helm shifted and
+they edged farther in toward the land.
+
+In time the out-thrust of the coast partly sheltered them and the
+steamer ran into more quiet waters. But the gale still held, and from
+the same quarter.
+
+They sighted only smacks and other small fry, including some few
+coastwise steamers whose routes hugged the land. Surely they might
+expect safety from submarines so far inshore, for this coast is
+treacherous.
+
+Another day and night passed. The wireless operator had thus far failed
+to raise the _Kennebunk_, although he called every hour.
+
+Mr. MacMasters and the warrant officer studied the chart anxiously.
+There were shallow waters hereabout, and although the steamer demanded
+little depth, there were bights between the reefs that were dangerous.
+
+At daybreak of the fourth day out they were in the track of Charleston
+craft and quite near to a string of islands. There was plenty of water
+between the two outer islands. The passage was, indeed, a popular
+channel for both steam and sailing vessels.
+
+The _Kennebunk's_ tender was half way through this gut when suddenly,
+and without warning, it seemed as though the bow of the craft hit
+squarely upon a rock.
+
+She stopped with an awful shock, seemed to rebound, and then the forward
+part rose on a wave that shot it into the air. The explosion that
+followed was muffled; but the sea about the doomed craft fairly boiled.
+
+"We're sinking! All hands on deck!" shouted the warrant officer.
+
+The boatswain's mate piped his shrillest. Those below swarmed upon the
+already settling deck. It was plain at once that the steamer had but a
+few moments to live.
+
+"A mine!" declared Ensign MacMasters. "That is what did it! That Hun
+mine-sower has been this way!"
+
+The men and boys went to quarters coolly. They had been drilling every
+day on the steamer just as though they were aboard the _Kennebunk_.
+
+There was both a liferaft and a tight yawl aboard. These were got over
+into the comparatively quiet sea, water and an emergency ration-cask put
+aboard each, and Mr. MacMasters brought his instruments and papers,
+taking his place in the stern of the boat. The latter had a small
+engine, and there was a hawser with which she might tow the raft.
+
+Meanwhile the wireless operator had been calling for help. He got a
+reply from a land station, but none from any sister naval ship. However,
+they were so near land that it did not seem that this mattered.
+
+"Let her go, boy!" shouted the ensign to the operator. "Come on! She's
+going down."
+
+They pulled away just in time, and got the little engine to kicking as
+the wrecked auxiliary craft of the _Kennebunk_ sank stern foremost under
+the sea. As she went down her bows rose out of the water and the
+castaways saw the great wound torn in two of her water-tight
+compartments by the mine.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+MORE TROUBLE
+
+
+Philip Morgan and Al Torrance both were in the yawl, and were assigned
+to pull oars if the engine went dead from any cause. The two younger
+Seacove boys were taken by the warrant officer, Mr. Mudge, aboard the
+buoyant raft.
+
+"Well, old man," muttered Torry in his mate's ear, "this is a new
+experience. We've never been shipwrecked before."
+
+Ikey on the raft was bewailing the loss of some of his duffle. "Oi, oi!
+And a nice new black silk neckerchief, too! Oi, oi! All for the fishes
+yet."
+
+Mr. MacMasters laughed, and did not order the boys to cease talking as a
+sterner officer might have done.
+
+"We may as well take it cheerfully," he said. "I'm thankful there's
+nobody lost. And there can be no blame attached to any of us because of
+the loss of the boat."
+
+"Ah, that's all right," grumbled the warrant officer on the raft. "But
+think of those miserable Huns, sneaking away in here and dropping a
+mine in a channel where nothing but small craft dare sail."
+
+"Excursion steamers from Charleston use this channel," Mr. MacMasters
+said. "I know it to be a fact."
+
+"Ah! That's the Hun of it," repeated the second. "To sink a craft having
+aboard a lot of innocent and helpless folk out on a pleasure excursion
+would be just his delight."
+
+First of all the two officers had looked over their charts and decided
+on the course to pursue. Charleston was not the nearest port.
+
+The barometer was falling again and there was every promise of more bad
+weather. It was decided to make for a small town behind the islands, and
+instead of continuing through the channel where the _Kennebunk's_
+auxiliary steamer had been mined, it seemed better to take advantage of
+the tide and run back to the open sea.
+
+There they proposed to skirt along the outer beaches of the islands
+until they reached another passage marked on the charts as being the
+entrance to the sheltered harbor of the port in question. The distance
+was about ten miles.
+
+There was no danger from reefs in this direction, and if they had to
+beach the boat and the raft the shores of the islands would seem to
+offer safe landings. They were yet to learn different.
+
+Yet the decision was wise as far as the two officers could be expected
+to know without a special knowledge of the conditions. What mainly they
+failed to apprehend was the swiftness with which the new storm was
+approaching.
+
+The little yawl chugged away cheerfully and drew the life raft out of
+the channel. No other craft had been in sight when the _Kennebunk's_
+auxiliary steamer was blown up, and therefore none had come to their
+assistance.
+
+The local fishermen and navigators of small craft appreciated the coming
+of this second storm on the heels of the first. It would probably pounce
+upon the coast with suddenness, so the fishing boats had already run for
+cover.
+
+The yawl and raft got out into the open sea safely, and Mr. MacMasters
+steered for the harbor in which they expected to take refuge.
+
+The first island was long and narrow--a mere windrow of rock and sand
+breaking the force of the sea. The huge combers coursing up its strand
+broke twenty feet high and offered nothing but utter destruction to any
+small craft that attempted a landing.
+
+"That is no welcome coast," Mr. MacMasters said. "I wonder if we
+shouldn't have gone behind the islands after all, in spite of the
+reefs."
+
+But it was too late to change their plans now. The first strait that
+opened between the islands was a mass of white water.
+
+The raft was clumsy, and the yawl could make but slow headway. Suddenly
+the wind fell; but with its falling the sea began to rise.
+
+"What does it look like to you, Mr. Mudge?" Ensign MacMasters asked the
+officer on the raft.
+
+"More trouble. The wind's going to spring on us from a new quarter,"
+was the reply. "See yonder!"
+
+Away to the northwest a cloud seemed rolling upon the very surface of
+the sea it was so low. At its foot, at least, the sea sprang up in a
+foamy line to meet the pallid cloud. There was a moaning in the air, but
+distant.
+
+"That's going to hit us hard!" cried Mr. MacMasters. "It's more than an
+ordinary gale."
+
+"That's what it is, sir," admitted Mudge.
+
+"Wish we were ashore!" shouted the ensign.
+
+"Any chance, that you see?"
+
+They were off the coast of the second island now. That was heavily
+wooded and the shore was more broken. But it seemed as inhospitable as
+that of the one of wider beach.
+
+The newly risen gale was yet a long way from them, the low moaning of
+the tempest seemed distant.
+
+The swell beneath the yawl's keel suddenly heaved into a gigantic wave
+upon the summit of which the boat was lifted like a chip in a
+mill-stream.
+
+Some of the crew shouted aloud, in both amazement and fear. The
+propeller raced madly; then the engine stopped--dead.
+
+"Out oars! Look alive, men!" was the ensign's command.
+
+The clumsy raft tugged at the end of her hawse. The yawl went over the
+top of the wave and began to coast dizzily down the descent.
+
+The rope which held it to its tow cut through the swell. It tautened--it
+snapped!
+
+The loose end whipped the length of the yawl viciously and threw two of
+the crew flat into the boat's bottom.
+
+The oars were out. Ensign MacMasters yelled an order to pull. Philip
+Morgan and Al Torrance found themselves throwing their entire strength
+against the oars.
+
+The raft rose staggeringly upon the huge wave behind the boat. Mr. Mudge
+had a steering oar out; but the raft wabbled on the summit of the swell
+as though drunken. They saw the castaways upon the raft cowering
+helplessly.
+
+Then like a shot the white wave rode down upon them with the pallid
+storm-cloud overhead. The yawl was headed into the gale and the oarsmen
+pulled like mad.
+
+Mr. MacMasters yelled at them. They did their very best. The sleet
+whipped their shoulders like a thousand-lashed knout. The darkness of
+the tempest shut down upon them and the raft was instantly lost to
+sight.
+
+"Frenchy! Ikey!" Whistler Morgan gasped, and Torry heard him.
+
+But they could do nothing to aid their chums. Duty in any case held them
+to their work. They pulled with the very last ounce of strength they
+possessed.
+
+The yawl's head was kept to the wind and sea; but it was doubtful if she
+made any progress.
+
+"Pull, men! Pull!" shouted the ensign again and again.
+
+He inspired them, and perhaps their straining at the oars did keep the
+yawl from overturning at that time. Yet such ultimate fate for it seemed
+unavoidable. The wind and sea lashed it so furiously that Whistler told
+himself he would not have been surprised if the boat and crew were
+driven completely under the surface.
+
+He had seen a good bit of bad weather before this; but nothing like what
+they suffered at this time. The warring elements fairly bruised their
+bodies. Sometimes the boys felt themselves pounded so viciously between
+the shoulders that they could scarcely draw their breaths.
