A BLUFF CALLED.
Ned cast his eyes despairingly this way and that, in the hope of spying something that might promise even a faint hope of salvation.
"Ned," it was the inventor's voice; but it sounded faint and far off, "shall I call out?"
"And betray your trust—no, sir!"
"Thank you; I thought you would say that. There is no chance of our getting away?"
"Not a loophole that I can see, sir."
"So be it. The explosion must come in a few seconds now, and all will be over."
The inventor bowed his head. Ned's brain worked as it had never worked before, but, think as he would, he could not contrive any avenue of escape. "If only I could work these ropes loose; if only they'd left the lamp—I'd have risked knocking it over and burning them off. If only——"
The boy came to a sudden stop.
On the floor by the table he had espied a small, gleaming point of fire—the burning stub of a cigar, carelessly thrown aside by one of the Pulsifers. They smoked only the best of cigars and the weed burned red and strong.
To Ned its spark rekindled hope.
That tiny glow meant perhaps life and freedom.
Without an instant's delay, he threw himself on the floor, for, bound as he was, he could not bend or move. Otherwise he would have taken a chance on burning through his thongs at the candle in the powder keg.
The Dreadnought Boy rolled himself toward the burning cigar butt. Mr. Varian watched him wonderingly, but made no comment. He realized that the boy had found what he thought was a way of escape.
Ned placed his mouth alongside the cigar, and after some difficulty got it between his teeth. He took a few sharp puffs, as he had seen smokers do, although the rank taste of the tobacco sickened him. It was Ned's first and last smoke.
With the end of the cigar now blazing redly, he was ready for the next step. Dropping the "weed," he wriggled along the floor till he hadbrought his bound wrists up to the red end. Then he pressed the rope down on the glowing tobacco, with a silent prayer that he might be in time.
A smell of burning rope filled the air.
A second later Ned Strong, his hands free, uttered a low cry of triumph.
He had won the first step of the desperate fight for liberty.
Rapidly, with his freed hands, he felt in his pockets. His captors had forgotten—or, as was more probable, had not deemed it worth while—to search him. His jackknife was in his pocket. To sever his leg bonds was the work of two quick slashes. In his excitement the pain of his leg was forgotten. All that the Dreadnought Boy knew was that he had a fighting chance.
Hastily he stepped up to the powder barrel and prepared to pluck out the candle. This was risky work. Not only might the Pulsifers or some of their gang be on the lookout, but he might, in his haste, spill a spark which would blow both himself and the inventor sky high.
As he reached the side of the keg, however, Ned's first utterance was a gasp of surprise and then a low laugh.
"Bluffed!"
The exclamation came sharply as he plucked out the candle and threw it to the floor. Luckily it did not go out, for the next instant he realized that he would have to use its light.
Hastily he made his way to the inventor's side. A few quick slashes of the knife, and Mr. Varian stood free, words of gratitude on his lips and a light of admiration in his eyes.
Ned hastily checked the other's words.
"Time for action now, sir," he said briskly. "Can you run an auto?"
"Can you tie a running bowline?" smiled the inventor, who now seemed as cool as ice.
Ned grinned appreciatively.
If all went well, the next step of his hastily contrived plan of escape could be carried out.
"One moment, sir," begged Ned, as the inventor whispered: "What next?"
The boy was over at the side of the keg and rummaging there, it seemed.
"For Heaven's sake, don't waste time on that, my lad," urged the inventor. "Let us make a dash for it. Those men may be near at hand."
"All in good time, sir; but I want to cinchthese rascals if we can and cinch them good and tight!"
"But why waste time on that powder barrel?"
"Powder barrel nothing—— I mean, it's not a powder barrel, sir."
"What?"
"That's right. Look here!"
Ned held up a handful of papers which he had extracted from the keg.
"When I said 'bluffed' just now, that's what I meant. But, Mr. Varian, we've called their bluff with these!"
"These" were papers which seemed to be maps of different places carefully marked and figured, and other diagrams of different kinds.
"What are they?"
"As well as I can see, sir, material to forge steel chains on those rascals who brought us here. They appear to be plans of United States ports and details of our harbor defenses. But we've no time to look them over now. Come, sir!"
The lad stuffed the papers in his blouse.
He had noticed with his keen eyes that few things escaped, that the Pulsifers had not locked the front door when they entered their hut. Henow flung it open, and, a second later, he and the inventor stood under the open starlight, their hearts leaping excitedly.
In front of the door, a dark shadow in the gloom that had set in following the sinking of the moon, was the automobile.
A little gasoline, and more than a little good luck, was all that lay between them and safety.
"Crank her up, sir. I'll stand guard here," breathed Ned.
The inventor bent over the front of the machine and jerked the cranking handle over. There was no explosion.
Again he turned it, without result.
"We'll have to hurry, sir, or else run for it," warned Ned. "Hark!"
Inside the house they could hear trampling of feet.
Evidently Pulsifer and his brother had decided that their "bluff" would have burned itself out by this time, and were returning to the room in which they confidently supposed their helpless victims were lying in agony of mind.
"We'll have to try them another way, since they have withstood the ordeal of powder," Ned heard the elder Pulsifer's heavy voice boom out,half-amusedly, as the inner door of the room banged open.
