The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Dreadnought Boys' World Cruise, by Captain Wilbur Lawton.

AUTHOR Of “THE BOY AVIATORS’ SERIES,” “THE DREADNOUGHT BOYS
ON BATTLE PRACTICE,” “THE DREADNOUGHT BOYS ABOARD A
DESTROYER,” “THE DREADNOUGHT BOYS ON A SUBMARINE,”
“THE DREADNOUGHT BOYS ON AERO SERVICE,” ETC.

CHAPTER		PAGE
I.	At the Golden Gate	5
II.	An Important Duty	22
III.	In Chinatown	31
IV.	Ned “Delivers the Goods”	39
V.	“ The Fair Wind ”	50
VI.	A Tight Place	59
VII.	An Ill Wind for Schmidt	67
VIII.	“ My Address is the ‘Manhattan’ ”	78
IX.	Anchors A’Trip	87
X.	Across the Pacific	95
XI.	In the Grip of the Storm	107
XII.	Ned’s Terrible Plight	115
XIII.	“ Fire! ”	128
XIV.	Fighting the Flames at Sea	136
XV.	A Miraculous Escape	149
XVI.	A Strange Craft, Indeed	157 [4]
XVII.	Solitary Confinement	167
XVIII.	In Golden Seas	175
XIX.	Blue Lightning Ashore	186
XX.	Bound for the Volcano	195
XXI.	The Mouth of Fire	203
XXII.	Under Arrest	216
XXIII.	Herc Lunches with an Idol	232
XXIV.	The Cruise Resumed	240
XXV.	Jack Ashore	250
XXVI.	Off for the Pyramids	258
XXVII.	Lost in the Kings’ Tombs	267
XXVIII.	Homeward Bound	279

CHAPTER I.
AT THE GOLDEN GATE.

“Huh,” responded the red-headed lad, whom we know as Herc Taylor, gazing about him, “where are the Golden Gates?”

“Don’t be any thicker than you have to,” laughed Ned Strong. “The Golden Gate is the poetical Western name for the narrow entrance to San Francisco harbor, through which we passed on the Manhattan two days ago. It was so called on account of the Argonauts of Forty-nine who came sailing into it in the old days expecting to find fortunes in the diggings. This park is ’Frisco’s show place, and it is a beautiful spot.”

“Well, so far they’ve done nothing but dig fortunes out of us,” complained Herc; “four dollars and ten cents for that breakfast at the St. Francis Hotel was as steep as the hill it stands on.”

“That is what two of Uncle Sam’s sailormen get for mingling with the swells, Herc.”

“Say, you deserve to be keel-hauled for springing anything like that,” chuckled Ned. “But seriously, Herc, the days of the old-time sailor, who sought his pleasures in low groggeries and such places, have vanished. At every place we’ve stopped since the fleet left Norfolk, haven’t the men of the squadron behaved themselves like men-o’-war’s-men and gentlemen, instead of the popular idea of a sailor ashore?” Warming to his subject the young Dreadnought Boy continued: “The navy of to-day is made up of ambitious, keen-witted young fellows. Clever, clean and enthusiastic——”

“Thank you,” spoke Herc, removing his service cap, for both boys wore their uniforms, of which they were justly proud, “I hope you include me in that catalogue?”

“Not if you make the breaks you did at the St. Francis this morning,” rejoined Ned. “I thought those folks at the next table would have died laughing at you.”

“What for I’d like to know?” demanded Herc belligerently, coloring up as red as his own hair.

“Why, for one thing, when the waiter asked you if you wanted to be served ‘ a la carte ,’ you said, ‘No, you’d rather have it on a plate’; and then when the finger bowls came on, you squeezed your bit of lemon into the water and then hollered for sugar for the lemonade, and——”

“If you weren’t my chum and side partner, Ned Strong, I’d—I’d——”

But what Herc would have done was destined [8] never to be known, for at that instant there came a thunder of hoofs from far down the magnificent, sweeping drive, on the edge of which they were standing, and high above the noise made by the distant galloping horses rose a woman’s shrill scream.

The sudden interruption to the Dreadnought Boys’ conversation had come from beyond a curve in the drive, where trees and flowering shrubs shut out from view its continuation.

“Look! Ned, look!” cried Herc suddenly, gripping his companion’s arm excitedly.

Ned’s heart gave a bound as around the curve there suddenly swept into view a stirring but alarming picture. On the back of a large, spirited chestnut horse, which was clearly beyond control, was seated a young woman whose white face and terrified cries indicated plainly that her mount was running away. Behind her, whirling in their upraised hands lassos of plaited rawhide, like those used by cowboys, came two [9] mounted park policemen. But their horses, fast animals though they were, could not gain sufficiently on the runaway to enable them to throw their ropes and check his career.

Aroused by the screams of the young woman and the shouts of the policemen, people came running from all directions. Their cries only served, as did those of the pursuing officers, further to alarm the runaway. With glaring eyes and distended nostrils it thundered on with its rider clinging desperately to her saddle, from which she was threatened with being thrown any minute.

A low railing separated the drive from the pathway on which the boys stood, but Ned was over it in a bound. Before Herc realized what his chum and shipmate meant to do, Ned was standing in the middle of the drive crouched as if making ready for a supreme effort. The runaway, oblivious to all but its wild terror, came down on him like a whirlwind. But Ned, who [10] had been brought up on a farm and knew no fear of horses, awaited its coming without betraying a sign of agitation.

In another second it was upon him. Concentrating every ounce of energy he possessed on the daring act he contemplated, Ned shot upward and grabbed for the bridle of the flying beast.

Herc said nothing, but with white face, on which his freckles stood out like sun-spots, leaned forward open-mouthed as his chum made his daring tackle.

“He’s got him! Oh, good boy, Ned! Hooray!” cried Herc, capering about as Ned’s hands closed on the horse’s bridle.

But Herc’s rejoicing was rather premature. The next instant it was changed to a groan of dismay as the horse, brought to a sudden stop, reared straight up, beating the air with its forefeet, while Ned, hanging on like a cockle burr to the bridle, was swung pendulum-wise through the air.

Up reared the big chestnut till it appeared as if it must fall over backward, crushing its rider and injuring Ned. As it was, it was a marvel how he escaped the threshing hoofs of the maddened animal. Herc, when he had recovered from the shock of his first amazement, was over the low fence in a jump and at Ned’s side.

Just as he reached it the horse changed its tactics, and coming down on all four feet once more commenced bucking furiously. The girl stuck bravely to her seat but it was a test that would have tried the most skillful rider.

“Grab his neck, Herc, and try to hold his head down!” panted Ned, clinging fast to the bridle.

Herc made a spring and closed his muscular arms around the big chestnut’s neck, but he might as well have tried to harness a tornado. He was flung clear by a wild plunge of the brute, and the next instant it was dashing off with Ned still clinging to the bridle. The boy was lifted clean off his feet by the sudden rush, and, with [12] his legs trailing out behind him like the tail of a kite, the young man-o’-war’s-man was carried along with the runaway.

Herc sprawled on the ground for a minute and then, feeling dizzy and shaken, regained his feet. But by that time the rattle of the runaway’s hoofs and those of his pursuers had almost died out in the distance. The red-headed lad set off on foot, running with all his might in the direction they had vanished.

The drive ended a little distance farther on and came out on a street mainly occupied by hotels, candy stores and itinerant vendors of peanuts and pop-corn. Straight for a small assemblage of push carts the big chestnut dashed. The frightened peddlers rushed off in all directions while the runaway gathered itself for a leap, and, like a steeplechaser, shot into the air and cleared the carts. But in landing on the opposite side it was not so successful. Its hind hoofs caught on the edge of the farthest cart and it came down [13] on its knees with a heavy crash. This gave Ned, who was half stunned and bruised all over but still game and gritty, the opportunity he wanted. With a quick twist he compressed the curb and the snaffle together and had the horse under control. It struggled to regain its liberty, but finding that its efforts to get free only resulted in a fresh tightening of the curb-chain, it finally became docile.