+
+Now and then, above the tumult of the tempest, the ensign's voice
+encouraged them. Whistler, sitting three yards away, could not see the
+officer at all.
+
+Then, with the unexpectedness that is the greatest danger of these
+off-shore gales, the wind changed once more. It snapped around in a
+moment to due west. The cross seas lashed the yawl impetuously.
+
+Whistler heard an oar snap. The man behind him fell upon his back in the
+bottom of the yawl. His broken oar entangled with Whistler's, and the
+latter lost stroke.
+
+There was a yell from the ensign. Whistler heard Al Torrance shriek. The
+next moment the yawl rolled completely over, and he was struggling in
+the sea and in the pitchy darkness underneath the overturned boat!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+COINCIDENCE
+
+
+Whistler kept cool in his mind. As far as his body went, that was icy.
+
+He knew that, after all, he was personally in less danger than those who
+had been thrown far from the boat. He could hear nothing of what went on
+outside; the rolling and plunging of the overturned yawl continued.
+
+Where had Torry gone? And the ensign, and the other members of the
+yawl's crew? Once Whistler had spent a long time in the sea, drifting
+about on a hatchcover; having been saved from that perilous adventure,
+he was not likely easily to give up hope now.
+
+There was air enough under the overturned yawl, and he knew her
+water-tight compartments would keep her afloat indefinitely. But there
+might be work for him to do outside.
+
+He might help the other members of the shipwrecked crew. Therefore he
+filled his lungs with air and dived under the side of the yawl.
+
+Just as he came out into the open sea he collided with another person
+coming down. They seized each others' hands and rose to the surface.
+
+It was Torry! When they popped up and expelled the air from their lungs
+and blinked the water from their eyes, each boy instantly recognized the
+other.
+
+"Crickey!" coughed Torrance. "I thought we'd lost you."
+
+"Are you all right?" demanded Morgan.
+
+"Just as all right as a fellow can be when he--he can't walk ashore,"
+chattered Torry.
+
+"Here's the yawl!" cried Whistler. "Where's Mr. MacMasters? And Rosy and
+Slim? And the others?"
+
+But when his eyes were well cleared of the water he beheld the entire
+crew of the yawl, including Ensign MacMasters, perched along the yawl's
+keel like a string of very much bedrabbled crows on a rail fence.
+
+Strangely enough the gale seemed to have lulled for the time. Having
+done its worst to them, it gave the unfortunate castaways a breathing
+spell.
+
+With the aid of their mates, Whistler Morgan and Torry were able to
+reach the keel of the overturned boat. There they perched, too, and,
+chattering in the cold wind, tried to look about them.
+
+Where was the raft? This question, first and foremost in Whistler's
+mind, troubled him intensely. It was impossible to see far across the
+tossing sea; but he was sure that the life raft was nowhere within the
+range of their vision.
+
+"Poor Frenchy and Ikey!" groaned Whistler.
+
+"That raft can't sink," urged Torry in his ear.
+
+"But they could easily be torn off it by the waves."
+
+"Don't look at it in that way. They may be better off than we are,"
+returned his chum.
+
+"What's that yonder?" shouted Slim suddenly.
+
+"Land!" Mr. MacMasters cried.
+
+"And a lot of good that'll do us," growled Slim. "We'll be dumped
+ashore, maybe, like a ton of trap-rock."
+
+The sodden boat was drifting steadily toward the island. The surf
+thundered against its ramparts most threateningly. But the outlook did
+not seem so serious as that upon the other island they had passed.
+
+Ensign MacMasters, after some fishing, secured the loose end of the
+broken hawser. With the help of those nearest to him he hauled this out
+of the water. Then, by his advice, they all lashed themselves to the
+long rope with their belts or neckerchiefs.
+
+"No matter what happens, we want to hang together," he declared. "No one
+man can fight this sea alone."
+
+His cheerfulness and optimism raised their spirits. At least they hung
+on to their insecure refuge with much ardor, and not uncheerfully waited
+to be cast upon the strand.
+
+A great swell suddenly caught the yawl and drove it shoreward. Mr.
+MacMasters uttered a warning shout and waved his hand in a gesture of
+command. They all cast loose from the keel, and the boat was carried
+high upon the breast of the breaker.
+
+Still fastened together by the rope, the castaways were tumbled over and
+over in the surf. The yawl was east upon the strand with dreadful force
+and if they had continued to cling to it their chances of being
+seriously injured would have been great indeed.
+
+Lightly the men and boys lashed to the rope were tossed by the
+surf--rolling over and over, but still clinging to each other and to the
+hawser. Mr. MacMasters at one end and Whistler Morgan at the other
+managed to obtain a footing on the sand despite the undertow.
+
+They threw themselves upon the beach and clung "tooth and toenail" when
+the breaker receded. Slim was completely exhausted; but before another
+comber rolled in those who were strong managed to drag the weaker ones
+out of the reach of the undertow.
+
+There was only a fitful light on sea and shore. The castaways lay in a
+panting group, looking at each other dripping with brine, and very
+miserable.
+
+"Begorra!" exclaimed Irish Jemmy at last, "I broke me poipe. Lend me a
+cigareet, will you, Rosy?"
+
+Rosy gravely reached into his blouse and brought forth a little package
+filled with tobacco pulp.
+
+"You're welcome, Jemmy," he said gravely. "Help yourself."
+
+"Begorra!" growled the Irishman, "ye might have kept thim dry."
+
+"That's a good word!" exclaimed Mr. MacMasters, briskly, struggling to
+rise. "We all need to get dry. I have matches in a bottle in my pocket,
+and the bottle didn't get broken. Come on and find some dry wood. We'll
+have a fire. We may have to camp out here till morning."
+
+"Oh, Mr. MacMasters!" urged Whistler, who was loosening himself likewise
+from the rope. "Let us look for the fellows who were on the raft first."
+
+"Shout for them," advised the ensign. "But don't worry if they do not
+answer at once. This is a big piece of land, this island."
+
+Whistler and Torry shouted loudly; but after fifteen minutes they were
+hoarse, and the wind seemed to blow their voices back into their teeth.
+
+"Save your breath to cool your porridge," advised Jemmy. "You're wastin'
+it. If ye shout from now till doomsday ye won't bring them back if
+they're drowned. And if they are all right we'll find them safe and
+sound."
+
+That was sensible; but it did not make Phil and Al any the less anxious
+regarding Frenchy and Ikey. The younger lads had always been in their
+care, and the situation looked serious.
+
+Whistler and Torry knew they were expected to help gather wood, and so
+they gave up shouting and followed Rosy and the others toward the
+forest. The whole island, as far as they had seen, was forest-covered.
+
+There had been a heavy fall of rain that day, and to find dry fuel was
+not an easy task. While they were thus engaged the two boys came upon an
+opening in the trees. In the dusk it seemed that the opening was the
+beginning of a well-tramped path, leading inland.
+
+Whistler called to Mr. MacMasters to show him this sign of human
+occupancy of their refuge. Before the ensign arrived at the spot Torry
+made a second discovery.
+
+"Look who's here!" called the boy in a low voice. "Here's a Man Friday,
+sure enough!"
+
+There was a light approaching through the forest path. It was a torch,
+and before long the wavering brand revealed a strange figure--no Man
+Friday but, as Whistler whispered, a Woman Friday!
+
+She was a peculiar looking being, indeed, dressed in a single loose
+flowing garment, which covered her from neck to ankles. She was
+barefooted and bareheaded, her iron-gray hair tossed about her
+weather-beaten face in wild elflocks.
+
+Her eyes were as brilliant as coals. Either she was not right in her
+mind or she assumed that manner. At first she merely glowered at the two
+boys and the Navy officer, and said nothing in reply to the latter's
+queries.
+
+Her hands and fingers were gnarled from hard work. She looked as tough
+as bale wire, to quote Torry.
+
+When she finally spoke her voice was as deep and coarse as a man's. She
+said:
+
+"You-uns was blowed up in yon channel. And you lost your boat, ain't
+you?"
+
+"Crickey!" gasped Torry to Whistler. "She's a German--a German with a
+southern accent! What do you know about that?"
+
+Meanwhile Mr. MacMasters was interrogating her to some purpose.
+
+"Have you seen others of our party?" he asked. "There were fourteen men
+and boys on a raft."
+
+"Ain't seen no stranger befo' to-day, but you-uns," she declared. Her
+eyes seemed as lidless as a snake's. They did not blink at all.
+
+"Then how did you know that our steamer was blown up?" the ensign
+queried.
+
+"Old Mag knows a heap other folks don't know," croaked the woman.
+
+The rest of the party came up and heard this statement. Jemmy gave her
+one look and crossed his fingers.
+
+"She's a witch, and the banshees do her bidding," he whispered hoarsely.
+
+"Well," said Mr. MacMasters, much puzzled, "is there any place where we
+can get dry--and get some food?"
+
+"I'll take you all to my cabin," she said. "That's what I come for."
+
+She turned around abruptly and strode back along the path. There seemed
+nothing for the castaways to do but to follow her. But they certainly
+did discuss the queer woman in whispers while they kept on her trail.