At the same instant there came a low "chug" from the motor.
"Speed up that spark," ordered the laboring inventor. "No, not that lever. There, that little attachment on the wheel. That's it."
Chug-chug-chug!
"Hurray! that did the trick!" shouted Mr. Varian, forgetting his dignity in the excitement of the moment.
As he spoke, from inside the house they heard, above the roar of the now awakened motor, the shouts of dismay with which Pulsifer and his mercenaries greeted their discovery that their "birds had flown."
"They can't be far off!" Ned heard the heavy voice boom out. "Scatter, boys! After them! One hundred dollars to the lad who bags the first one!"
The front door burst open and out rushed the men who a few minutes ago had been so confident of bluffing out one of Uncle Sam's sailors and one of his brainiest citizens.
"There they are!" yelled Pulsifer, as his eyeslit on the two figures as they lightly swung into the auto. "Don't let them get away! Five hundred dollars if you stop them!"
"Shoot 'em down!" bawled the shrill tones of Schultz.
As the inventor opened up the motor and threw in the clutch several dark figures leaped in front of the machine, and one jumped on to the seat beside Ned.
This last figure—it was that of Kennell—raised a knife high and then brought it down with a vicious swoop. The blade seemed to strike full at Ned's heart.
The inventor gave a cry of dismay.
But at the same instant, like a thing instinct with life, the car leaped forward.
"Stand from under!" bawled the inventor, as he threw in the third-speed clutch.
Ned saw the figures of Schultz and Hank Harkins flung aside by the wheels and go rolling down the steep hillside. At the same time he drew back his fist and sent it crashing into Kennell's face. The knife fell clattering twenty feet away, as the treacherous bluejacket, with a howl of alarm, fell backward.
"Take that from Herc Taylor!" shouted Ned.
Forward into the darkness plunged the car, leaping and rolling over the rough road.
"Hurt, Ned?"
It was the inventor speaking. His voice was anxious. Already the shouts and cries behind them were dying out.
"No, sir, why?"
"That blow with the knife. I thought it would have killed you."
"Well, it might have, sir, but forthis. I carried it for a luck piece, and I guess it's earned its name!"
The Dreadnought Boy held up a tiny silver coin. It had a big dent in it, where Kennell's blade had been turned.
It was old Zack's parting present, the Canadian dime.
A STRANGE RETURN.
"You say Seaman Strong made his way after the men you suspected, and that was the last you saw of him?"
Rear-Admiral Gibbons, Captain Dunham and several other officers were seated in a room on the lower floor of the hotel at which the banquet that had ended so disastrously for the inventor, Varian, had taken place.
Herc shifted uneasily on his feet. He felt alarmed before this glittering court of inquiry that had convened as soon as it became apparent that the absence of Henry Varian, discovered shortly before midnight, was no mere accident.
"Yes, sir," he replied to Captain Dunham, who had put the question.
"Can it be possible that the man Strong was in league with the miscreants? The circumstances seem very suspicious," put in the rear-admiral.
"I think, sir," said Captain Dunham, "that weshall find, when the mysterious affair is sifted, that young Strong acted the part of a United States sailor in the matter. I have kept a careful eye on him, and should be loath to believe him anything else than an upright, honest young fellow of uncommon capability."
"Good for you," thought Herc to himself.
"And what were you doing all this time?" inquired one of the officers of the embarrassed witness.
"Picking stickers out of myself, sir."
"What! Be careful, young man; this is no time for levity."
"Well, sir, I guess if you had fallen into a tack-tus bush you'd have been picking those vegetable tenpenny nails out of your system for a while, too," replied Herc in an aggrieved tone, while suspicious twitches appeared about the corners of the mouths of several of the assembly. Rear-Admiral Gibbons got up and gazed out of the window for a moment to conceal his smiles at the naïve rejoinder of the red-headed youth.
Suddenly he turned, with a sharp exclamation.
"Gentlemen," he exclaimed, "here comes the automobile, or one just like it, that those twoprecious rascals, the Pulsifers, used. I've seen it before. As it was the only one in Guantanamo, I remarked it especially."
The officers crowded to the window, and Herc would have joined them, but a marine barred his way.
"Get back, young feller," he warned, suggestively pointing his bayonet.
"Huh! I guess you never had a friend in trouble," grunted Herc, going back to his witness chair in high dudgeon.
But the auto, instead of coming up to the hotel, turned off two blocks below.
"Possibly I was mistaken," said the admiral. "Those two figures in it didn't look like the two scoundrels, but at the distance it is impossible to tell."
"In any event, sir, they cannot escape from Cuba," spoke up one of the officers. "Every port has been telegraphed. Their capture is almost certain."
This was indeed the case. An investigation of the garden had shown clear indications of the struggle that had taken place there the night before, and servants had been discovered who had seen the inventor issuing into the gardenwith the unsavory Pulsifers. The odor of chloroform still clinging to the grass decided the matter, and completed the chain of circumstantial evidence. Herc, too, had been able to supplement the mute testimony by his story of the convict film and the names of the conspirators. Already a launch full of marines had been sent to Boco del Toros to intercept the yacht Carl and Silas had mentioned in the lad's hearing.
This much having been done, a code message had been sent to the secretary of the navy, who had at once ordered every port in Cuba watched, and detailed secret service men in the United States to special duty to apprehend the Pulsifers if they attempted to land in America.