By this time several bystanders had come running up, and some of them volunteered to hold the horse’s head while Ned helped the young woman off the saddle. But as he extended his arms to aid her in dismounting, she turned white and collapsed in a faint into the strong grip of the Dreadnought Boy.

Just then the mounted police, followed by a big crowd, came up, and behind them, panting and streaming with perspiration, came Herc.

“Be quiet, you lubber!” cried Ned angrily, “can’t you see the young lady has fainted? Give me a hand to get her into one of those hotels, will you?” he asked, addressing the officers.

“Sure and we will, my bucko,” exclaimed one of them. “That was the nerviest thing I ever seen done, and I used to work on a cattle ranch before I went on the cops.”

“Youngster, you’re all right and a credit to the uniform you wear,” chimed in the other as he dismounted.

“Never mind that,” Ned hastened to say, as the crowd began to show symptoms of wanting to join in all this well-earned praise, “this young lady needs immediate attention.”

“You can bring her right in here. My living rooms are in the rear of the store,” said a motherly-looking woman who had come out of a soda-water store near by.

“Sure, that’s the best way, Mrs. Jones,” agreed one of the policemen. “Clear the way there, will [15] you?” he added to the crowd, as the unconscious form of the young girl was carried into the store and laid on a lounge in the rear. There she was left to the care of Mrs. Jones and the people turned their attention to the boys.

“Well, that’s over. Come on, Herc, let’s get out of this,” said Ned hastily. “I feel like a fool.”

For a modest lad like Ned it was indeed an ordeal to be called openly “a hero” and “the nerviest lad in ’Frisco,” and half a hundred other adulatory names. The compliments came from the hearts of enthusiastic witnesses of his nervy rescue, but they only embarrassed the Dreadnought Boy and he was anxious to get away.

“She’ll be all right in a few minutes. Only a faint, but if it hadn’t been for you it might have been something worse,” said one of the policemen, coming out of the store where the girl had been carried; “and now you’ll need some fixing up yourself, young fellow. You look like you’d been through a cyclone.”

In truth, Ned did present a disreputable appearance. His uniform was torn, his face was bruised and scratched, and his cap was missing.

“Oh, I’m all right,” he replied hastily. “There’s a street car. Come on, Herc, we’ll catch it and get fixed up down town.”

“Hey!” shouted the policeman as the two boys dashed off to catch the already moving car, “Hey, young feller, come back and gimme yer name and address!”

But Ned and Herc paid no attention to his cries. They caught the back platform rail of the cable vehicle and swung themselves nimbly on.

“Just time to fix up and get down to the landing,” said Ned, consulting his watch, which had luckily escaped breaking in the recent adventure he had encountered, “we don’t want to overstay our leave, Herc.”

“Uh-huh,” grudgingly assented the red-headed lad, “but just the same ’Frisco suits me better than any place we’ve struck so far on this round-the-world [17] cruise, and I’d like to look around a bit more.”

The Dreadnought Boys, who had just met such a thrilling experience in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco’s beauty spot, were, as our old readers know, the same two lads, who, as told in “The Dreadnought Boys on Battle Practice,” enlisted in Uncle Sam’s navy after tiring of a life of farm work under unjust conditions. They were cousins and life-long chums. In the volume referred to, the first of this series, we saw how quickly the boys, by earnest attention to duty and a fixed determination to make their mark in their chosen profession, attracted the attention of their superior officers. True, they had some hard knocks, chiefly caused by a bully, to whom Ned in a fair, stand-up fight taught a needed lesson. A flareback in one of the big-gun turrets gave them an opportunity to display the mettle they were made of, and right well did they take advantage of it. But ashore at Guantanamo, as well as on the ship, [18] their enemies caused them considerable trouble and they were put to the test in many ways.

Wearing proudly medals of honor, and having achieved raises in rank, we found them next, in the second volume of this series, “The Dreadnought Boys Aboard a Destroyer,” participating in stirring scenes in South America, whither the torpedo boat destroyer Beale had been sent on a special mission. Dangers real and imminent threatened the boys, and they found themselves involved in a desperate battle between the government and revolutionaries. Their gunnery skill and knowledge of tactics won the day for the side that was in the right, and they earned fresh laurels following an exciting experience in a sea-fight.

In “The Dreadnought Boys on a Submarine,” the boys engaged in service on yet another type of Uncle Sam’s fighting ships. Under the water and on the surface they encountered experiences that form one of the most exciting narratives of [19] this series. The submarine affords a peculiar field of interest, and the mystery in which the lads found themselves involved in no way detracts from the thrill and swing of action in this story.

Still forging upward in their chosen profession the lads were detailed next to a squad which, more than any other, calls for nerve, coolness and skill, combined with technical knowledge. In “The Dreadnought Boys on Aero Service,” we followed the two erstwhile farm boys into a new element. In navy aeroplanes they demonstrated the value of air-craft as an auxiliary to the fleet. Ned was especially successful in showing what could be done aloft. It will be readily remembered, too, that many difficulties, as well as triumphs, attended the boys’ aerial experiences, but they “made good,” like sterling American lads, and conquered every obstacle by using brains and brawn.

And now the boys were on their first long [20] cruise. Back again on the huge, drab Dreadnought Manhattan , where they made their début into naval life, they formed part of the crew of the flag-ship of the sixteen battleships sent around the world to give other nations an impressive demonstration of Uncle Sam’s great sea-power. The passage down the eastern coast of South America and around the Horn had been made, the great fighting sea-dogs exciting the most intense interest and enthusiasm everywhere. Two days before, the massive, formidable squadron had steamed in column through the Golden Gate in perfect condition, and dropped anchor in San Francisco’s historic, land-locked harbor.

It was due to sail ere long across the broad Pacific for Hawaii and the “purple east,” returning to America by way of the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean. Small wonder that the men of the fleet were all on tip-toe with excitement over what lay ahead of them on this wonderful voyage. None were more enthusiastic over the [21] prospect of visiting unknown waters than were Ned Strong and Herc Taylor. They looked for adventures afloat and ashore, but those they were destined to encounter surpassed even their fondest imaginings.

CHAPTER II.
AN IMPORTANT DUTY.

Captain Dunham, commander of the Manhattan , looked up from his desk in his handsomely furnished quarters. A smart-looking orderly had just been bidden to enter the cabin.

“The master-at-arms states that eight men are ashore, sir. Overstayed their leave, sir,” responded the orderly, saluting.

The orderly saluted, clicked his heels and vanished on his errand. Five minutes later Ned Strong stood before his captain. As we know, Captain Dunham had a strong feeling of regard for Ned and Herc, and had watched their careers [23] with interest. He raised his eyebrows as he saw Ned’s bruised face. Although the boy had shipped a new uniform, rating badge and all, the dark marks of his encounter of the previous day with the park runaway still showed.

“What is the matter with your face, Strong?” asked the captain. His voice was rather stern. Perhaps he thought his favorite among the crew had been mixed up in some brawl ashore.

“Why, I,—that is, we—sir, I mean Herc—Coxswain Hercules Taylor and myself stopped a runaway horse in Golden Gate Park yesterday afternoon, and I guess I got a little battered up.”

“Good gracious, you boys are always having adventures. Whose horse was it you stopped?”

“I’ve no idea, sir. We hurried away after we saw the young lady was all right.”

“Upon my word, Strong, are you qualifying for a hero of romance?” he inquired. “Stopping a horse with a young lady on board it! Really, [24] you are plunging into adventure with a vengeance! But I sent for you to assign you to an important piece of duty. Eight of our men are ashore,—in some vile den in Chinatown, I suppose. You will take ten men ashore in Number One Steamer. They will be armed with loaded service revolvers.”