+
+"She's a witch sure enough," repeated Jemmy. "Sure you kin see that easy
+from the cut of her jib. The ensign had better have no doin's with her.
+Maybe she'll charm the whole of us with her evil eye."
+
+The island was half a mile or more across. It was almost dark by the
+time the party of castaways with their strange leader came out upon the
+other shore.
+
+Here the sound between the islands and the mainland was
+mist-enshrouded, and it was evident that a nasty night had shut down.
+Whistler and Torry were terribly anxious about their friends who had
+been on the life raft.
+
+However, they could not start off alone to hunt for Michael Donahue and
+Ikey Rosenmeyer. They were just as much under Mr. MacMasters' orders
+ashore as they were at sea.
+
+They had confidence in the ensign's judgment, too. They believed he
+would make a search for the rest of their party just as soon as it was
+practicable.
+
+The cabin to which the woman led them was a large log hut of only one
+room, but with a number of bunks, built in two tiers, along the walls.
+At one end was an open hearth and chimney and arrangements for cooking.
+A long table and some rough-hewn benches were in the middle of the open
+space.
+
+It was more like a barracks than a home; and from the ancient and fishy
+smell about the place, the party from the battleship was sure that it
+had not long since housed fishermen and their nets.
+
+Mr. MacMasters and most of the others turned in at once for a nap; but
+Whistler Morgan was much too anxious to sleep. The old woman who called
+herself "Mag" went to work at once to prepare a meal, and the boy
+offered to help her.
+
+He peeled the vegetables and cut corn from the cob for a sort of
+Brunswick stew which she prepared. Mag put into it a rabbit, a pair of
+squirrels and a guinea fowl, the neck of which she wrung and then
+skinned and cleaned in a most skilful manner.
+
+While she was thus engaged she talked to Whistler. The boy noted, as his
+chum had, that she arranged her spoken sentences much as Germans do who
+are not well drilled in English. Yet she had the southern drawl and
+accent.
+
+"I know whar yo' boys come from," she advanced almost at once. "Yo' are
+from the _Kennebunk_ battleship--and she's a fur ways from here."
+
+"You have seen the rest of our crowd, then!" cried Whistler earnestly,
+"haven't you, Missus?"
+
+"No, no!" the old hag said, wagging her head. "Old Mag sees strange
+sights and knows more'n most folks. Oh, yes! Your little steamboat was
+blowed up by a big bomb in yon channel."
+
+"It was blown up by a Hun mine," declared Whistler bitterly.
+
+The old woman's eyes flashed at him threateningly. "What yo' mean by
+'Hun'? Them that put that bomb there is just as good as yo' folks.
+I ain't got no use fo' Yankees yet."
+
+"You don't call yourself a Southerner, do you?" asked the boy curiously.
+
+"What am I then?"
+
+"You're German. At least, your folks were," Whistler declared with
+conviction.
+
+The woman scowled at him and said nothing more. When Whistler had
+finished helping her he moved his chair back from the fireplace, for the
+heat from the live coals was intense. He saw a scrap of torn paper upon
+the earth floor, near his foot.
+
+His suspicions had been aroused now and he covered the paper with his
+foot until he could get a chance to pick it up without the old woman
+observing him. Having secured it he moved still farther back to the
+table. There was a smoky hanging-lamp over the board which gave him
+light enough to see by. Secretly he examined the torn paper.
+
+It seemed to be part of a letter, and was closely written on both sides
+of the scrap. On one side was the beginning of the missive, and after a
+minute Whistler realized that it was written in German script.
+
+At the head of the letter was a line that not alone amazed, but startled
+the boy. Coincidence often has a long arm, and in this case the adage
+proved true. The letter was addressed to
+
+"_Herr Franz Linder._"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE WITCH'S WARNING
+
+
+Whistler had been assured when he attended the session in the sheriff's
+office at home, before joining the crew of the _Kennebunk_, that the
+enemy alien named Franz Linder, who was supposed to have blown up the
+Elmvale dam, was an influential member of that band of spies that were
+doing so much harm in the United States.
+
+It was surprising to find this scrap of a letter addressed to the spy in
+this island cabin off the coast of North Carolina. Yet it smacked of no
+improbability.
+
+Whistler had heard the spy tell the skipper of the oil carrier, the
+_Sarah Coville_, that his work was done in that vicinity. Linder, or
+Blake as he was known at Elmvale, had naturally got well away from the
+neighborhood of the dam after it was blown up.
+
+That he was on this island at the present time was not so likely; but
+that he had been here, and in this cabin, was very possible. Perhaps had
+the castaways from the wrecked yawl arrived a few hours before at the
+cabin of Mag they might have seen the German spy.
+
+The old woman who tried to make Whistler believe she possessed second
+sight, or some gift quite as uncanny, was in league with or had some
+knowledge of Franz Linder. The boy was confident on this point.
+
+She was of German descent at least, and she showed bitterness toward
+"the Yankees." However, she proved herself to be a hospitable hostess.
+It was her southern, not her Teutonic, training probably that led to
+this.
+
+Whistler could not read German, and he did not know that any member of
+his party could do so. Nevertheless, he crumpled the bit of paper in his
+hand and thrust it into his pocket, biding his time until he could show
+it to Mr. MacMasters.
+
+It was ten o'clock before the stew was ready to be dished up. The aroma
+of it awakened the hungry men.
+
+"This must be heaven, for it smells like mother's cooking!" declared
+Slim. "Oh, yum, yum! Oh, boy!"
+
+"The old lady ain't no angel," put in Jemmy; "but she sure can cook."
+
+"And angels can't, I guess," added Torrance, grinning.
+
+"Say, boy!" grinned Rosy, "didn't you ever eat angel cake?"
+
+Whistler found his chance to speak to Mr. MacMasters when the others
+crowded around the table. Mag put the steaming kettle of stew in the
+middle of the bare board and ladled it out into brown earthen bowls.
+
+"See what I found on the floor here, Mr. MacMasters," Whistler said
+quietly, and thrusting the paper into the ensign's hand. "Don't let the
+old woman see it, sir."
+
+Mr. MacMasters was cautious. He held the paper under the edge of the
+table and saw almost instantly what the communication was and to whom it
+was addressed.
+
+"That's the name of that spy you boys say blew up the Elmvale dam, and
+was out on that oil tender we chased in the submarine patrol boat, isn't
+it?" whispered the ensign. "I declare! Did you find it here?"
+
+"Yes, sir. You see, the edge of the paper is browned. The whole letter
+was probably thrown into the fire on the hearth and this piece failed to
+be destroyed."
+
+"You've hit it right, I fancy," agreed the officer. "Something queer
+about this old woman and about this place."
+
+"She knows we are from the _Kennebunk_, too. How should she know so much
+if she wasn't in with the spies?"
+
+"And she knew too much about the steamer being mined in the channel
+over there," muttered Mr. MacMasters.
+
+"It looks as if we were watched by the spies and that she is in cahoots
+with them," Whistler suggested.
+
+"Humph! Maybe. You can't read this letter, I suppose, Morgan?"
+
+"No, sir. None of us boys read German. Not even Ikey, although he
+understands the language quick enough when it is spoken. And poor Ikey
+isn't here!"
+
+"Don't worry about that," advised Mr. MacMasters. Then: "I do not think
+any of the men can translate German. Of course there is probably nothing
+on this paper of present moment to us.
+
+"What we should do first is to find the rest of our crowd and get off
+this island. The _Kennebunk_ will be coming back up the coast and we'll
+miss her altogether."
+
+"I hope the other boys are safe," sighed Whistler anxiously.
+
+"I hope they have as good a refuge and are treated as kindly as we are.
+But we can't make a search of the island in the dark. Besides, they may
+not have landed on this island at all. There are other beaches quite as
+hospitable as this one proved, I have no doubt."
+
+Whistler and Torry helped the old woman clear up and wash the bowls and
+spoons after supper. She sat in the chimney corner and puffed away
+slowly at a short-stemmed and very black pipe.
+
+The seamen were rather afraid of Mag, Jemmy especially. He carefully
+crossed his fingers whenever she chanced to glance in his direction.
+
+Mr. MacMasters went outside to assure himself that nothing could be done
+toward searching for the rest of the crew of the auxiliary steamer
+before daybreak. It was as dark as Erebus without, and the gale still
+blew strongly off shore.
+
+The ensign politely asked the strange old woman what arrangements they
+should make for the night.
+
+"We don't wish to turn you out of your bed, you know, Ma'am," he said.
+
+She waved him away, the pipe in her hand. "Tumble into yo' bunks," she
+ordered. "Old Mag doesn't sleep--hasn't slept for more years than
+you-uns are bo'n already. That is why she knows more than others--yes!
+The spirits of the night come and whisper to her while she stays awake."
+
+"Arrah! D'ye hear that now?" whispered Irish Jemmy hoarsely. "'Tis as
+much as our lives are worth to stay here."
+
+Superstitious as he was, Jemmy was afraid to leave the cabin alone.
+Most of the castaways were glad to retire to the berths again and,
+blessed with full stomachs, it was not a great while before they fell
+asleep.
+
+The two Seacove boys finished helping the old woman.