The examination of Herc, who was, of course, the principal witness, went on.
At its conclusion an officer of theIllinoisbegged permission to ask one more question.
"My man, did you or your friend talk over this step of his?"
"Not any more than I have told you, sir," rejoined Herc, somewhat puzzled.
"I submit, sir," remarked the officer, turning to the rear-admiral, "this looks somewhat as if the lad was in league with the Pulsifers. Weknow now, from what this lad has told us, that other members of the crew were disaffected; possibly Strong was bribed, too."
"You don't know Ned Strong, sir," spoke up Herc, "or——"
"Silence, sir!" thundered the officer.
"Huh!" grunted Herc, in a low tone, however.
"As I was saying, sir, the whole thing looks, as you said, suspicious. We know that the lad was recently placed in the forward turret of theManhattan, and would have had an opportunity to examine the breechblock of the Varian gun. He might even have made rough drawings of it."
"What you say is plausible, Captain Stirling," nodded the rear-admiral gravely.
"I don't believe a word of it!" snapped Captain Dunham hotly. "I'll stake a good deal on that youngster's honesty, and——"
"You'll win!" came a crisp voice from the rear of the room.
The officers turned, amazed, and set up a shout of astonishment as they beheld, framed in the door which they had entered noiselessly, the figures of the inventor, and, standing, cap in hand, by his side, the Dreadnought Boy, the lad towhose pluck and resourcefulness the inventor largely owed his liberty.
"I repeat it, gentlemen," went on the inventor, for it was he who had voiced the interruption; "there isn't a finer, more capable or grittier lad in the service to-day than Ned Strong of theManhattan."
"But, but—gentlemen, pray sit down——" began the rear-admiral. "Really this is most irregular."
He sat down resignedly as the officers pressed about the inventor and Ned. In a few moments order was restored, and the two newly escaped captives were telling their story.
"But how did you get back from the Sierra Madre Mountains so quickly?" asked Captain Dunham, who was familiar with Cuba and had recognized the location of the Pulsifers' hut from the inventor's description.
"Let Ned Strong tell that," smiled the inventor.
"Why, gentlemen, we—we borrowed Mr. Pulsifer's automobile," explained the Dreadnought Boy.
"Good for you!" burst out Herc, who had been dancing about in the background, hardly ableto keep down his excitement. Of course, discipline did not permit his greeting Ned just then, and he had been on the point of exploding ever since his chum entered the room.
In the general excitement no one reproved the impulsive youth, who turned as red as a winter sunset when he realized what a sad breach of naval etiquette he had committed.
"Strong, stand forward," ordered Rear-Admiral Gibbons, as the inventor took up and concluded the story of how they had missed their road, but finally found their way into town, going first to a house occupied by some friends of Mr. Varian's before proceeding to the hotel. At the home of the inventor's friends they had got a wash and brush-up which both stood sadly in need of. Ned's leg, besides, had required dressing. It turned out to be, as he had guessed, only a flesh wound, but was sufficiently painful, though not dangerous in any way.
In obedience to his superior's command, the young seaman took two paces to the front and saluted, bringing his heels together with a smart click, despite the pain his wound gave him as he did so.
"Strong," went on the admiral, "you have doneMr. Varian and the United States Navy a great service. Had it not been for your quick, intelligent work, it might have been that the Pulsifers and the others implicated in this dastardly affair would have escaped. Mr. Varian might not have been with us this morning. I congratulate and thank you on behalf of the government and on behalf of the naval department and officers of this squadron."
Ned's lips moved. Somehow he couldn't speak. Herc's face, bisected by a broad grin, thrust itself forward among the officers till it appeared, like a whimsical moon, between the elbows of Captain Dunham and the rear-admiral.
"I shall see, Strong," went on the admiral, "that some signal notice is taken of your clever, plucky work. You are of the stuff of which real seamen are made and we want to encourage men like you in every way possible. And now, gentlemen, as we are not within hearing of Washington—or the papers—perhaps it might not be inconsistent with the occasion to give three cheers."
"Oh, those crazy Americanoes!" exclaimed the little yellow-faced Cubans, as three long, resounding naval cheers, with a zipping "tiger,"rang through the stagnant tropic air and went booming over the water as far as the grim sea bulldogs of Uncle Sam, lying at anchor off the town.
A HIT WITH CHAOSITE.
"General battle practice to-day," cried a bosn's mate, as he hastened forward through the scrubbing stations the next morning.
Ned and Herc exchanged glances above their swabs.
At last they were to see what actual battle conditions were like. The practice hitherto had been merely target practice and mine-laying—the latter being dummies, of course. To-day, they had learned earlier, the ships were to be "cleared for action" just as in actual service, and steaming at eighteen knots, were to fire at the targets as they steamed by as if they were repulsing a hostile fleet. No wonder the jackies were on the tiptoe of expectation.
As for the two chums, they were in high spirits. Promotion loomed ahead of Ned, and Herc wished him success with all the warmth of his generous heart. Not a thought of envy enteredhis mind. He was as delighted as Ned himself over the big chance that had come to the Dreadnought Boy.