Ned’s eyes flashed. This was an important detail, he knew. Usually such work was assigned to the marines; and that he was to be intrusted with the command of such a squad made him square his shoulders even more than usual and feel a thrill of satisfaction at the confidence reposed in him by his captain.

“Report to the master-at-arms with my orders. He will do the rest. Use no unnecessary violence. Simply bring the men on board the ship.”

Ned saluted and retired. He proceeded straight to the master-at-arms, who handed him a typewritten list of names.

“These are the fellows you are to bring in, Strong,” he said. “You have your other orders?”

“Yes, sir. I am to take ten men in Steamer Number One. And—and can Taylor be one of them, sir?”

“What, that red-headed firebrand?” exclaimed the master-at-arms smilingly. “There! Very well, then, Strong,” seeing Ned’s look of disappointment, “but, for goodness sake, keep him out of trouble.”

“And now you are all ready? I’ll summon the patrol and pass word for’ard for Taylor.”

“You have no idea where I am to look for the men, sir?” asked Ned, while the patrol was being summoned.

“No; it will be up to you to find them. But I understand that some of them were last seen in Chinatown.”

Ned took command as smartly as any commissioned officer. He gave his orders and the patrol, including Herc Taylor, marched to the Jacob’s ladder on the port side of the ship, for the starboard is sacred to officers. They clambered into the drab-colored, hooded steam launch. The engineer tooted the whistle, the craft was cast off and then she cut swiftly over the choppy harbor for the landing stage.

“There they go, looking for the fellows that are playing hooky!” exclaimed a man loudly, as Ned and his detachment marched off toward Chinatown, eyed by a curious throng.

“And they’re going to bring them in, too,” thought Ned, with that outward thrust of a square chin that, with Ned Strong, betokened, to use a popular and expressive phrase, that he “meant business.”

He fully realized that he had a hard task ahead of him. Sailors are notoriously the prey of all [27] sorts of harpies ashore, and not infrequently are persuaded to resist forcibly being returned to their ships. It was but a small force that Ned had under him in case of serious trouble; but, as he looked at the clear-skinned, bright-eyed young Jackies, he felt that he would be willing to face a regiment.

With Ned occasionally giving an order, the patrol marched through the water-front district, visiting many places of resort for sailors,—and abominable dens most of them were,—without getting any trace of the delinquents. Ned, in addition, questioned several pedestrians, policemen and loafers of the district, but he could get no clew to the men there.

“We’ll have to look for them in Chinatown,” he decided, and gave orders for his men to march thither.

Through the straggly streets the little company proceeded until they arrived in the purlieus of what, next to the Oriental settlement in Melbourne, [28] Australia, is the biggest Chinese colony in the world. It was for all the world like a city of the poppy-land and not a part of the western metropolis.

Slitty, malignant eyes peered out of yellow faces as the smartly marching company from the dreadnought swung by. Most of the cunning Orientals knew full well on what errand the Jackies were bound, and resented it. Although Ned did not know it, the secret telegraphy of Chinatown was put into full operation as they advanced.

A butcher chopping meat on his stall would produce a peculiar kind of rhythmic tapping of his axe. This was in turn picked up by a cobbler mending shoes with antique Chinese tools. And so the news of the coming of the patrol preceded them by this subtle method of signaling, and long before they reached the street they were aiming for the proprietors of the places they meant to search knew of their coming.

“Halt!” ordered Ned, as they entered the street he had determined to search first. It was a narrow passageway between high, moldering walls. The walls flared with red prayer papers and other Mongolian notices inscribed on vermilion papers. From small barred windows evil-looking faces peered at them curiously.

From some remote place high up in one of the sinister-looking rookeries came the monotonous beating of a Chinese tom-tom, and the sharp screeching of a fife in uncanny cadences. Ned looked about him as the file came to a standstill. To his left a steep flight of steps led into an underground basement where he thought he might find some of the missing men.

Up the basement steps came an enormously fat Chinaman, with a round, greasy moon-face and an ingratiating chin.

“Hullo, sailor-man, what you wantee?” he inquired blandly, squinting at Ned’s command through his slanted black eyes.

“We come from fleet,” responded Ned, who knew something of the wily Oriental’s ways. “You catchum any sailors here?”

The Chinaman slowly shook his pigtailed head. Details of armed sailors had halted in front of his place often before and he knew what this one meant.

“Me no savee sailors. We no catchum ’Melicans. Nothing but Johns (Chinamen),” he declared with a bland smile.

But Ned was not satisfied. Ordering his men to remain above, he pushed past the protesting Mongolian and down the slippery, foul steps.

“See how much truth there is under that yellow skin of yours,” responded Ned, as he shoved open a door at the foot of the steps and was met by a blast of foul, heated air from the den within.

CHAPTER III.
IN CHINATOWN.

Close behind him was the fat, oily Chinaman, protesting, almost weepingly, that he harbored no “’Melican sailors.”

“Who was it that dodged into that room, then?” demanded Ned, indicating a door at the farther end of the dingy, ill-lighted room, that had banged to with a slam as he entered. The boy could have sworn that he caught sight of a naval uniform as whoever had opened the door slipped through it and vanished.

In the center of the room, which was lighted, [32] but not illumined, by a smoky lamp suspended from the ceiling, was a table of ebony inlaid with mother-of-pearl in fantastic Oriental patterns. Several chairs were about the table, and to Ned’s eye they looked as if they had recently been shoved hastily back. On the table were four cups.

“What was your friend doing here?” was Ned’s next question to the Chinee, who had been eying him craftily as he looked about at his surroundings.

“He dlinkum tea, so be,” was the quick response, “he likee tea velly, velly much.”

“That cup never held tea,” he exclaimed with authority. “Now, look here, my friend, you’re backed up against the United States government, do you understand? Take me into that farther room at once.”

“You no catchum business there, so be,” was the retort, while a sinister expression crept into the face of the Mongolian.

“I haven’t, eh?” Ned stepped forward but the Chinee slipped between him and the door leading into the room beyond.

“You no tly get in,” spoke the Chinee warningly. He fumbled in the loose sleeves of his blouse.

But Ned was in no mood to be trifled with. He knew as well as if he had actually seen them, that hiding in the room beyond were some of the stragglers from the ship. The Chinaman who owned the den had a reputation for persuading men-o’-war’s-men to desert their ships and join the merchant service. He was, in fact, what in seaport towns is called a “crimp.” That is to say, for a consideration, he furnished men to merchant ships, principally British tramp steamers. In this way he drove a thriving trade and his pet victims were discontented navy men.

“Stand aside from that door at once,” snapped the Dreadnought Boy angrily. “Ah—you would, would you!”

From the Chinaman’s sleeve had flashed a wicked-looking blade. But Ned was as quick as his adversary—in fact, a shade quicker. He jumped forward and seized the Chinaman’s wrist, wringing it till the Mongolian yelled with pain. Then he took the knife and released his victim.

“Now are you going to open that door, or do I have to make you a prisoner and have you locked up on a charge of resisting a United States officer?” he shot out.

Ned stepped back a few paces and took a short run. His shoulder smashed against the door with the force of a battering ram. With a crash it flew open, the flimsy lock, which had been turned from the inside, carrying away at the first assault of the husky young tar.

Inside was another room, dimmer and fouler than the other. But Ned’s fighting blood was up, and he was reckless of traps and pitfalls. He plunged into the place as the door smashed open. Nothing was visible at first, but suddenly he became aware of a pair of legs, clad in the baggy blue of the navy, sticking out from under a table. He seized hold of them and dragged out a young seaman who was a recent recruit on board the Manhattan .

“You, eh, Manners? This is a nice way to start your career in the navy! Stand up, now, before I make you.”

The young fellow, with his light hair much rumpled and a sullen look on his otherwise well-formed and pleasing features, scrambled to his feet. His natty uniform was stained and dusty. He was a sad-looking object indeed, and, moreover, appeared to be in a semi-daze.