+
+"You are a pair of good boys," she said after looking at them for some
+time and muttering to herself the while. "Why don't you run away? I'll
+get you off the island yet, befo' that officer man wakes up."
+
+"Why, Mother! we don't want to run away," Torry told her, laughing. "We
+belong to one of the Navy's crack superdreadnaughts."
+
+"Aye, I know. The _Kennebunk_," said Mag, nodding gloomily.
+
+"Sure," Torry rejoined. "We want to see some fighting."
+
+"'Tis not fighting you-uns'll see," croaked the woman. "Old Mag tells
+you, and she knows. Yo' fine, big ship will go down in the midst of the
+seas and her crew with her. Better yo' luck if it happens befo' yo' git
+back to her already."
+
+"You don't mean that?" Whistler cried.
+
+"I'm a-tellin' yo' so," said the queer old woman. "Old Mag knows mo'
+than other folks. Oh, yes! She'll sink. Better yo' boys stay ashore."
+
+"What do you know about 'the witch's warning'?" whispered Torry to
+Whistler. "She thinks she's got second sight. Knows more than anybody
+else. She's like one of the Seven Sutherland Sisters--she prophesies."
+
+"Shucks!" chuckled Whistler in the same cautious tone, "they weren't
+prophetesses; they sold hair restorer."
+
+But to himself Whistler muttered:
+
+"Maybe she does know more than we do. But how does she know it? There's
+something awfully queer about this whole business."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+THE EXPLANATION
+
+
+Although Whistler was quite sure "Old Mag," as she called herself,
+possessed no powers of divination, he knew she did have certain
+knowledge that he considered she had no moral right to have.
+
+Here she was, an ignorant old creature living on a well nigh uninhabited
+island off an isolated coast, with some mysterious means of information
+upon subjects that she should know nothing about.
+
+She claimed not to have seen the other party of castaways; yet she knew
+at once that Mr. MacMasters and his companions were from a craft that
+had been blown up miles away from her cabin, and completely out of sight
+and hearing of this island.
+
+Whistler did not believe any fishing boat, or other craft, had brought
+this information to Mag. There had been no vessel in sight when the
+_Kennebunk's_ tender was blown up by the floating mine.
+
+The scrap of a letter addressed to "Herr Franz Linder" he had found in
+the cabin connected the old crone, in Whistler's mind, with the German
+spy system. She was of Teutonic extraction herself.
+
+Clearly the old woman was trying to befool her visitors. She probably
+possessed some local celebrity as a witch or wise woman.
+
+Whistler, however, was not ready to believe her any wiser than her
+neighbors.
+
+He thought out the matter back to the time the auxiliary steamer was
+blown up in the channel between the islands. The wireless operator sent
+out S O S messages till the very last. Small as the radius of the
+instrument was, a station along the adjacent coast would surely pick up
+the cry for help.
+
+It was an important thought, but he had no time that evening to mention
+it to Mr. MacMasters. He and Torry shared one of the wide and fishy
+smelling bunks together, and they did not wake up until it was broad
+daylight.
+
+There was a heavy smell of rank, boiling coffee in the air. Bacon was
+sizzling over the fire and a huge corn pone was baking on a plank before
+the coals. Mag did not propose to starve her guests, that was sure.
+
+The sun had burst through the clouds and the gale had ceased. The surf
+still thundered upon the outer shores of the island; but the sound, upon
+which the cabin fronted, was smooth and sparkling. It was a pretty view
+from the cabin door.
+
+And almost at once, when Whistler and his chum ran out of the cabin to
+look about, they saw a number of familiar figures approaching along the
+rock-strewn shore. These newcomers were as shabby and bedraggled as
+themselves, and it was easy to identify them.
+
+"Here they come!" yelled Torry, and rushed toward the approaching party.
+
+Whistler was not behind him; but when they reached the refugees they
+discovered that Mr. MacMasters was already with them. The ensign had
+been up since before dawn and had searched out Mr. Mudge and his
+companions at the other end of the island.
+
+"Oi, oi!" wailed Ikey Rosenmeyer, meeting the older boys. "Such a time!
+I swallowed enough salt water to make me a pickled herring yet!" Ikey
+could not get away from memories of the delicatessen shop.
+
+"By St. Patrick's piper that played the last snake out of Ireland!" was
+Frenchy Donahue's complaint, "it was holdin' a wake over you two
+fellers, we was, all the night long."
+
+"Where did you put in the night, anyway?" asked Whistler.
+
+"Say! we didn't have no more home than a rabbit," cried Ikey.
+
+"After we got ashore," began Frenchy, when Torry interrupted to ask:
+
+"How did you do that? Give us the particulars."
+
+"Why, when you fellers went off and left us without sayin' 'by your
+leave,' even----"
+
+"What's that?" growled Whistler. "You know that hawser snapped."
+
+"Just the same you parted company from us mighty brusk," grinned
+Frenchy. "We drifted in with the tide. Mr. Mudge took a line ashore--Oh,
+boy! he's some swimmer. So we followed him along the line, hand over
+hand----"
+
+"And head under water," grunted Ikey. "Oi, oi!"
+
+"Aw, Ike would kick if you was hangin' him," scoffed Frenchy, "unless
+you tied his feet. We all got out of the water safe, and that's enough.
+The wind and the rain beat us so that we went up into the woods for
+shelter. And then we found a clearing and in it a cabin."
+
+"Ah-ha!" ejaculated Whistler. "Another cabin like this one?"
+
+"Not on your life!" said Frenchy.
+
+"No," added Ikey. "Nothing like it."
+
+"It was a little cabin without any windows, and the door was padlocked.
+We couldn't get into it; but we camped there in the clearing all night.
+I'm as soggy right now as a sponge."
+
+"There was a flagstaff sticking out of the roof of the cabin," Ikey
+observed. "And somebody must have thought a deal of whatever's in the
+shack, by the size of the padlock on the door."
+
+There was a call to breakfast from the cabin just then. Whistler slipped
+aside and caught Mr. MacMasters' attention.
+
+"Something mysterious, Morgan?" asked the ensign, observing Whistler's
+expression of countenance.
+
+The young fellow briefly related what the old woman had said to him and
+Torry the night before, and then told the officer of the suspicions that
+her words had aroused in his mind.
+
+In addition, he told Mr. MacMasters what Frenchy and Ikey had said about
+the locked cabin in the woods. Whistler put great stress upon this
+matter.
+
+"Why, I did not see the cabin myself, although Mudge mentioned it," said
+the ensign. "I met them marching out of the woods up along the shore
+yonder."
+
+"Can't we find that cabin and have a look at it?" urged Whistler
+earnestly.
+
+"But we can't get into it."
+
+"No, sir. But we can see it. I have an idea."
+
+"I presume you have, Morgan," returned the ensign, smiling grimly. "And
+I have a glimmer of an idea myself."
+
+When the men trooped in to breakfast the officer and Whistler Morgan
+stole away. The old woman was too busy just then to notice their
+absence.
+
+In half an hour they found the place where the warrant officer and his
+companions had broken through the jungle. They retraced their course and
+soon came to the clearing in the wood.
+
+It was a secret place, indeed. The cabin was ten feet square, built of
+heavy logs, and as Whistler had been told, had no window openings. The
+door of heavy planks was fastened by a huge hasp held in place by the
+padlock mentioned so particularly by Ikey Rosenmeyer.
+
+"I guess we can't get into it without tools," said the ensign.
+
+"I don't suppose so, sir. But see that pole on top of the cabin? That
+had the upperworks of a wireless attached to it, I'm sure. The bolts are
+still up there. It is no flagpole."
+
+"Right again, Morgan," agreed Mr. MacMasters.
+
+"And that piece of a letter to Linder," the boy eagerly reminded him.
+"Don't you think with me, sir, that the old woman is linked up with the
+German spy system?"
+
+"It seems reasonable. At least, I shall make a report as soon as we get
+away from the island. And the old woman should be watched, too."
+
+"Indeed she should!" cried Whistler. "What do you suppose she meant, Mr.
+MacMasters, about our _Kennebunk_ being sunk?"
+
+"The speech was fathered by the wish, perhaps."
+
+"But she seemed so certain--so assured," murmured Whistler.
+
+He was not satisfied by this explanation of Mr. MacMasters, and was
+silent all the way back to Mag's cabin. They came in sight of the place
+just as the men poured out of the cabin in great excitement.
+
+"What do you suppose is the matter with them now?" demanded the ensign.
+
+But he spied the cause of the excitement as soon as Whistler did.
+Crossing the sound was a swift revenue cutter, and one of the seamen,
+under direction from Mr. Mudge, leaped upon a bowlder and began to
+signal, semaphore fashion.
+
+The signals were returned and the cutter swung in shoreward and soon
+dropped a boat for the castaways. The shipwrecked seamen from the
+_Kennebunk_ swarmed down to the strand.
+
+Mr. MacMasters whispered to Whistler that they would have their
+breakfast aboard the Coast Guard boat. Then he went to the scowling old
+woman who, after all, had been a most hospitable hostess. Some of the
+sailors had given her money in small sums; but the ensign forced her to
+accept an amount that he thought generous payment for what she had done
+for them, and Mag seemed to agree.