Each of my readers can imagine for himself what the two boys had had to say the evening before, when they had been reunited; and Ned had to tell his adventures over and over again, till Herc advised him to invest in a phonograph and talk his narrative into it for indefinite reiteration. "Pills" had patched Ned's injured leg so deftly that it hurt him hardly at all, and the doctor's suggestion that he go on the "binnacle list," otherwise the sick roll, had met with Ned's unqualified disapproval.
"I'm fit for duty. I want to do it, sir, if possible," he had said quietly but firmly, when the doctor suggested that he rest up for a few days.
The doctor, a veteran of thirty years' service, had thrown up his hands in amazement.
"I've been in the navy for more years than you've seen, my boy, by a long shot," he exclaimed, "and I never heard a seaman talk like that before. Well, if you want to work, go ahead, and my blessing go with you."
"I hope that young man is quite right in hishead," the man of medicine had muttered to himself, as he heard the door of his sanctum closed by the first bluejacket he had ever met who was not anxious to avail himself of the restful idleness afforded by being on the "binnacle list."
Immediately after breakfast theManhattanwas a scene of the liveliest activity.
Rails came down and were stowed. Boats were lowered, ventilators shipped, war nets rigged, and every object on the deck that was not an absolute fixture vanished. The same thing occurred on other vessels of the fleet, in obedience to the flagship's signalled order:
"Clear for action."
It was like stripping human fighters for a ring contest.
Bugles shrilly sang the order from ship to ship of the squadron. While the smiling jackies bustled about on deck, stewards and orderlies below were stowing pictures and bric-a-brac between mattresses and placing all the ship's crockery and glassware in places where it was not in danger of being jarred to fragments by the earthquake-like detonations of the big guns.
In the meantime officers had invested themselves in their full-dress uniforms with sidearms, and an hour after the order had been first transmitted the signal to "Up Anchor" fluttered out from the halliards of the flagship.
Aboard theManhattanespecially excitement ran at high tension, for Mr. Varian himself had come aboard that morning in a shore boat, and it was an open secret that the big twelve-inch gun, fitted with his Chaosite breech—was to receive its first sea test.
The first sight that greeted the eyes of Herc and Ned, reporting for duty in their turret as the squadron got under way beneath a pall of black smoke, was the unveiling, so to speak, of the inventor's masterpiece. Mr. Varian and Lieutenant Timmons, the ship's gunnery officer in command of the turret, had their heads together over the intricate piece of machinery as the two Dreadnought Boys entered the steel-walled box, in which they were practically a part of the machinery.
The inventor greeted them with a kindly nod. Perhaps the thought shot into his mind that had it not been for the pluck and clear-headedness of one of the Dreadnought Boys, he might not have been there.
"Is there any news, sir?" Ned asked respectfully,as soon as he got a chance to speak to the inventor.
"No. The launch that was sent to intercept the Pulsifers' vessel has not yet reported, but we may hear from her at any time now."
"Let us hope that the rascals haven't got a start and boarded some passenger vessel at sea," put in Lieutenant Timmons.
As the officer joined in the conversation Ned saluted and went to another part of the turret. It is not naval usage for an enlisted man to converse with an officer, and Ned was far too well-trained a young man-o'-warsman to break any rule, even the unwritten ones, which in the navy are almost as numerous as the codified regulations.
The excitement under which all hands labored was, however, far too keen to allow even the thoughts of the Pulsifers' capture to interfere with present duty.
Especially was this the case on two of the vessels of the squadron—theIdaho, the holder of the coveted meat-ball, and, as has been mentioned, theManhattan, every jackie on board of which vessel longed with his whole soul to see the gunnery flag flying from the Dreadnought's main.
The scores stood even between the big guns of the two battleships now, and the open secret that the morning practice was to be made, in large part, with the Varian gun and explosive made theManhattan'sjackies fearful that they might lose, after all.
Jim Cooper, nervous and high-strung as ever, crouched in his seat beside the big weapon as the charge was rammed home and the breech slapped to on the heavy load of Chaosite, which the two Dreadnought Boys beheld for the first time. It was a pinkish, crystalline-looking substance, and its inventor claimed, as safe to handle as ordinary clay, which it resembled in its plasticity. Just to show its properties, before the charge was placed, the inventor picked up a chunk of the explosive and compressed it in his hands. He moulded it into several different shapes, and concluded the exhibition by throwing it on the flooring of the turret with force enough to have detonated a charge of dynamite.
"There is only one danger I apprehend from it," he had explained to Lieutenant Timmons, "and that is in the event of a 'flareback.' But under such conditions there is no powder made that is safe."
In reply to the officer's questions, the inventor explained that Chaosite was a slow-burning explosive, and if the much-dreaded flareback ever occurred in a gun in which it was being used, blazing particles of the freed explosive would be scattered about the turret. As Chaosite would only explode when confined, these particles would glow like hot coals till they burned out. The deadly peril consisted in the fact that the doors of the ammunition hoist opened directly into the turret. There were safety shutters to the hoist, but in action the reloading followed so fast on the firing of the guns that there was little chance of the safety devices being used.