“Stand over there,” commanded Ned sharply. “Don’t try any monkey business or you’ll get a [36] dose of the brig that will be remembered by you the rest of your natural life.”

“I dunno,” and the tone in which this was said appeared to imply that the speaker cared still less.

Ned paid no more attention to him for the time being. He had other work in hand.

“Sharp, come out at once if you don’t want me to summon the patrol and yank you out,” commanded Ned in a voice that left no mistake as to his determination to follow out his threat.

There was a scuffling sound from under the table and out came Sharp. He was a sullen, [37] hang-dog looking fellow who had been years in the navy on different ships and was now serving his third enlistment aboard the Manhattan . He bore a bad reputation and had never risen from the rank of seaman.

“Manners, I’m sorry to see you in such company,” said Ned. “It can only lead to the brig and stoppage of your pay and shore leave. Now then, both of you come ahead.”

“Not much!” shouted Sharp. “You overbearing, conceited young puppy! Take that!” He aimed a terrific blow at Ned’s head, but the boy skillfully dodged it by ducking. He made no attempt to return the blow, remembering Captain Dunham’s instructions.

“See here, Sharp, I intended to make things as easy for you as I could, but I won’t stand for anything like this. Now then, are you coming peaceably or not? If you won’t come like a sensible man, and save yourself future trouble, I’ll summon the patrol and have you taken aboard the ship.”

Ned had previously arranged that three sharp blasts on his navy whistle or a single shot from his revolver would mean: “Trouble, come at once.”

But he was not anxious to have trouble. If he could get the two men out peaceably he would much prefer it.

“Come, Sharp, be a man. You, too, Manners. I’ll make things as easy as I can for you on board if you’ll act properly. Are you coming with me?”

“Look to yourself, Strong!” echoed Manners. The next instant the two closed in on the Dreadnought Boy and he was also conscious of a terrific blow aimed at him from the rear.

CHAPTER IV.
NED “DELIVERS THE GOODS.”

Sharp’s fist,—it was like a flesh and blood sledge hammer,—shot out full for Ned’s jaw. With a dexterity born of long practice in wholesome boxing bouts, which are encouraged in the navy, the young man-o’-war’s-man put up a swift guard, and Sharp’s blow was harmlessly diverted. Almost before Ned had completed this maneuver, he had faced round on the foe that attacked him from the rear. It was the fat Chinaman. He wielded a lacquered stool—a formidable weapon.

But it was destined to be turned upon himself. Ned, with a quick jerk, had it out of his hands just as the greasy Oriental raised it for a smashing blow. Then, with a quick outward movement of his foot, he caught it between the Chinaman’s legs and sent him sprawling in a heap in a corner. [40] The Mongolian, though not hurt, deemed it more prudent to remain still.

Ned was given no time to draw breath. Manners was upon him like a wildcat the next instant, and Ned had his hands full. Sharp was puffy and out of training. His muscles, though ponderous, were flabby, and his breath short. Already he was panting. But Manners offered a more serious problem. He was young, strongly thewed and in fairly good condition. The young gunner’s mate was prepared for him, though, and he managed to land two terrific body blows before Manners could use his fists effectively.

Not an instant did Ned lose in following up the brief temporary advantage he had before Sharp joined in the assault. He grabbed Manners in an iron grip, and as Sharp, bellowing furiously, charged down like a wild bull, his arms going like the sails of a windmill,—he was too furious to employ science in his attack,—Ned was all ready for him.

His plan had been formed in a jiffy. It was simple but hugely effective. He utilized Manners, whom he held at arm’s length by the scruff of the neck, as a human battering ram.

As Sharp rushed in, Ned, exerting the full force of his steel-true muscles, swung Manners with all the energy he possessed against the infuriated sailor. The force of the collision took the breath out of Sharp, and Ned was upon him in an instant. Seizing each of the recalcitrant stragglers by the back of the neck, he banged them together till they howled for mercy.

“All right. We’ll go,” panted Sharp, “but I’ll get even on you, Strong, if it takes me till the last day I live.”

Manners merely nodded sullenly, but it was easy to see that the fight was out of him as completely as it had evaporated from Sharp under Ned’s necessarily vigorous treatment. Ned was [42] the last lad in the world to needlessly seek trouble. But he had taken good care to be prepared to meet it if it came to him. This is the spirit that is properly encouraged in the navy,—not a desire to bully or seek excuses for trouble, but to have a well-trained body and mind, prepared if trouble does come to meet it, in a manly fashion and without loss of dignity or sacrifice of the principles for which our navy stands.

“I’ll get even, I say!” bellowed Sharp as Ned, ignoring the Chinaman who still lay flat eying him out of his squinty eyes, marched his two tamed termagants to the door.

“You’re talking foolishly, Sharp,” rejoined Ned, calmly. “I gave you your chance. You wouldn’t take it. Now you are simply paying the penalty of your own stubbornness.”

Still muttering threats, Sharp and Manners were marched up the steps. As the Dreadnought Boy appeared with the pair that he had captured single-handed, the discipline of his little squad gave way to exclamations of amazement.

“Crickey,” exclaimed a sailor in an audible whisper, “Gunner’s-Mate Strong must be a regular man-eater! Sharp is known as a bully and Manners is no infant.”

“Judging by the looks, Strong is the daddy of them both,” grinned the man next to him, and a low laugh ran along the line.

Then, marching his men up to the patrol, he gave his next order to his abashed followers.

“Armstrong, you and Peters take these fellows down to the launch and tell them there that they are under arrest. I shall hold you responsible for their safe delivery. As soon as you have done this, hurry back. You’ll find us somewhere along this street or you can easily locate us by inquiry.”

“Now, men, you realize that you are prisoners. [44] You’d better go peaceably or you may make a long stay in the brig with stoppage of pay and liberty. I’m going to spare you the ignominy of handcuffs. I think you’ve suffered enough.”

“Well, I should remark! Look at Sharp’s eye,” sputtered the irrepressible Herc.

“Taylor, if I hear any more from you, you will be ordered back to the steamer,” said Ned curtly.

When on duty, Ned recognized no friendships. A breach of discipline such as Herc’s was just as much of an offense as if any other man had committed it.

“Right face! Twos! Forward march!” ordered Ned. The eight remaining men of his force swung into the formation indicated with military precision, and off they marched once more through the unsavory Chinese quarter. Coming up the street on the other side, Ned espied a man from the New Hampshire . He was a respectable-looking fellow and was plainly in the quarter buying curios to send back home. [45] His arms were full of purchases, most of them paid for at exorbitant rates, for the Chinese merchant swindles a sailor without compunction.

“Ahoy, shipmate!” hailed Ned. “We’re a picket sent out to round up the stragglers. Seen any of our fellows?”

“I sure have,” grinned the other. “I gave them a wide berth, too. One of them told me he could lick anybody aboard the New Hampshire . I might have tackled him but he had too many of his friends with him, so I made him a polite reply and vamoosed.”

“Right down the street there. There’s a German runs the place. I wouldn’t go in it for two months’ pay.”

“Well, the chances are about ten to one on your getting back to your ship! They won’t do a thing to you!”

“I’m not so sure about that. The roughest of characters must be taught to respect our uniform, and I’m going to see that they do it.”

Ned’s chin came forward and his lips compressed in what his shipmates called “Strong’s fighting look.”

“If you’re determined to go in, then, let me give you a bit of advice. I hope you won’t be too proud to accept it.”

“Of course not,” said Ned with a smile. “This sort of work is new to me, but I mean to do the best I can at it, and I can’t carry it out if I allow myself to be scared out of these low resorts.”

“That’s the talk for a man-o’-war’s-man,” said the other approvingly. “Well, my advice is just this: load up before you go in there,—that’s all.”

“Thank you, very much,” rejoined Ned. “My men are all armed and their revolvers are loaded.”