+
+"Yo' Yankees air free-handed already," she drawled. "But that won't save
+you, Mr. Officer, from the trouble that's heaped up for you-uns."
+
+"What is the nature of this trouble?" asked the ensign curiously.
+
+"Death an' destruction," said the old woman. "Death and destruction. Yo'
+fine big ship, the _Kennebunk_ ship, will be blowed sky-high. It's a
+comin'! Mark Old Mag's prophecy, Mr. Officer."
+
+"We shall all have to go on and do our duty just the same, Mag," said
+Mr. MacMasters, seriously. "And if a sailor does his duty, he's done his
+all. The rest is in God's hands."
+
+"Don't blaspheme, Mr. Yankee!" warned the old woman. "The Lawd ain't
+studyin' 'bout he'pin' you-uns none. He's on the other side already."
+
+The boat from the cutter had to return a second time before all the
+castaways were transferred to the revenue vessel. Whistler went in the
+last boat with Ensign MacMasters.
+
+When they were on the cutter's deck the young fellow heard Mr.
+MacMasters ask at once about the character of the old woman, and of any
+other people who might belong on the island.
+
+"They're under suspicion," the commander of the cutter said briefly.
+"The Department has its eye on them. On that old woman, too."
+
+Mr. MacMasters asked if anything was known about the small cabin back in
+the forest. The revenue officer listened eagerly.
+
+"Ah-ha! That is something of moment, Ensign. I shall surely be glad to
+hear all about that. But we must be brisk. Do you know that your Captain
+Trevor is combing the sea and the coast with wireless messages for you?"
+
+"He must have heard that we lost our steamer."
+
+"That was relayed last night to the _Kennebunk_, I believe. The Huns are
+sowing many mines in these waters. There is a flock of U-boat chasers
+and destroyers out after the German submarines.
+
+"But there is something else of moment in the wind," added the revenue
+officer. "The _Kennebunk_," he added, mysteriously, "will not be long in
+these waters."
+
+"No?"
+
+"It is expected that there will be a great naval movement on the other
+side. The report of the _Kennebunk's_ manoeuvres, and her gun record, is
+said to be so good that she may be sent across."
+
+Whistler, standing by, could scarcely suppress a cry of delight.
+
+"What do you think of that, Morgan?" the ensign cried. Then to the
+revenue officer: "After this cruise, I suppose you mean, sir?"
+
+"She may be sent on the jump--and within a few hours. I have orders to
+take you to sea at once and find the _Kennebunk_. Our operator is
+sending out feeler messages for the battleship right now."
+
+"Then you will do nothing toward looking into this nest of
+trouble-makers on the island--if there is such--immediately?"
+
+"Not until we return."
+
+"And then," said Mr. MacMasters seriously, "if you do stir up these
+snakes, look for a fellow named Franz Linder. He is wanted in Elmvale,
+up there in New England, for blowing up a dam, destroying munition
+factories and drowning twelve innocent people. We'll be glad, Morgan
+here, and I, to hear about the capture of that scoundrel."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+THE RACE
+
+
+The revenue cutter was a speedy craft, and by midforenoon she was far
+outside the string of islands near which the crew of the _Kennebunk's_
+steamer under Ensign MacMasters had experienced so many adventures.
+
+The wireless operator picked up the superdreadnaught at last. She was
+two hundred miles away, and when she gave her course to the cutter the
+boys noticed that it occasioned a deal of excitement upon the
+quarterdeck.
+
+Unless the message is spread on the notice-board by the door of the
+wireless room, the members of the crew of any vessel are not likely to
+know what is going on in the air. The operator, like the usual telegraph
+operator, is bound to secrecy.
+
+"There's something up besides the blue peter, just as sure as you're a
+foot high, Whistler," Al Torrance declared eagerly. "I'd give a punched
+nickel to know just what it is."
+
+Having nothing to occupy their time on the cutter, the four Navy boys
+naturally gave their attention to rumor and gossip. They believed the
+_Kennebunk_ was no longer headed up the coast; but where she was going
+was a question.
+
+"Crickey!" groaned Al, "if she gets into any muss without our being
+aboard, I'll be a sore one."
+
+"They wouldn't be so mean," wailed Ikey, "as to have a fight without us
+being in it. Oi, oi! Oi, oi!"
+
+"Nothing but subs to fight over here, kid, if any," the older boy said.
+"Stop your keening."
+
+"Say, how do we know where the big fight will be pulled off?" demanded
+Frenchy excitedly.
+
+"What big fight?" queried Whistler, unpuckering his lips.
+
+"The one they've been talking about for months. You know, everybody's
+said the Huns would come out some time. They're bound to give us a
+chance at their Navy."
+
+"Aw, they won't! Will they, Whistler?" asked Ikey.
+
+"I don't really believe so myself," Torry said, shaking his head. "No
+such luck."
+
+"I believe the _Kennebunk_ has got new orders," Whistler rejoined
+thoughtfully. "Whether or not they are for her to sail for the other
+side, I don't know. I heard a hint about it when we came aboard the
+cutter."
+
+"Crickey! Let 'em hit it up, then," urged Torry. "If this little old
+tub doesn't go fast enough I'll jump overboard and swim!"
+
+"Oi, oi! Not me!" objected Ikey Rosenmeyer. "I've soaked in enough salt
+water. I don't feel as though I should really need a bath again before
+I get to be twenty-one yet."
+
+"Tough on your messmates, Ikey," observed Whistler. "Do think better of
+such a rash decision."
+
+The four boys from Seacove were not alone in being anxious regarding the
+_Kennebunk_ and their chance of overtaking her. Every man of the crew of
+the wrecked auxiliary steamer desired to get aboard the superdreadnaught
+if there was to be any fresh excitement.
+
+Whistler's chums urged him to waylay Ensign MacMasters for information.
+
+"G'wan, Whistler!" begged Frenchy. "You and him's just like brothers.
+Ask him if the old _Kennebunk_ is running away from us, or if it's all
+bunk?" and he grinned at his pun.
+
+"Of course she's not running away," Whistler returned.
+
+"Just the same this cutter is sprinting like all get out," put in Torry.
+"Be a good fellow, Whistler. Ask Mr. MacMasters what it means."
+
+His chum did not feel that he could do this. There is, after all, a gulf
+between the quarterdeck and the forecastle. But Whistler put himself in
+the ensign's way and, saluting smartly, asked a question:
+
+"Beg pardon, sir! Did you find anybody aboard who could translate that
+torn letter I picked up in the old witch's cabin?"
+
+"That letter addressed to Franz Linder? No, Morgan; there is nobody
+aboard the cutter who is familiar with German. But the moment we reach
+the _Kennebunk_ I will put it into Captain Trevor's hands--never fear."
+
+"Shall we really catch the battleship, sir?" asked Whistler eagerly.
+
+"We've got to, Morgan;" declared Mr. MacMasters. "As you boys say,
+'there is something doing' and we must be in it."
+
+"But the battleship has changed her course, has she not, sir?"
+
+"She has received new orders; but we will meet her on this course,
+I have no doubt. Cheer up, my boy," and the ensign laughed. "You may
+yet help work the big guns in a real battle."
+
+So it was actually a race. The cutter must reach a certain point in the
+open ocean to meet the superdreadnaught; if they missed her, in all
+probability the party from the _Kennebunk_ would have to be returned to
+port and be assigned to some other duty for the time being.
+
+"Oi, oi!" groaned Ikey when he heard Whistler's report. "I never did
+have any luck. If they had delicatessen shops on board ships, I'd be
+made to police the pickle barrels yet."
+
+The day did not pass without some additional excitement. The cutter
+passed and signaled several Government vessels; but toward evening the
+lookout picked up the smoke of a small destroyer ahead which, within the
+next half hour, acted very strangely, indeed.
+
+She seemed to be steaming in circles, and as the cutter raced nearer
+those circles narrowed. Then her guns began to pop.
+
+The cutter's crew and their guests became much excited. Surely the gun
+crews of the destroyer were not at target practice. Yet they seemed to
+have found a target in the middle of that circle the destroyer was
+furrowing through the sea.
+
+At last they saw an answering shot fired from the midst of the circle.
+The destroyer was traveling at top speed and her own guns continued to
+keep up a wicked cannonading of the central object.
+
+"A Hun submarine!" shouted somebody. "They're circling it, and they are
+going to get it, too!"
+
+"If it is a submarine why doesn't she sink?" demanded Torry the
+sceptical.
+
+"I see why," Whistler said. "If the U-boat goes down the destroyer will
+dart in and drag depth bombs. Then--good-_night_!"
+
+"Wow, wow!" cried Frenchy. "She's so fast she can cut circles around the
+U-boat, eh?"
+
+"Sure as you live!" said Torry. "My! that's a pretty fight. If that
+destroyer was the old _Colodia_, and we were only aboard of her! What
+fun!"
+
+The destroyer was narrowing her circles; the U-boat was in a pocket, and
+unless the Hun put a lucky shell into the destroyer's engines, she
+seemed doomed to capture or destruction.