The shaft of the ammunition hoist led directly down to the ammunition table below the water-line on which the explosive was piled, ready to be shot upward on electric elevators. Alongside the ammunition tables were the open doors of the ship's magazine. It does not require vivid imagination to picture what would be the result of blazing particles of a substance like Chaosite dropping down the hoist onto the powder and explosives piled below. Quick and utter annihilation would follow. Not a soul of the eight hundredodd crew and forty officers would stand any but the smallest chance of salvation.
The Dreadnought Boys, as well as the rest of the crew in the turret, were interested listeners to the conversation. All of them knew what a flareback was. One had occurred on theGeorgiaa year before, costing two lives. It is usually caused by fragments of burning powder being left in the chamber of the gun after a charge has been fired. An electric blower is attached to the big guns of Uncle Sam's navy, which is supposed to thoroughly clean the chamber after each discharge; but it is not careless sailor-proof, and occasionally the newspapers bear dreadful testimony to the result of a flareback, which occurs when the new load is ignited by the left-over fragments of the old one.
But the talk between Mr. Varian and the officer was suddenly checked.
"Boom!"
The flagship had fired, and, as the glass brought to bear by Lieutenant Timmons showed, had missed the first target.
At the distance of a mile and a half the targets, with their tiny boats bobbing at a safe distance, looked extremely small. Shooting at apotato on a fence post at twenty rods with a small rifle is easy compared to the task before Uncle Sam's gunners.
"Now, Cooper, steady, my lad!"
Lieutenant Timmons' voice sounded strained and harsh as the gun pointer squinted through his telescope and depressed his pointing lever ever so little. Already the range had been signaled from the fire-control wells.
TheManhattanwas quivering to the speed of her engines, rushing her stripped form past the targets at eighteen knots.
Every man of that gun crew was under as painful a tension as the officer. As for the inventor, his face took on a deadly pallor as he leaned against the rear wall of the turret. In a few moments now he would know if his invention was a failure or a glorious success.
A tiny signal light—the message from the firing room glowed.
Cooper looked round. His wrinkled face was grotesquely knotted, like an ape's, in his excitement. His hand shook, but there was a glitter in his eyes that showed he meant to get that target.
"Brace yourselves, men!" warned the officer.
The boys stood as they had been taught, theirknees slightly bent, so as to be springy. As they got the last order they stuffed cotton in their ears. Otherwise, the drums would have been shattered by the discharge.
"All ready, sir," breathed Cooper.
"Fire!"
There was a sharp click from the electric firing switch and a tiny spurt of bluish flame.
A shock like that of an earthquake followed. The mighty explosion seemed to rend the turret.
It had not died out before the glasses of the gunnery officer, the inventor and the gun-pointer were bearing on the distant target and the boats scurrying toward it. From the bridge and the quarter deck similar scrutiny was brought to bear.
Chaosite was almost smokeless, so their vision was not obscured, as with the old-fashioned powder—even the so-called "smokeless" making quite a smother.
"Hit, sir!" shot out Cooper dryly, as the signal man in the target boat wig-wagged the news.
"Now let theIdahofolks get busy!" cried the delighted gun crew.
The new explosive and the new gun had proven themselves one of the biggest naval successes of many a day.
THE STUFF A JACKIE'S MADE OF.
Hastily the gunnery officer scribbled a note and handed it to Herc.
"Here, my man, take this to Captain Dunham," he said, thrusting the paper into Herc's hand.
The red-headed boy was off like a flash, and a second later the captain, who had already witnessed the signaling of the successful hit, was reading the details of the wonderful results achieved with the new gun.
He detained Herc several minutes while he asked him numerous questions about the handling of the gun, all of which the boy answered so intelligently as to bring nods of approbation from the group of officers surrounding the commander of theManhattanon the vessel's flying bridge.
By the time Herc started back for the turret, theManhattanwas close upon the second target.
"I've got to hurry," thought the boy, quickening his pace.
But before he had more than reached the midship section of the Dreadnought another mighty shock set her stout frame aquiver, and Herc knew another shot had been fired.
"Another hit!" he heard a shout go up an instant later. "We've got theIdahofolks lashed to the mast. They missed the first target."
But even as the cry reverberated along the decks there came another sound that struck terror to the heart of the Dreadnought Boy.
It was a heavy, smothered explosion that seemed to come from within the turret itself. At the same instant great clouds of yellow-colored smoke began to roll from the top ventilators.
"It's a flareback!" Herc heard old Tom shout. "Heaven help the poor souls in there!"
A flareback!
What the words meant Herc knew only too well. In the poisonous fumes of the burning Chaosite, vomited backward from the big gun's breech, there was quick, sure death.
Suddenly the small door in the barbette of the turret opened, and four half-crazed, reeling men staggered out, bearing a limp form of a fifth. Itwas Jim Cooper, the gun-pointer, they carried. Blackened and almost unrecognizable as the men were, the look of blank horror on their faces burned itself into Herc's mind.
"Where's the lieutenant and Mr. Varian? Where's Ned Strong?" the jackies shouted, as they crowded round the staggering men. The survivors could only wave their limp arms back toward the inferno from which they had emerged.
"B-b-blown to b-b-blazes!" gasped one in a choked voice.
All at once, and before Captain Dunham and the officers could reach the scene, a red-headed figure ripped off its blouse, and, wrapping it about its head, plunged on all fours into the small door from which the smoke-blackened five had emerged.
It was Herc Taylor.