“So long, shipmate. Forward march!” And once more the little detachment swung off down the street.

They marched on till they reached the place that the sailor from the New Hampshire had pointed out. It bore a sign in front: “The Fair Wind.”

“Humph,” thought Ned as he looked at the building, a dingy, three-storied brick structure in very bad repair. “‘The Fair Wind,’ eh? I think it’s a very bad wind that blows any foolish sailor in here.”

A look from the young commander of the picket stopped the red-headed youth’s outburst of protest. But Simpson, an elderly sailor of excellent character and long service, spoke up respectfully.

“No, that’s not part of my plan,” rejoined Ned. “A general entry of armed blue-jackets might be only a signal for trouble and that’s just what we want to avoid. Often an appeal to a man’s reason is more effective than force.”

“I want you to do just that. If I give two sharp, short blasts on my whistle, come—and come on the jump. Otherwise, don’t move. Whatever you do, keep your heads. Remain cool, [49] and under no circumstances draw your fire-arms. If it comes to a tussle, we’ve got our fists.”

Ned advanced to the swinging doors of the place, pushed them open and vanished. The anxious eyes of his squad followed him.

“I’ve a notion we’ll hear them two whistles in a jiffy,” remarked a man standing next to Herc.

“Well, if you do you’ll know that Ned is really up a tree,” responded Herc. “He’s not the sort that cries ‘wolf’ unless there’s real trouble bearing down on him.”

CHAPTER V.
“THE FAIR WIND.”

Within the doors he had so unceremoniously pushed open, Ned found a kind of shabby office and lounging lobby, equipped with ricketty furniture and smelling horribly of stale tobacco. The floor was littered with paper and cigar stumps and everything was dirty to a degree, a condition very offensive to the smart young Dreadnought Boy. But Ned was paying not much attention to these details. His eyes rapidly swept the room.

Behind a desk, caged off from the rest of the place, a fat, flabby-looking German with a pair of huge yellow moustaches was engaged on some sort of blotty bookkeeping. His big moustaches and round, unwholesome face made him look not unlike a big walrus. On the walls hung a few pictures of old-time clipper-ships and various [51] other works of art, portraying “The Mary Anne Jennings in a Sou-wester off Ushant,” and “The American Barque Elisha J. Holmes Caught Aback off Cape Horn.” Under glass cases were curios of different kinds from the Seven Seas. Dust and grime lay thick on everything. Apparently it was many moons since a broom or soap and water had penetrated there.

The walrus-like German looked up as Ned entered, and right there Ned saw the wisdom of his move in coming in alone. The proprietor, as he guessed the man at the desk to be, greeted him with a nod.

“Yes, that’s my ship,” responded Ned, returning the nod. He saw at once that the man was quite unsuspicious of him and thought he was merely a foolish, weak-minded sailor out for “a good time.”

“Vell, you are velcome py der Fair Vind. Py der inside you findt plendy of your shibmades [52] from der Manhaddan . Dey are fine fellows, all off dem.”

“Yes, they are fine fellows ,” thought Ned to himself, but aloud he rejoined:

“In der back room, my heardy. Budt say,” the walrus-like man’s eyes narrowed and he looked at Ned searchingly, “you don’t seem like der sort dot comes py me place regular.”

But the other was more used to sailors and navy usages than Ned had bargained for.

“Your first cruise?” he grunted with growing suspicion. “Vot you do py uniform uv cunner’s-made, den?”

“I mean it’s my first cruise to the coast,” rejoined Ned, inwardly adding, “I’ll have to be careful. This place is every bit as bad as the fellow from the New Hampshire said it was, and the proprietor is as fine a specimen of a land-shark as you’d meet with in many a long day’s cruise.”

The proprietor’s suspicions were apparently lulled by Ned’s straightforward manner.

“Go righd aheadt, mein poy,” he said paternally and waved his fat, pudgy hand toward a door in the rear of the dingy front office.

Ned made his way toward the door indicated and shoved it open. If the atmosphere in the musty office outside had been bad, the air within the room fairly made Ned gasp. It was blue and thick with wreaths of tobacco smoke from a score of pipes and cigars. The Dreadnought Boy blinked and then gave vent to a loud sneeze.

“Shut that door, you long-shore swab!” yelled somebody out of the blue mist.

Ned shut it and then sneezed again. Both he and Herc abhorred tobacco in any form. They knew that the user of it cannot develop athletically. It destroys staying power and wind, and in ordinary life its effect is to diminish efficiency in any line of work.

He blinked and winked two or three times before he got used to the dense, pungent fumes and the semi-twilight. Then with difficulty he began to make out the faces of the men congregated within.

Nobody paid any attention to him and he looked about eagerly to see if he could distinguish some naval uniforms. He was not long in doing so. Six of the men he was in search of were in the place, laughing and talking as if such a thing as overstaying their leave were the lightest matter in the world.

Seated near to where Ned was standing, but with his back turned to him, was a young sailor named Childs. He was an ordinary seaman and usually a quiet, self-respecting fellow. But he had wandered into bad company. On a chair opposite to the youthful sailor was seated a well-dressed man with a hawk-like face, who was apparently trying to impress something on the young fellow’s mind.

Ned came a little closer and listened. He knew how many traps are set for Jack ashore, and he was convinced that the hawk-faced man was trying to entice young Childs into one of them. It didn’t take long to show him that he was right.

The well-dressed man was telling Childs a wonderful story about a gold-mine that he had in the Sierras, and was trying to persuade the young fellow to induce his companions to club their funds and buy some shares in it. When this had been done, he said, he would have them sent up to the fabulously rich mine, and there they could hide till the fleet had sailed and the search for them had blown over. In the meantime, by simply digging in the mine they would have become almost, if not quite, millionaires.

The foolish young sailor, as Ned could see, was drinking in this ridiculous tale with greedy attention.

“But are you sure the Navy people couldn’t locate us and get us back on board ship?” he was [56] asking. “You know a deserter gets a severe dose of punishment.”

The other waved a not over-clean hand upon which, however, a “diamond” as big as a hazelnut glittered.

“Why so timid, my lad?” he asked banteringly. “I thought all you sailors were brave and bold and—and all that sort of thing. Why, you could hide up at that mine for ten years if you wanted to and no one would ever find you. But you won’t want to hide that long. When you come out with gold galore and have your own mansion and auto, who would ever suspect that you were a runaway sailor? Who’d even dare to hint at such a thing?”

“That’s so,” agreed young Childs. “I haven’t got an awful lot of money. But I could get some from my folks, I guess, and so could some of my ship-mates.”

“It’s a gilt-edged proposition and you can write the folks at home so,” confided the rascal to the gullible young blue-jacket. “I don’t mind telling you that if I hadn’t taken a personal liking to you I’d never have let you in on it. It’s just pure unselfishness on my part, that’s what it is. But there, I’m wealthy enough now and can afford to be a good fellow to those I take a fancy to.”

“That’s mighty good of you,” replied poor Childs warmly. “I’ll give you a deposit on ten shares now and I’ll write home for more.”

“I don’t mind telling you,” he said impressively, “that your intellect and ability will warrant me in naming you for the Chairman of the Board of Directors as soon as we get our company incorporated and things going.”

“You arrange for another suit for me,” he said as he opened his wallet, in which reposed his [58] pay, and prepared to hand it over, “and then I’ll speak to my ship-mates about their part in it. I guess we can raise quite a sum. It does seem a big step, though, from a blue-jacket to a mining magnate. I have to thank you for that. The only thing that worries me is the chance that they may grab me before I get to the mountains.”

“No chance. Schmidt, the boss of this place, will arrange all that. He’s helped lots of sailors before now. Now hand over that money.”

“No, you’re not. You belong to Uncle Sam!” And Ned’s hand fell on the young sailor’s shoulder. “Now put back your money and come with me.”

