'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 thecatboat 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 theSue Bridgerin 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 theColodia—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 abouta hydro?" Phil said, when Ikey broke in with an inquiry:
"Say! lemme ask you: Why do they call theColodiaand 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 ourColodiais."
"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?"
TheSue Bridgerwas now skimming out of the cove, and the fog was lifting. They got a sightof 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."
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 theSue Bridger'spresent 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 onewill 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, inthe 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 forthe 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 theSue 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 muchin 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.
Fishing rather palled upon both Whistler and Trry 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 plainshe 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 ittook 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 craftthat he pretty nearly swung theSue Bridgerin 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 theswiftlyapproaching 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 theSue 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 theSue. 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. "JuniorLieutenant 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 theKennebunkand 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 theColodia, 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!—theColodiais 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 theKennebunkgo 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."
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 theColodia," 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 theGraf 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 theColodiawhom 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 likethat!" drawled Whistler. "It sounds easy. How many times did theColodiachase a U-boat and lose it?"
"Crickey!" breathed Torry, "even theColodiacouldn'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 theKennebunk, and where. I shallbe 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 theSarah Covillethat came in just ahead of us. She's anchored here somewhere," said the fisherman.
"What sort is she?" Whistler demanded. Then he describedswiftlythe 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 theSarah 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?"
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?" demandedTorry. "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 alcoholis 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 theSarah Covillewith 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. Thefirst 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 namedBlake 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.
"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 overhere 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 theSarah 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.