"Stop that man!" shouted Captain Dunham, as he arrived, just in time to see Herc vanish in the smoke.
An ensign plunged forward. Half a dozen bluejackets followed him.
"No, stop! Come back!" shouted the captain. "Enough lives have been sacrificed."
Reluctantly the men came back. Tears rolleddown the ensign's face as he begged to be allowed to enter the turret. But the commander was firm. No more lives would he have thrown away. For that Herc was doomed to the same death as it seemed sure had overtaken the officer, Mr. Varian and Ned Strong, seemed a definite certainty.
Captain Dunham himself caught Ned Strong as he fell.
Captain Dunham himself caught Ned Strong as he fell.
"Signal the flagship of the accident, Mr. Scott," ordered the captain, whose face was set and white, but whose voice was steady as if he were issuing a routine order.
"Aye, aye, sir."
The executive officer issued the necessary orders.
A second later the boom of theIdaho'sgun sounded.
Another miss.
"TheManhattanwins the meat ball!" shouted some jackie far back in the throng of anxious-faced, pallid men.
"Stow that, you lummox!" growled old Tom, and his admonition was echoed angrily by a dozen tars. It would have fared hard with that jackie if they could have laid hands on him.
The minutes rolled by and still there came no sign from within the turret.
An ensign, despatched below by the captain, had reported that not a single spark had dropped down the hoist.
"Gentlemen, that means that there was a hero in that turret!" exclaimed the captain. "Before death came he closed those doors and in all probability saved the ship."
The others nodded. It was not a situation in which words seemed appropriate.
From the turret ventilators little smoke was now issuing. If any of the four men inside that steel-walled trap remained alive, they stood a fighting chance now.
Suddenly the jackies set up a roar.
From the turret door there staggered a black, weird figure; its clothes hung in shreds and blood streamed from a dozen cuts and bruises. In its arms this reeling figure carried another scarecrow-like form, the latter half-naked, like its bearer.
The first figure turned toward the dumfounded group of officers with a ghastly attempt at a smile on its blackened face, and then pitched forward with its burden.
Captain Dunham himself caught Ned Strong as he fell. Mr. Scott, the executive officer, asswift to act as his commander, had at the same instant seized hold of the limp form of Lieutenant Timmons, which the Dreadnought Boy had dragged from the jaws of death.
The doctor, a strange, soft light on his face, was still bending over his so strangely restored patients, when another roar came from the jackies. They seized each other and capered about like lunatics, and not an officer checked them. Temporarily theManhattanhoused a mob of cheering, yelling maniacs.
For through the turret door there now emerged a second figure, but this one bore a head of fiery red above his sooty countenance.
It was Herc, and with him he dragged out the collapsed figure of the inventor.
The Dreadnought Boys had beaten the flareback at its own grisly game.
From the scorched lips of Lieutenant Timmons, who, besides a few burns and the effects of the severe shock, had, like the others, miraculously escaped injury, the captain that evening heard the whole story.
The flareback had come like a bolt from the blue while the gun crew, still cheering Jim Cooper's second hit, were reloading.
The officer had felt himself blown back across the turret and smashed against the steel wall. The place was filled with acrid smoke and yelling, terrified men. Through the smoke glowed the blazing fragments of Chaosite that had been spurted back out of the gun.
Dimly the officer had seen Ned Strong stagger through the smoke toward the doors of the hoist, which were open preparatory to receiving another load. At the same time Lieutenant Timmons was trying with all his might to reach the same goal. He fell before he attained his object, however, and the last thing he knew was that he saw Ned seize the lever that swung the safety doors together and then collapse in a heap.
The inventor had fared much as had the officer, except that he succumbed to the fumes more quickly. He had managed, however, to open the ventilators to their full capacity by seizing, with his last conscious movement, the control that elevated them. This action undoubtedly contributed in large measure to saving the lives of those imprisoned in the death trap, for even Jim Cooper recovered, and a court martial later acquitted Lieutenant Timmons of all blame.
The joy that ran through the fleet when it was learned that not a single serious injury had resulted from the accident on theManhattanmay be imagined. Battle practice, which had stopped for that day, was ordered resumed on the morrow. But before that occurred another event happened which marked the end of one of the boldest attempts on record to steal one of Uncle Sam's most jealously guarded secrets.
The squadron was at anchor that evening, and retreat had just blown, when the wireless operator of the Dreadnought sought Captain Dunham with a paper in his hand.
It was a wireless from the launch sent after the Pulsifers and their gang, and reported that the yacht had been intercepted and boarded, off Boco del Toros, and that all the miscreants were captured.
The captain himself it was who sought out Ned and Herc, in the sick bay, and communicated the news to them. Both boys had been placed on the "binnacle list" under their protests; but, gritty as they were, they had been ordered to the ship's hospital peremptorily.
The rest of the gun crew shared their retreat, though each and every one of the rescued mendeclared that he was fit and able for duty. As a matter of fact, however, all of them had had a severe shock, and it was some days before they finally recovered and were about again receiving the congratulations of their shipmates. In the meantime battle practice went on, and theManhattaneventually won the "meat-ball."