Both men leaped to their feet. An angry light flashed into young Childs’ eyes as he saw Gunner’s-Mate Strong confronting him with a half-angry, half-pitying look on his firm, clean-cut features.

CHAPTER VI.
A TIGHT PLACE.

“What business have you butting in?” demanded the hawk-eyed man, pale with anger as he saw his gull being taken away from him.

“I don’t recognize you,” spoke Ned coldly. “Come, Childs, put your money back in your wallet and be thankful I arrived in time to save you from being plucked by a rascal.”

“Now see here,” began the hawk-eyed man, laying a persuasive arm, which Ned straightway shook off, upon the Dreadnought Boy’s shoulder, “this young fellow and me is good friends—see? I’m going to do him a good turn. I’ve offered him some stock in the Eldorado Limited Mines and——”

“Yes,” rejoined Ned scorchingly, “ limited just about describes them, I guess.”

“A nice sort of friend you are,” shot out Ned witheringly. “It’s just such land-sharks as you that get gullible young fellows like Childs here into trouble. If it hadn’t been for me, you’d have stripped him of his money and then left him to face the music of a court-martial. I don’t blame him, a young, inexperienced sailor. But I haven’t words to express my scorn of such creatures as you, who would try to induce a lad to desert his country and the flag he has sworn to serve under.”

Ned wasted no more words on him, although he fairly burned with indignation toward the [61] fellow. He bent all his efforts to bringing young Childs back to his senses.

“You have been in the navy long enough to know what it means to be branded as a deserter, Childs,” he said. “Surely you are not going to jeopardize a promising career for the sake of such worthless inducements as this swindler holds out.”

“I know. I overheard enough to understand. A gold mine. I guess it’s under his hat, and a precious poor one it must be, too. Come along, Childs, join your ship-mates outside and then I’ll come back for the rest.”

The conversation had been carried on in low tones and nobody in the room was in the least aware of what was going forward. Ned was wise in this.

Except for the men-o’-war’s-men present, everyone in the place bore the stamp of “hard [62] character” unmistakably branded on his features. Stokers and roustabout sailors from tramp steamers, Ned adjudged most of them to be. Ugly customers, if the worst came to the worst. He began to be glad he had arranged to summon aid instantly if need be.

“Don’t go with him,” cried the swindler. “It’ll be the worse for you if you do. You’re only going to get into trouble.”

“You’ll land in trouble yourself, or I miss my guess. Childs, come on. You’re going with me.”

The young fellow hesitated undecidedly. It was plain that he was wavering. Ned decided to drive home a final nail of argument.

“If you come now, Childs, it is possible that your punishment will be light. I’ll do my best for you. You have an excellent record and that will be taken into consideration. Be advised. I’ve seen more of the service than you have and know what I’m talking about. Will you come, or shall I have to summon the patrol to take [63] you? In that case it will go hard with you.”

Childs’ lips trembled. He was little more than a boy, and he now began to see the magnitude of the offence he had been contemplating.

“I’ll come, sir,” he said, “you’re right. It’s best to face the music.”

Childs was jerked violently from Ned’s grasp. Ned made a grab and recovered his prisoner from the hawk-eyed man, who had pulled him aside and was whispering to him.

What happened then came so quickly that it fairly took Ned off his feet, so to speak.

The hawk-eyed man gave a shout. Then he uttered some quick exclamations in German in a loud tone. In a flash every man in the room but the men-o’-war’s-men was upon his feet. From the front office the walrus-faced proprietor came lumbering heavily in. In his hand was a big revolver. The swindler uttered what appeared to be a signal, and en masse the stokers and long-shore [64] loafers made a rush for Ned as he stood with his back against the wall and Childs by his side.

“Stand back, you fellows!” cried Ned in a firm, ringing voice. “I’m armed with the authority of the United States Navy. The man who lays hands on me answers to the Government. Understand that?”

Seemingly they did, for the mob of brutalized, hard-bitten characters checked its forward dash and wavered. But Schmidt, the walrus-faced German, rallied his ranks of rowdies.

“Don’t let dot young naval pup gedt oudt of here!” he cried. “He’s a spy! He’s looking for deserters! If you ledt him gedt oudt, a lot of you be catched undt shofed back in der nafy brigs.”

It was a shrewd move. As Schmidt well knew, most of the habitués of his place were men whose names figured on the list of deserters sought by the Federal authorities. Like an avalanche the hesitating line rallied and swept down on Ned.

“Y-y-yes,” stammered the young sailor, but Ned saw that he couldn’t place much dependence upon his ally.

The Dreadnought Boy met the onslaught with a vigor that astonished Schmidt’s cohorts. Before his fists, which shot out into the massed faces like piston-rods, many a tough loafer and stoker went down. Childs, though, was borne to the ground at the first rush. His defense was half-hearted at best and he made little attempt to resist, deeming it a hopeless contest.

Ned did not dare to lower his defenses long enough to give the sharp blast on his whistle that he knew would summon aid from the outside. But pursing his lips as he drove blows right and left with flail-like force, he contrived to send out a shrill call without the aid of his bos’un’s pipe.

In the uproar the sound was unheard outside. In fact, it is doubtful if even the shrill summons [66] of the whistle could have been heard beyond the front office, closed as the doors were. But the sound was interpreted as some kind of a signal by Schmidt’s crowd and for an instant they hesitated. It was Ned’s chance. He jerked Childs, who was cowering and helpless, to his feet.

“For heaven’s sake, be a man!” he implored. “Come on, rush for the door. We’ve one chance in a hundred of getting out.”

All this time the men from the Manhattan had remained inactive. In fact, all that occurred had taken place so swiftly that they had not yet had time exactly to realize what was going forward.

“Ahoy, Manhattans !” shouted Ned, as he saw this. “Here’s a chance to show the stuff you’re made of!”

Would they respond to the young petty officer’s appeal? If they did not, Ned realized that the outlook was black indeed.

CHAPTER VII.
AN ILL WIND FOR SCHMIDT.

The clear, commanding tones of the Dreadnought Boy had relighted in the souls of the straggling, delinquent sailors a spark of honor, of feeling for the flag and duty. But Schmidt saw to it that the revival of this instinct was only momentary.

While the men exchanged glances and began to get shoulder to shoulder ready for a rescuing rush, he raised his thick voice.

“If dey gedt you pack on sheep, you know voyt you gedt idt!” he cried. “You gedts nuddings budt der brig, bread undt vater undt no shore leafes. Nobotty can hear nuddings in dis blace, undt ov you don’t help dis young pig-head of a officer, nopoddy been der viser. Ov you help him, he take you pack aboardt der sheeps undt den your troubles pegins!”

It was a crafty appeal by a crafty man well versed in the ways of those who follow the sea. The men who, an instant before, had been rallied by Ned’s manly, outspoken address, hesitated and began to murmur among each other. Ned, with an inward groan, saw that the argument had been effective.

“Yes, all that may be, Gunner’s-Mate,” retorted a much-tattooed old tar, who went by the name of “Harness Cask” Bill, “but what good can you do us with a skipper who’ll put us in the brig on short allowance and stop our shore leave the rest of the cruise?”

“That’s right, Bill,” cried another; “we’d only be cutting our own throats, say I.”

“Them’s my opinions,” cried a third. “It’s hands off, mates, I say. Schmidt will give us a chance to get clear away and then to blazes with the navy.”

“Shame!” cried Ned in a loud, clear voice. “Shame on you, my man, to abuse a service that is the finest in the world.”

“Oh, stow that gaff,” growled someone, and as if it had been a signal, the attack recommenced. Childs was torn from Ned’s side and the whole press of desperate characters surged about him, shouting and struggling to seize him. Ned fought with all his skill and bravery. But in the nature of things, it was a contest that could not long endure.

A dozen men, with arms developed into Samson-like strength in the fire-rooms of a hundred deep-sea tramps, threw themselves upon him. With all the wiry strength and resource that were his, Ned struggled. But by sheer superiority of numbers and brawn the others were bound to win, and Ned knew that it must be so from the first.