+
+The cutter raced nearer. Her course would take her directly into the
+circle of battle unless her helm was changed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+UNDER SPECIAL ORDERS
+
+
+It was like bombarding a whale with bomb lances. One after another the
+shells from the destroyer's guns shrieked over the sea to fall around
+the more sluggishly manoeuvring U-boat.
+
+The captain of the submarine handled his craft with skill; but his
+gunners were poor marksmen. They kept both the U-boat's deckguns
+smoking; but the shots went wild.
+
+Torpedoes could not be used against the destroyer, for the latter was
+steaming too swiftly. Around and around she went, and each time she
+finished a lap the circle had narrowed.
+
+The spectators on the revenue cutter were highly interested. They
+climbed upon the upperworks and cheered and yelled in their excitement.
+At last a shell from the destroyer dropped fairly upon the deck of the
+U-boat, just abaft the conning tower.
+
+The submarine rocked, dipped, and seemed about to sink. The helm of the
+destroyer was changed instantly and she shot straight for her quarry.
+
+"She'll sink her! She's going down!" yelled Al Torrance, clinging to a
+stay beside Whistler, as the cutter bobbed through the rather choppy
+seas.
+
+But the Germans had no desire for a glorious death. Up went the white
+flag, and the men on her deck put up their hands, signifying that they
+had surrendered. Probably they were already crying "_Kamerad!_"
+
+The destroyer did not even drop a boat to send aboard a crew. She
+steamed right up beside the submarine, put out a ladder for her captain,
+and then sent a hawser aboard for the German crew to fasten. She would
+tow her prize to port without risking any of her own crew aboard the
+wabbly undersea boat.
+
+When the cutter drew near, her ship's company cheered and jeered the
+bluejackets on the destroyer with good-natured enthusiasm. The destroyer
+was then steaming away with the U-boat in tow.
+
+"Something's fouled your patent log!" yelled one seaman aboard the
+cutter.
+
+"Hey, there, garby!" shouted another. "What's that the cat brought in?"
+
+The crew of the destroyer, evidently mightily swelled with pride,
+refused to reply to these scoffing remarks.
+
+As long as the twilight held the cutter steamed into the east and
+south. By dark the destroyer and her tow were out of sight. The cutter
+began to burn occasional lights. Then the wireless chattered again.
+
+"Hurrah, boys!" whispered Whistler to his three mates. "I believe the
+_Kennebunk_ is near."
+
+Nor was he mistaken in this supposition. The night was dark, the stars
+were overcast, merely a fitful light played upon the surface of the sea.
+
+The horizon ahead was quite indistinguishable from the water itself. But
+at last a faint glowing point appeared upon it. Ensign MacMasters and
+the commander of the cutter showed excitement as they watched this spot
+through their night glasses.
+
+"Is it a star?" asked Frenchy.
+
+"A star your grandmother!" snorted Torry. "That's a ship."
+
+"A big steamship under forced draft," added Whistler. "And I believe it
+is the _Kennebunk_."
+
+It was the glow above her smokestacks that they saw. Within half an hour
+the fact that a huge steam craft was storming across the cutter's course
+could not be doubted.
+
+Mr. MacMasters gave some sharp orders to his men. The latter had nothing
+with them but the water-shrunk garments they stood in; so it took but a
+moment for Mr. Mudge to line them up properly along the rail.
+
+The great battleship began to slow down when the cutter was at least
+three miles from her. Otherwise she would have passed, and the revenue
+craft would have been a long time catching up.
+
+The cutter was run in to the side of the towering hull of the
+superdreadnaught. The port ladder was down. A number of the watch on
+deck were strung along the rail, and the officers did not forbid their
+cheering the members of the wrecked tender's crew.
+
+"Welcome home again, Mr. MacMasters!" was the greeting of the officer of
+the watch as the ensign led his party up the ladder.
+
+"And mighty glad we are to get here," declared Ensign MacMasters.
+
+The boys and men scrambled aboard and bade good-bye cheerfully though
+gratefully to the cutter's crew. The latter craft turned on her heel and
+shot away toward the distant coast.
+
+Already the huge battleship was under way again. She was running with
+few lights. And where she was running was a question that even the
+members of the crew the boys put the question to could not answer.
+
+It was generally known that Captain Trevor had received orders by
+wireless that had changed the plan of the cruise entirely. Instead of
+running back up the Atlantic coast, they had put to sea.
+
+It was the next day before the _Kennebunk's_ company in general knew
+that she was bound first for the Azores. That meant a European cruise,
+without a doubt. All the "old timers" were agreed upon that.
+
+It was finally rumored about the ship that the report of the
+_Kennebunk's_ cruise to the southward, and the score of her gun crews at
+target practice, together with her good luck in sinking a German
+submarine with the first shot ever fired from her guns, had so impressed
+the Department that she was to join the European squadron under Admiral
+Sims at once.
+
+"There's a chance for you boys to see some real action," declared one of
+the masters-at-arms. "If the Hun comes out of Kiel, we'll be there to
+say 'How-do!' to him."
+
+The boys who had been absent from the battleship for so long found,
+however, that the spiritual atmosphere of the crew was not much changed.
+There were still a lot of "croakers" as Torry called them.
+
+"They are ghost-ridden, as sure as you're born, Whistler," Torry
+declared. "Somebody has heard that clock ticking again. It doesn't seem
+to be at work all the time. Just now and then. 'The death watch' they
+call it."
+
+"Stop it!" ordered Whistler. "The less said the soonest mended about
+such things aboard ship. We boys don't believe such foolishness, do we?"
+
+"How about the old witch's prophecy?" asked Torry wickedly. "Suppose we
+should tell these garbies about them?"
+
+"Don't you dare!" cried Whistler.
+
+That very morning, after sick call, he was ordered to appear before
+Captain Trevor in the commander's office, and there found assembled
+Ensign MacMasters and several of the other officers of the ship with the
+commander.
+
+"Morgan," said Captain Trevor, "let me hear about your finding of this
+paper Mr. MacMasters has brought to our attention. There seems to be
+something of moment in it in reference to the _Kennebunk_."
+
+Ensign MacMasters put a translation of the torn letter into the young
+fellow's hand. The letter had been so mutilated that it was impossible;
+to make any exact translation of it. But here were extracts that stood
+out plainly:
+
+          "_. . . success of your water-wheel bomb.
+          Congratulations._
+
+          "_. . . from Headquarters an order to_ . . .
+
+          "_. . . If it equals your former . . ._
+
+          "_. . . clockwork arrangement that may raise your
+          name as an inventor to the nth power. The Ken----
+          . . ._
+
+          "_. . . shall hear of her destruction at the time
+          appointed._
+
+          "_. . . for the German Fatherland._"
+
+"I am told that you, Morgan, have some knowledge of the dastardly work
+of this spy, Franz Linder. Is it so?" asked Captain Trevor suggestively.
+
+"Oh, sir!" cried the young fellow, in excitement, "I believe I know what
+is referred to here by Linder's correspondent, as 'the water-wheel
+bomb.' That is what he blew up the Elmvale dam with!"
+
+"Do you think, from what the woman on the island said, that there is
+some plot afoot against the _Kennebunk_?" went on the commander.
+
+"It's referred to right here!" declared the excited Whistler. "This
+'clockwork' thing. Oh, Mr. MacMasters!" he added, turning abruptly to
+the ensign. "You know some of the crew, before we left to carry poor
+Grant to the hospital, were bothering about a sound they had heard on
+the lower deck? Remember Seven Knott's ghost?"
+
+"Right!" declared the ensign. "I had forgotten it, Captain Trevor," he
+added. "Something about a clock ticking."
+
+"I have heard it myself," Whistler said eagerly. "And the boys say they
+have been hearing it, off and on, while we were gone."
+
+"Do you two mean to intimate that there is a time bomb, or some such
+infernal machine, aboard this ship?" demanded Captain Trevor, in
+contemptuous amazement.
+
+"Look at this, sir," urged Whistler so earnestly that he forgot his
+station. "'_. . . clockwork arrangement that may raise your name as an
+inventor to the nth power._' That certainly means something. And that
+noise below does sound something like a clock."
+
+"It seems ridiculous," stated the commander of the _Kennebunk_. "And yet
+we must not refuse to believe that the secret agents of Germany are at
+work in the most impossible places. If they could sink this great, new
+vessel in mid-ocean! Mr. Smith," to his first lieutenant, "have that
+part of the ship searched. Find out what causes the sound which has been
+heard before you make your report. We'll investigate this matter to the
+very bottom."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+TICK-TOCK! TICK-TOCK!
+
+
+The superdreadnaught was so huge a ship, and the divisions of the crew
+were so busily engaged in drills and other work, that few, indeed, knew
+that the "ghost of the _Kennebunk_" was being investigated by the
+officers.
+
+The ship was storming along her course through the sea at a pace which
+fairly made her structure shake. Had one been able to be out upon the
+sea on another ship and watch her pass, her speed would have been
+impressive, indeed.
+
+Routine work went on, and the bulk of the ship's company knew nothing
+about that little party of searchers at work deep down in the ship.