The boys received the news of the capture of the Pulsifers with a cheer, feeble but sincere. The summary court martial called to decide the cases of Carl Schultz, Silas, and Hank Harkins was convened the next day, when the crest-fallen prisoners were brought back on board. Schultz and Silas broke down under questioning and confessed that they were escaped prisoners, and were returned to the Illinois authorities to serve out life sentences for the murder of an old farmer near Springfield many years before.
Ralph Kennell was sentenced to serve ten years in a government penitentiary and to be dishonorably discharged from the service. Hank Harkins escaped with a dishonorable discharge, on the boys' intercession for him. As for the Pulsifers, they were given over to the Federal authorities, and are now serving long terms at the Federalprison in Atlanta, Georgia. Simultaneously with the discovery of the plot, the Baron vanished from Washington, leaving a disappointed and mystified fiancée. It was never learned for just what government the Pulsifers had been engaged in their work of spying and bribing.
How Hank Harkins got mixed up with the plotters he explained to the court martial. He had fallen into Schultz's and Silas' company in New York and gambled much of his money away to them. Afraid to write home for more, he had cast about for a way to recruit his finances, and when Schultz and Silas suggested that he join them in the work they had undertaken for the Pulsifers, he willingly agreed.
A few days after Ned and Herc were once more up and about—for they had been "binnacled" while the above events transpired—they were summoned aft to the captain's cabin, and told that on the return of the fleet to American waters they were to report to the Secretary of the Navy at Washington without delay. This event occurred in the early part of June.
The two lads, brown-faced and alert, but somewhat alarmed at the prospect of encountering such a mighty personage as the Secretary of theNavy, called at the department, according to instructions, and sent in their names.
"Send them right in," came a hearty voice, although there was a long row of visitors ahead of the Dreadnought Boys.
"And so you are the two lads that Captain Dunham thinks more about than any bluejackets in the service," began the secretary, a keen-faced, slender man, with a bristly black mustache and kindly, penetrating eyes. "These are the lads," he went on, turning to a portly man with a gray mustache and a pleasant smile, who stood behind him.
The stout man stepped forward, and as he did so the boys were struck with an air of dignity he bore about him, which was even more impressive than that which hedged the secretary about.
"My lads," he said, "I have heard with interest and deep admiration of your bravery, and, better than that, your cool-headedness when the accident that imperilled every soul on theManhattanoccurred. Had it not been for the pluck of one of you, a disaster which would have been historic in its horror might have occurred. I refer to your action in closing the safety doors, Strong.
"And you, Taylor"—Herc turned as red as his own thatch—"you are also deserving of the highest praise. Your action in entering what seemed a certain death trap was heroic in the extreme. The United States Government is proud of you both, and I am authorized to pin upon you, as unfading mementoes of your conduct, these."
From two blue plush cases the portly man with the kind smile drew two gold badges which he pinned on the breast of each Dreadnought Boy.
They were the coveted medals of honor.
"I know that you will wear them with the highest appreciation of their significance. I congratulate you both."
The portly man turned to the secretary with a smile.
"I think that is all, Mr. Secretary," he said.
"I believe so, Mr. President," said the secretary, rising and opening the door.
The boys' eyes fairly popped in their heads. Herc's amazement actually overcame his sense of discipline.
"Oh, sir, was that the President himself?" he quavered, as the secretary returned to his desk.
"It was," smiled the secretary, "and he was here at his own special wish. He ordered a detailedreport made of your actions to him and investigated your case carefully. You young men have been rarely and highly honored. And now one thing remains to be done. You have received the highest honor the navy can confer for heroism displayed in line of duty. The government has for actions like yours a more substantial reward. I present you with these two purses, each containing a hundred dollars in gold."
The boys stammered their thanks somehow, while the room seemed to whirl round them. How they ever got out once more on to the sunlit Pennsylvania Avenue they often discussed afterward, but never arrived at any satisfactory conclusion.
"I guess we flew," Herc always says; "I know I felt as if I was walking on air."
The Dreadnought Boys had a two weeks' furlough before rejoining the fleet. They spent part of this in New York, seeing the sights, not forgetting a visit to the office where they had enlisted, and a portion of it in the old village, where, as may be imagined, they were the "heroes of the hour." Old Zack still exhibits a dented Canadian dime with which Ned presented him as a souvenir.The village band, not to be behindhand, learned to play a series of strange discords declared by them to be the navy's own, particular march, "Nancy Lee."
And so, with their hearts overflowing with patriotism, and a fixed determination ever to serve the flag and their country with an unflagging devotion, we will for the present take our leave of the Dreadnought Boys.
But many adventures, stranger and more fraught with peril than any through which they had yet passed, were ahead of them. A career in the navy is, even in "the piping times of peace," one full of excitement and action, and in their immediate future the boys were to realize this.
Life on board a torpedo-boat destroyer is a strange one in many ways, and the boys, in their coming experience on such a craft were destined to have this borne in on them. Their adventures on one of Uncle Sam's sea-tigers in a strange country and among strange people will be related in full in the next volume of this series,The Dreadnought Boys Aboard a Destroyer.
THE END.
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HURST & CO.,Publishers,
395, 397, 399 Broadway, New York.
BY
Capt. WILBUR LAWTON.
Modern Stories of the New Navy.
Cloth BoundPrice, 50¢ per volume.
The Dreadnought Boys on Battle Practice.