Powerful as he was, the Dreadnought Boy was little more than a puppet in their hands. He gave [70] a good account of himself and then, “with colors flying,” Ned Strong was borne to the ground with a dozen bodies piled on top of him.

In the guttural accents of the fat and flabby Schmidt, some orders were hastily given. Ned was picked up breathless and bruised but still struggling for freedom. He was carried through a rear door. Down a long, dark, ill-smelling hallway he was borne till another portal was reached. Schmidt, who carried a candle stuck in a bottle, kicked this door open.

Ned was hurled bodily forward and landed on a wooden floor with a hard thud that left him badly shaken. The door was slammed to and then came the “click” of a lock as it was shot.

“I’ve been fooled, badly fooled,” groaned poor Ned, “but,” clenching his fists, “I’ll win out yet. I will! I will!”

He got up on his feet and looked about him. The room was not a large one, and except for the [71] door by which he had been thrust into it, the place had no doors or windows. Over his head, however, was a skylight with dirt-crusted panes which admitted a dim sort of light.

Apparently the room was a sort of storeroom, for all about were boxes, bales and old barrels. The boxes attracted Ned’s attention. They were lavishly decorated and covered with characters which he recognized as being Chinese. An aromatic odor was in the air and Ned soon perceived why. The decorated chests were tea receptacles. Most of them were unopened and had apparently come direct from some Oriental ship, for there were no customs marks upon them. The truth burst upon Ned suddenly.

The tea-chests were off vessels from the Orient. But they had never paid duty. He was beholding an adjunct of Schmidt’s business,—a tea-smuggling plant on a large scale. He estimated that, allowing even a small price for the tea, there must have been at least ten thousand dollars’ worth of the herb stored in that room.

“Phew!” exclaimed the boy, “here’s a find which alone will cause a lot of trouble for Schmidt, if I can ever get out of here. What a collection! But tea won’t do me any good now. What I need is something to batter that door down. I might rush them and get clear away if I only could. I’ll try it, anyhow.”

But a brief examination of the door showed him that such an attempt would be only foolish waste of strength. The door was made of heavy planks reënforced with iron bolts, and appeared to have been built to withstand a siege.

“A regular safe-deposit vault,” sighed Ned. “What a predicament! I’ve certainly made a fine mess of it, this time.”

He fell to examining the walls. But they were apparently as solidly constructed as the door. The skylight offered the only means of egress and that was fully ten feet from the floor.

“I wonder if there’s any way I could get up [73] there,” he said musingly. “No, it’s too high, I—By hookey! I’ve got an idea. These boxes! I can build a pile of them and climb up to it. It’s worth trying, anyhow.”

Ned lost no time in carrying out his plan. He did not know at what moment he might be interrupted and this fear lent haste to his movements. He dragged and piled heavy chests till they grew too much for him to handle. Then he looked about for lighter articles to construct the apex of the pile on which he meant to try to crawl to liberty.

He found several boxes which were empty and easily handled and he placed these on top of the tea-chests. Then he climbed up, but he found that his finger tips were still, even when out-stretched to their utmost, some distance from the edge of the skylight.

“I’ll jump for it. I think there’s one bare chance I can make it,” thought Ned.

He crouched, flexing his muscles for a supreme [74] effort. Carefully measuring the distance with his eyes he shot straight upward for the edge of the skylight frame. His finger tips clutched the sides, slipped and then his grip gave way.

Down he came, crashing, with boxes and bales tumbling about him and creating a fearful uproar. As he struck the ground he lay quite still. Apparently he had not been injured, though how he escaped, he could hardly make out himself.

“They’ve deserted the place like a lot of rats,” he exclaimed. “There’s nothing left for me to do but to try again. I guess——”

Outside the door sounded a trampling of feet. The crash of Ned’s down-toppling pyramid had then, after all, been heard outside. In another minute they would be in the room, and then——?

A key grated in the lock. Ned darted behind a large barrel which lay on its side in a corner [75] of the place. Crouching there like a hunted thing, he heard the door flung open and several men tramp into the room. Above the voices that broke into hub-bub when the wreck of Ned’s pile of boxes was seen, Schmidt’s could be heard plainly.

“If he has, we’ve got him then!” came another voice. “He can’t get off that roof.”

“Ach no! Dot is so!” cried the German jubilantly. “We haf him like a leedle mouse midt a cat. Gedt a latter, somebodty. Donner! Ve dondt vant to loose him now. Idt vould mean der ruination of der ‘Fair Vind.’”

Ned saw a gleam of hope. If only they carried out their plan there was still a chance for him. Crouching behind the barrel, he eagerly awaited the sound of the next move, for he did not dare to protrude his head from his hiding place.

Three men nimbly ascended the ladder. Ned, looking up, could see them as they mounted, but luckily they did not look down. It never occurred to them that the lad for whom they were searching was within a few feet of them, and not on the roof at all.

The last to ascend were the hawk-eyed man and Schmidt himself. The fat German was so eager to join in the pursuit that he could not forego the, to him, painful climb up the ladder, which it involved.

Ned chuckled as the two pairs of ankles vanished through the skylight. The moment had arrived for him to put his plan into execution. He lost no time in doing so.

Darting from his hiding place, he ran toward the ladder and, seizing it, he sent it crashing to the floor.

The crash of the falling ladder and the sound of the hearty cheer brought Herr Schmidt to the edge of the skylight.

“It didn’t fall, it was pushed, Schmidt!” cried Ned exultingly, unable to forego his delight in his triumph. “You can’t get down till the police come and help you down.”

“That’s who it is,” cried Ned, “and next time, think it over before you try to beat him! So long!”

As he vanished through the door leading to the passage, a howl of fury and rage went up from the roof. Imprisoned upon it by the Yankee lad’s ingenuity and grit were as choice an assortment of rascals as ever were trapped by a strategist who was in years only a lad.

CHAPTER VIII.
“MY ADDRESS IS THE ‘MANHATTAN’.”

Ned sprang into the hallway, locked the solid, iron-studded door behind him and flung the key away.

“Bottled and corked!” he chuckled as he sped on toward the room in which he had been made captive by Schmidt’s gang.

He stepped into the place and found to his delight that the naval men he wanted were still there. A few of the loungers were likewise seated about. At Ned’s sudden appearance the men-o’-war’s-men leaped up as if they had been shot. Among them was young Childs. He could not meet Ned’s eye but hung his head as the gunner’s-mate made his unexpected entrance.

“Schmidt and his friends are prisoners on the [79] roof of that outer room,” he announced. “Within half an hour they will be in the hands of the police. Outside this place I have a patrol. Are you men willing to surrender, or shall I have to call in the picket to take you back shackled to the ship?”

There was an instant’s hesitation while the men stared at the calm-spoken Dreadnought Boy as if they could hardly believe their eyes. Then old Harness Cask spoke up:

“We’ll go with you, sir. Will you make it easy for us when we get on board?”

Like lambs the stragglers formed in twos, looking foolish and crestfallen. Out they marched with Ned behind them, while the loafers in the place cowered in corners, meditating instant escape as soon as Ned and his prisoners vanished.

Before they reached the street, Ned blew his whistle and sounded the shrill summons to his [80] patrol which he had notified them would be the signal for them to join him. As they appeared at the top of the steps, reënforced now by the two men who had taken Sharp and Manners to the steamer, Herc shouted out:

“It’s all right, Ned. We’re coming to your rescue. Hold fast, old fellow!”

“All right, boys,” hailed Ned; “it’s all over but the shouting. Just take these fellows in charge and march them down to the steamer and wait there for me. I’ve a little more work to do yet.”

To say that Ned’s patrol was astonished as they saw the sheepish captives file out of the Fair Wind to the street, would be to put it mildly. As Herc might have said, they were completely flabbergasted.