+Whistler was one of those assigned to find the cause of the "tick-tock"
+noise, and it was he who finally suggested the spot where the mechanism
+which caused the sound might be found.
+
+The party had searched the lumber room and the compartments on both
+sides, that above, and the one directly beneath the room in question.
+Nothing was discovered save that the sound seemed clearer in the lumber
+room than elsewhere.
+
+Overhauling the stuff stowed there did no good. They seemed no nearer to
+the sound. And as the latter was not continuous it was the more
+puzzling.
+
+"Don't you think we ought to open that chest, sir?" asked Whistler of
+the warrant officer who had immediate charge of the work.
+
+"It doesn't seem to come from that box," objected the man.
+
+"It doesn't seem to come from anywhere exactly," Whistler said. "It is
+sort of ventriloquial. One time it seems to be from one direction, then
+from another. But that chest hasn't been open----"
+
+"Whose is it?"
+
+"I don't know, sir."
+
+"Who does know?" the warrant officer asked.
+
+But nobody seemed able to answer that query. The searchers gathered
+about the chest that had been pulled out of the heap of rubbish. It was
+ironbound and made of heavy planking.
+
+"It gets me!" murmured the officer.
+
+Just then the sound started again: "Tick-_tock_! Tick-_tock_!
+Tick-_tock_!"
+
+"It don't come from that box!" declared one man.
+
+Whistler stooped and put his hand on the cover. "Wait!" he said
+suddenly. "Just feel this, sir."
+
+"What do you feel?"
+
+"There is vibration here. And it isn't the vibration of the ship's
+engines, either."
+
+The warrant officer rested his hand upon the chest. He looked more
+puzzled than ever.
+
+"Get something and break the lock!" he commanded.
+
+"Wait a minute, sir!" cried Whistler. "If there should be some infernal
+machine in that box we must take care in opening it. Maybe the carpenter
+can pick the lock."
+
+"Good idea," agreed the officer.
+
+The carpenter's mate was sent for. He came with a bunch of spare keys
+and a pick-lock. The latter had to be used skilfully before the lock of
+the chest was sprung.
+
+Then the warrant officer suddenly experienced an accession of caution.
+He refused to have the cover of the chest lifted until the chest itself
+was carried carefully out upon the open deck.
+
+No sound came from the chest now, if that had been the locality of the
+tick-tock noise. The vibration could be felt just the same.
+
+The men were ordered to stand back and the warrant officer courageously
+lifted the lid of the chest. Nothing happened.
+
+There was an empty tray in the top of the odd chest. That, too, was
+cautiously lifted out.
+
+There came suddenly a faint buzzing from the interior that startled
+everybody near. Then followed the ticking sound, which lasted at least a
+full minute.
+
+The warrant officer jerked away a layer of pasteboard that hid what was
+under the tray. Several grim cylinders lay side by side in the chest's
+bottom. They were connected by wires with a mechanism that hummed like
+the purring of a well-piled motor.
+
+"Clockwork!" exclaimed the carpenter's mate, bending over the chest.
+"That's what she is. Ah! It reverses itself. See that spring--winding
+tighter and tighter? Why, it's almost perpetual motion! Some inventor
+that fellow!"
+
+"What fellow?" growled the warrant officer.
+
+"Whoever built this."
+
+"Can you stop it without exploding those cylinders?"
+
+"Great Scott! Do you s'pose that's dynamite under there?"
+
+"Or T N T."
+
+The petty officer thrust an iron bar suddenly into the heart of the
+complicated machine. Something snapped. The mechanism stopped.
+
+"Great heavens, man!" gasped the warrant officer, "suppose you had set
+it off?"
+
+"No. Couldn't be done till the spring here was wound up to the
+top-notch. This machine was arranged to run for weeks. Some ingenious
+arrangement, take it from me!"
+
+The discovery and destruction of the infernal machine, and a big one at
+that, relieved the tension of feeling aboard the warship. As Frenchy
+Donahue remarked:
+
+"It's bad enough to have a banshee _tick-tocking_ around the place; but
+that tidy little bunch of cylinders would have made a lot more noise if
+they had been exploded."
+
+But the matter was serious. The captain took the opportunity to lecture
+the entire ship's company regarding foolish rumors and gossip.
+
+"If there is anything strange comes under your notice, report it
+properly," he said. "Don't camouflage it with a lot of superstitious
+nonsense so that the officer you report to must disbelieve the yarn.
+There never was a strange occurrence yet that could not be explained."
+
+"How does he explain Jonah being swallowed by the whale?" whispered
+Frenchy.
+
+"He doesn't have to explain it," retorted Torry. "If you don't believe a
+whale can swallow a man, jump down the throat of the next one you see."
+
+As a whole, the crew of the _Kennebunk_ were not inclined to consider
+the incident of the infernal machine carelessly. A serious impression
+was made upon them all.
+
+But the mysterious prospect of what was ahead of them shortly smothered
+the matter of the peril escaped. There might be greater perils ahead.
+
+The superdreadnaught halted but for an hour at a port of the Azores.
+This was to send mail ashore. Then she picked up speed again and
+traveled north.
+
+She passed convoys of merchant vessels guarded by French, British and
+American destroyers. The _Kennebunk_ exchanged signals with several
+cruisers of the United States Navy as well.
+
+Drill at the guns went on daily. Once they spied and shelled a German
+submarine, but she escaped. This incident greatly enraged the crew of
+the gun that missed her. It was not the gun to the crew of which
+Whistler and Torry belonged.
+
+"Can't expect to get the Hun every time," was the soothing remark of one
+of the division captains.
+
+"Why not?" asked somebody else. "That's what we are here for, isn't it?
+I don't believe Uncle Sam wants excuses."
+
+The standard the men set themselves in our Navy is higher than their
+officers require.
+
+The boys from Seacove, as well as Hans Hertig and Mr. MacMasters, kept
+a sharp lookout for their beloved _Colodia_. But they were fated not to
+meet the destroyer until the great event which had brought the
+superdreadnaught into European waters.
+
+The _Kennebunk_ steamed into a certain roadstead one evening where lay
+more huge battleships, cruisers and smaller armored vessels than
+Whistler and his mates had ever seen before. They flew the flags of
+three nations, and they were prepared to move _en masse_ upon the enemy
+at the briefest notice.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+IN THE THICK OF THE FIGHT
+
+
+The methods of strategy by which the German Navy, or a large part of it,
+was tolled out of its impregnable hiding place the Navy boys did not
+learn till long afterwards. But Phil, at least, half realized that the
+German High Command believed that the way to shelling the British coast
+by her great naval guns was at last opened.
+
+The Allied fleet moved on a certain day and at a certain hour, and with
+the open sea as its destination. It was a calm and utterly peaceful sea
+through which the _Kennebunk_ sailed with her sister ships.
+
+The high bow of the superdreadnaught crashed through the seething
+waters. Her lookouts traced the course of each tiny blot upon the
+distant sea-line.
+
+Suddenly, out of the north, appeared a scout cruiser, her funnels
+vomiting volumes of dense smoke that flattened down oilily upon the sea
+in her wake. Her stern guns spat viciously at some craft of low
+visibility which followed her.
+
+Immediately everybody aboard the _Kennebunk_ forgot the other ships of
+the squadron. The enemy was in sight, and the work would be cut out for
+every man aboard the superdreadnaught.
+
+The cruiser came leaping toward the fleet, her signal flags fluttering
+messages. A gun boomed on the flagship. Bugles shrilled from every deck
+of the _Kennebunk_.
+
+Messages were wigwagged from ship to ship. But aboard the _Kennebunk_
+there was just one order that interested every one.
+
+"Clear decks for action!"
+
+The divisions responded to the notes of the bugle with a snappiness that
+delighted the officers on the bridge. As they had gone through the
+manoeuvres a thousand times in practice, so now they faced the enemy
+with the same precision.
+
+Ventilators, life-lines, parts of the superstructure and deck woodwork
+came down and were stowed in their proper place. Boats dropped from
+their davits, were hurriedly lashed together, their plugs pulled, and
+left to sink, riding attached to sea anchors formed of their own spars
+and oars. "Cleared for action!" when reported to the commander meant
+exactly that! Not a superfluous object in the way of the activities of a
+fighting crew.
+
+"Battle stations!"
+
+The four friends from Seacove knew exactly where they were to be all
+through the battle--if they lived. Whistler knew that he was to stand in
+the corridor of the handling-room for Turret Number Two, until he was
+called to relieve some wounded or exhausted member of his gun crew. His
+immediate order was to "stand by."
+
+Every other individual aboard the _Kennebunk_ had his station, from the
+firemen shoveling tons of coal into the fiery maws of the furnaces to
+keep the indicator needles of the steam-gages at a certain figure, to
+the range-finders high up in the fighting-tops, bending over their
+apparatus.
+
+In the turrets the officers fitted telephone receivers to their heads.
+The gunners, literally "stripped for action" to their waists, their
+glistening, supple bodies as alert as panthers, crouched over the
+enormous guns.
+
+Up from the sea appeared the great fighting machines of the enemy. They
+could not run away this time. Inveigled into range of the Allied ships,
+the Hun must fight at last!