How many times have you paused to gaze provided you live in a maritime town of course, at Uncle Sam's grim, gray sea-fighters swinging at their anchors, or steaming majestically by? Haven't you thought then that you would like to know something of the lives of the servers of their country who pass the best part of their adventurous lives within those steel walls?
There are no books published which will tell you more of the new navy,—of the men, the ships, the huge guns, the submarine auxiliaries and all the hundred and one things that go to make up the fascination of the naval seaman's life, than these volumes.
In the first volume of the series which bears the above title Ned Strong and Herc Taylor make their debut in Uncle Sam's navy. Of course they have to endure much rough joking. Ned, however, proves so handy with his fists in a notable set-to with the ship's bully that the boys soon set themselves on a footing. From that moment on adventures come thick and fast. At target practice Herc-by a mean trick of his enemy becomes a living target for a twelve inch gun. A flare-back in the forward turret of the Dreadnought on which they are serving gives the lads their longed-for opportunity to show the stuff they are made of. Real books for real boys.
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HURST & CO.,PublishersNEW YORK.
By Capt. WILBUR LAWTON
Modern Stories of the New Navy
Cloth BoundPrice, 50¢ per volume.
THE DREADNOUGHT BOYS ABOARD A DESTROYER.
The adventures of two young men of wars-men on board one of the wickedest types of sea-fighters,—the speedy, deadly, torpedo-boat destroyer. On board one of these sea-tigers the Dreadnought Boys voyage to a turbulent South American republic, in the internal troubles of which our country has, on account of her citizens' interests, a duty of protection and supervision to perform.
The part the boys played in the revolution which threatened to bankrupt several American interests, and how they saved the day for the government by clever means and clear grit, is well told. At one stage of their adventures, the boys handle a South American destroyer with such cleverness and seamanship that they avert disastrous consequences to our flag and interests. Like its predecessor this book possesses the tang of the sea. Its action also takes place against the shifting, kaleidoscopic background of the revolution.
The excitement of warfare on sea and land, the thrill of sustained interest in the lads' scrapes and difficulties is on every page. Best of all, the volume shows the part that our navy takes shaping world politics; how it does big things without fuss or fireworks. Emphatically a book for every lad who has felt the call of the sea or the thrill of good fighting and adventure in tropic climes.
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HURST & CO.,PublishersNEW YORK.
BY
LIEUT. HOWARD PAYSON
MODERN BOY SCOUT STORIES FOR BOYS
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The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol.
A fascinating narrative of the doings of some bright boys who become part of the great Boy Scout movement. The first of a series dealing with this organization, which has caught on like wild fire among healthy boys of all ages and in all parts of the country.
While in no sense a text-book, the volume deals, amid its exciting adventures, with the practical side of Scouting. To Rob Blake and his companions in the Eagle Patrol, surprising, and sometimes perilous things happen constantly. But the lads, who are, after all, typical of most young Americans of their type, are resourceful enough to overcome every one of their dangers and difficulties.
How they discover the whereabouts of little Joe, the "kid" of the patrol, by means of smoke telegraphy and track his abductors to their disgrace; how they assist the passengers of a stranded steamer and foil a plot to harm and perhaps kill an aged sea-captain, one must read the book to learn. A swift-moving narrative of convincing interest and breathless incident.
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BY
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MODERN BOY SCOUT STORIES FOR BOYS
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The Boy Scouts on the Range.
Connected with the dwellings of the vanished race of cliff-dwellers was a mystery. Who so fit to solve it as a band of adventurous Boy Scouts? The solving of the secret and the routing of a bold band of cattle thieves involved Rob Blake and his chums, including "Tubby" Hopkins, in grave difficulties.
There are few boys who have not read of the weird snake dance and other tribal rites of Moquis. In this volume, the habits of these fast vanishing Indians are explained in interesting detail. Few boys' books hold more thrilling chapters than those concerning Rob's captivity among the Moquis.
Through the fascinating pages of the narrative also stalks, like a grim figure of impending tragedy, the shaggy form of Silver Tip, the giant grizzly. In modern juvenile writing, there is little to be found as gripping as the scene in which Rob and Silver Tip meet face to face. The boy is weaponless and,—but it would not be fair to divulge the termination of the battle. A book which all Boy Scouts should secure and place upon their shelves to be read and re-read.
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By MARVIN WEST
OUTDOOR LIFE STORIESforMODERN BOYS
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The Motor Rangers' Lost Mine.
A new series dealing with an idea altogether original in juvenile fiction,—the adventures of a party of bright, enterprising youngsters in a splendid motor car. Their first trip takes them to the dim and mysterious land of Lower California.
Naturally, as one would judge from the title, the lost mine, which proves to be Nat Trevor's rightful inheritance,—occupies much of the interest of the book. But the mine was in the possession of enemies so powerful and wealthy that it taxed the boys' resources to the uttermost to overcome them. How they did so makes absorbing reading.
In this book also, the young motor rangers solve the mystery of the haunted Mexican cabin, and exterminate for all time a strange terror of the mountains which has almost devastated a part of the peninsula.
The Motor Rangers too, have an exciting encounter with Mexican cowboys, which beginning comically, comes very near having a serious termination for all hands. Emphatically "third speed" books.
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Hurst & Co.,PublishersNew York