+
+A word spoken into a telephone from the conning tower to one of the
+fighting tops! Then, an instant later, to Turret Number One! A roar that
+shook the ship and seemed to shake the very heavens, while the flash of
+the fourteen-inch rifle blinded for a second the spectators!
+
+A cheer rose from all parts of the ship, even before the tops signaled
+a hit. After that the men fought the ship in silence.
+
+Alone in the corridor, Whistler Morgan felt that it would be easier to
+be on active duty in this time of stress. Yet he had been taught that
+his station was quite as important as that of any other man or boy
+aboard.
+
+Through the half open door of the handling room he heard other men
+loading powder bags and shells upon the electric ammunition hoist that
+led to the turret above.
+
+Suddenly the whole ship staggered. A deafening explosion, different from
+that of the guns, shocked him. An enemy shell had burst aboard the
+_Kennebunk_!
+
+"Relief!"
+
+Whistler sprang through the corridor and up to the gun deck. Was the
+call for him?
+
+He stopped to look at a perspiring gun crew. They worked the gun with
+the precision of automatons. Wherever the shell had burst it had not
+interfered with the firing of the huge guns of Number Two Turret.
+
+Another enemy shell burst inboard of the _Kennebunk_. There was a hail
+of bits of steel and flying wreckage. Whistler stood squarely on his
+feet and began to breathe again.
+
+If he was afraid he did not know it!
+
+One of his mates fell back from position. It was not Torry, as Whistler
+immediately saw. The man's shoulder dripped blood from a raking wound.
+Had it been Torry, Phil knew he would still have stepped forward, just
+as he was doing, and have calmly taken the place of the wounded man.
+
+"Keep it up, boys!" grinned the wounded one. "I'll be back soon's the
+doc gives this the once over."
+
+The work went on. Shell, powder, breech! Ready all! A moment while the
+captain's finger trembled on the trigger button. Then the hiss of air as
+the breech swung open, yawning for another charge.
+
+The thousand-pound shell, hurtling through the smoke-filled air, found
+the vitals of the _Kennebunk's_ immediate enemy. It scarcely shocked
+Whistler when he peered out to see that vast mountain of steel burst
+open amidships. She sank in seconds, and the _Kennebunk_ steamed on to
+attack a second monster of the deep.
+
+The battle continued. Moments seemed longer than minutes; minutes
+dragged by like hours. The wonder of it all was that so much damage
+could be done in so short a time.
+
+Ships that had cost months of labor to build settled and disappeared
+beneath the surface in a few minutes. And their crews? Best not talk
+about them.
+
+History will relate in detail and with exactness, the story of this
+fight. The superdreadnaught, so shortly off the ways, endured her
+baptism of fire, coming through the battle scarred but victorious. Alone
+she sank two of the enemy.
+
+Her own casualty list was small. But it was some hours after the battle
+before Philip Morgan made sure that his three friends were safe. Repairs
+and other necessary work took up the attention of the crew until long
+past nightfall, although the battle itself had lasted just under two
+hours.
+
+Then Phil found Al first, for they had fought in the same turret. They
+went to look for the younger boys, and came across an agile little chap
+with his head done up in bandages, working with a deck-washing crew aft
+of Turret Number Three, which had been wrecked by a Hun shell.
+
+"It's Ikey!" shouted Torry. "What's the matter with your head, Ikey?"
+
+"Don't say a word," said Ikey, shaking his bandaged head. "The doc used
+all the gauze he had left aboard after binding those up that was really
+hurt."
+
+"But you've got some kind of a wound, haven't you?" demanded Whistler.
+
+"Oi, oi! I ought to have, eh? But it's only that boil I had coming on
+the back of my neck. You remember? Somehow the head got knocked off of
+it and it was bleeding. So the doc grabbed me and bandaged me like
+this," he added in a much disgusted tone.
+
+It was Michael Donahue who proudly showed himself later with his arm in
+a sling. He had actually got a piece of shell through the flesh below
+his elbow. The others were inclined to scorn his wound as they did
+Ikey's boil.
+
+"That'll do for you fellers," said Frenchy proudly. "By St. Patrick's
+piper that played the last snake out of Ireland! I've shed me blood for
+Uncle Sam! That is something you garbies haven't done. And, oh,
+goodness! Ain't I hungry--just!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Because of the repairs necessary to the _Kennebunk_ she was ordered
+home; but to the delight of the four Navy boys they, with Hertig and Mr.
+MacMasters, were not to go with her.
+
+The _Colodia_ was now one of the destroyer fleet chasing German
+submarines in the Bay of Biscay. They were ordered to meet the destroyer
+at a certain English port and would rejoin their old comrades and
+continue their training under Lieutenant Commander Lang.
+
+Much as they disliked leaving their comrades on the superdreadnaught,
+active service, and of a new kind, was ahead of them, as will be related
+in the next volume of this "Navy Boys Series."
+
+"We can't kick," declared Torry. "We got into the Navy to work, not to
+loaf. We've seen a good deal of service, and of several different kinds.
+But there is always something new to learn."
+
+"Sure!" agreed Ikey. "I've wrote my papa and mama that although I ain't
+an admiral yet, I'll be something or other before I get home."
+
+"True for you!" exclaimed Frenchy. "But just what you'll be is hard
+telling, Ikey. Even that old witch of the island couldn't foretell your
+finish, I bet."
+
+"That reminds me," said Whistler. "Mr. MacMasters told me he read in
+an American paper that he just got hold of that they have arrested Franz
+Linder, the spy. He will be tried for blowing up the Elmvale dam. And
+I guess we had something to do to getting evidence that will convict
+him. The ensign says we will have to give our testimony about the
+infernal machine before Captain Trevor before the superdreadnaught
+leaves this port for home."
+
+"Say!" said Torry with energy, "hasn't this been a great old cruise?"
+
+And his three mates emphatically agreed.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+The Young Reporter
+Series
+
+By HOWARD R. GARIS
+
+12mo. cloth, illustrated and with full colored jacket
+
+Fascinating stories of great mysteries and extreme perils--the life of a
+daring young reporter for a metropolitan daily, written by one who was
+himself a reporter for sixteen years.
+
+          THE YOUNG REPORTER AT THE BIG FLOOD
+          Or the Perils of News Gathering
+
+          THE YOUNG REPORTER AND THE LAND SWINDLERS
+          Or The Queer Adventures in a Great City
+
+          THE YOUNG REPORTER AND THE MISSING MILLIONAIRE
+          Or A Strange Disappearance
+
+          THE YOUNG REPORTER AND THE BANK MYSTERY
+          Or Stirring Doings in Wall Street
+
+          THE YOUNG REPORTER AND THE STOLEN BOY
+          Or A Chase on the Great Lakes
+
+          THE YOUNG REPORTER AT THE BATTLE FRONT
+          Or a War Correspondent's Double Mission
+
+
+          GEORGE SULLY & COMPANY
+          Publishers New York
+
+
+
+
+Joe Strong Series
+
+12mo. cloth, colored jacket and illustrated
+
+Vance Barnum is a real treasure when it comes to telling about how
+magicians do their weird tricks, how the circus acrobats pull off their
+various stunts, how the "fishman" remains under water so long, how the
+mid-air performers loop the loop and how the slackwire fellow keeps from
+tumbling. He has been through it all and he writes freely for the boys
+from his vast experience. They are real stories bound to hold their
+audiences breathlessly.
+
+          JOE STRONG, THE BOY WIZARD
+          Or Mysteries of Magic Exposed
+
+          JOE STRONG ON THE TRAPEZE
+          Or The Daring Feats of a Young Circus Performer
+
+          JOE STRONG, THE BOY FISH
+          Or Marvellous Doings in a Big Tank
+
+          JOE STRONG ON THE HIGH WIRE
+          Or A Motorcycle of the Air
+
+          JOE STRONG AND HIS WINGS OF STEEL
+          Or A Young Acrobat in the Clouds
+
+          JOE STRONG AND HIS BOX OF MYSTERY
+          Or The Ten Thousand Dollar Prize Trick
+
+          JOE STRONG, THE BOY FIRE-EATER
+          Or The Most Dangerous Performance on Record
+
+
+          GEORGE SULLY & COMPANY
+          Publishers New York
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+   Obvious punctuation errors repaired.
+
+   Page 47, "swifty" changed to "swiftly" (the swiftly approaching)
+
+   Page 62, "swifty" changed to "swiftly" (he described swiftly)
+
+   Page 93, "saluate" changed to "salute" (trying to salute)
+
+   Page 131, "U-Boat" changed to "U-boat" to conform to rest of text
+
+   Page 144, "agan" changed to "again" (again and again)
+
+   Page 151, "overwhelmn" changed to "overwhelm" (threatened to
+             overwhelm)
+
+   Page 156, "sharts" changed to "charts" (marked on the charts)
+
+   Page 157, "finshing" changed to "fishing" (so the fishing boats)
+
+   Page 191, "Frency" changed to "Frenchy" (demanded Frenchy excitedly)
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NAVY BOYS BEHIND THE BIG GUNS***
+
+
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