When Ned briefly rehearsed the circumstances of the capture, modestly keeping himself in the background, their enthusiasm knew no bounds. The rueful, woebegone captives were marched off to the steamer, while Ned hastened to a telephone. [81] He got Police Headquarters and told the official in charge about the prisoners on the roof of the “Fair Wind.”

“I know all about them. We’ve been trying for a long time to land Schmidt. Now, thanks to you, we’ve got him with the goods on.”

“By the way, what’s your name and address?” came the voice at the other end of the wire.

“Ned Strong is my name, and my address is the Dreadnought Manhattan , at anchor off Goat Island in the harbor.”

“Of course. But what does this mean? Why do the authorities want to see me?”

“That I am not at liberty to tell you. Will you summon the man on post and tell him to guard the ‘Fair Wind’ till reënforcements arrive?”

Ned, sorely puzzled, promised to do so, and soon discovered the patrolman in question. He explained the case to him and then hurried down to the steamer. As he went, he turned the situation over and over in his mind. What could he have done that the police wanted to see him? And then they were coming out to the ship, too! Even if it was some trumped up accusation, Ned knew that he would have an awkward time of it. Had he had the leisure he would have gone to [83] Headquarters himself and demanded some explanation. But his duty was to hasten back to the Manhattan with the stragglers at once.

The knowledge that the police wanted to see him even though he was conscious of having committed no offence, worried Ned considerably. The very vagueness of the information that had been vouchsafed to him made it worse. However, when he reached the steamer, Ned found plenty to occupy him in the disposal of his prisoners.

After that no time was lost in getting under way. Ned sat in the stern, busied with his own reflections. He had had a lively time but he had acquitted himself to his own satisfaction and carried out his orders promptly and faithfully. Had it not been for that mysterious police message, there would not have been a cloud in his sky.

The little steamer made quick time between the landing-stage and the grim, gray dreadnought. [84] Behind her, reaching as far as the Golden Gate, spread a long line of Uncle Sam’s slate-colored sea-fighters swinging at anchor. What a fine picture the array of battleships presented! Strings of bright-colored bunting depending from their signal halliards relieved the sinister monotone of battle color, and from bridge to bridge the bright scarlet of the “wig-wag” flags could be seen cutting circles and arcs as from ship to ship flashed news and orders. It was an old picture to Ned, but it thrilled him and inspired him just as much there in San Francisco Bay as it had on that day that seemed so long ago when he and Herc stood in Riverside Park in New York, raw recruits, and gazed their first upon the huge fighting machine of which they were to become parts.

The steamer ran around to the port gangway and made fast. The delinquents, a crestfallen unhappy-looking parade, were marched on deck with the patrol guarding them in on each side. [85] Ned couldn’t help feeling a quick flush of pride as he noticed the astonished glance of the officer of the deck when he saw Ned’s flock of black sheep that had been so speedily rounded up.

“All present, sir!” said Ned, bringing his heels together with a smart click, and saluting the functionary, who was distinguished by carrying a telescope slung over his shoulder.

“Take them before the master-at-arms. You will appear at the mast at a time appointed by the commander and give your evidence against them.”

The deck officer turned away and Ned and his patrol marched their unhappy band of prisoners before the master-at-arms, who promptly assigned them to the dreaded brig till such time as their trials at the mast should be ordered.

“Well, I could look a square meal in the face without feeling embarrassed,” confessed Ned with a laugh.

“Well, if ever a lad deserved it, you’re the one,” declared old Simpkins admiringly. “I guess we’ll have to call you ‘Ned the Giant Killer,’ after this.”

“Humph,” snorted Herc, “I reckon ‘Jack the Giant Killer’ wouldn’t be one, two, three beside Ned Strong. Eight at one fell swoop, not to mention the party marooned on the roof, is a pretty good day’s work. By the way, what was the name of that place?”

CHAPTER IX.
ANCHORS A’TRIP.

An orderly had just stepped up to Ned and given the above message. Ned hastened aft at once. Such orders were to be obeyed in a hurry. As he went along the decks he wondered what the import of the summons might be.

“I’ll bet it is something to do with that police business,” he thought to himself uneasily as he quickened his steps.

The captain was seated at his desk writing, when Ned entered and stood bareheaded and upright, respectfully waiting till the captain addressed him. At last Commander Dunham looked up from his desk.

“You hardly do yourself justice, Strong. A wireless from the shore has just been placed in my hands highly commending your work. Incidentally, there was a reward of three hundred dollars for the capture of that tea smuggler you trapped on the roof.”

“Yes, and from what I hear, you have fully earned it. Of course, you won’t object to taking it?”

“Sit down now and tell me all about your adventures ashore, Strong. I am interested in knowing the details of such a meritorious performance as yours has been.”

Ned, with a very red face, seated himself at his superior’s orders and launched into his story. [89] He mentioned himself as little as he could, but it was impossible for the captain not to read between the lines of Ned’s plain, unembroidered story and recognize him for the plucky, gritty young tar that he was.

Poor Ned! His heart began to beat thick and fast. He hardly dared to look up. Suppose that some charge should be made against him, how could he face the captain who had just been complimenting him so highly? His embarrassment was not lessened by his knowledge that he actually had no reason to fear anything.

“Report to me when they make fast,” ordered the captain. “Now go on, Strong. You had hidden behind a barrel, I think you were saying.”

Ned went on with his narrative, but he related it haltingly. His mind was on the police launch and what its possible mission might be.

“The launch has made fast, sir. The British Consul and the Chief of Police of San Francisco are on board. They wish to see you.”

Ned got to his feet and took up a standing position in a corner of the cabin. In a few minutes the orderly returned with the Chief of Police, a fat, pompous-looking man with a large, straw-colored moustache and goatee, and the British Consul, a tall, sun-burned man with a kindly countenance and affable manner.

After the preliminaries of introduction were over, the Chief of Police plumped out the question that Ned had been dreading to hear.

“Yes, Gunner’s-Mate Strong,” was the rejoinder. “In fact, he is here now.”

The captain waved a hand toward Ned, who swallowed hard and prepared to take calmly [91] whatever was to come. What game was this? The British Consul, quite forgetting his official dignity, crossed the cabin in two jumps and seized Ned’s hand and began wringing it as if it had been a pump handle.

“Let me thank you, although no words can express my gratitude,” he exclaimed, “for the noble act you performed in the Park when you saved my daughter from almost certain death on a runaway horse.”

“Simply, sir, that you have in your crew one of the most modest heroes I ever heard of,” cried the consul enthusiastically. “He rescued my daughter when her horse ran away with her and would almost certainly have dashed her to death had it not been for this lad’s bravery. I want to express my admiration for the nation that can produce such fine types of young manhood.”

“I—I—just grabbed the horse, that’s all, sir,” [92] replied Ned. “You see on the farm I’d been used to horses and so it was really no trick at all. I hope the young lady is recovered?”

“Yes, and I have here a letter from her asking you and your companion who assisted you in your brave deed to come to dinner with us to-morrow night. I also wish to express in some more solid manner the full burden of my gratitude.”

“Thank you very much, sir,” replied Ned, “but the fleet sails to-morrow at noon and all shore leave will be stopped to-morrow.”

“Too bad! Too bad!” exclaimed the consul. “My daughter was so anxious to thank you personally for your bravery. Had it not been for the fact that your cap was picked up on the drive, we should never even have known who it was that performed such a brave deed.”

“Why, right after the horse had been stopped, the two young men hurried away. But Mr. [93] Strong’s cap was picked up by a policeman on the drive, and the fact that his name was inside it made it easy to trace him,” said the Chief of Police. “And, incidentally, I also want to shake this young man’s hand. His marooning of that gang of rascals on the roof of the ‘Fair Wind’ was the cleverest bit of work I’ve heard of in many a long day. They are all in for long terms in jail, too.”

“That, of course, is a Federal matter, as the smuggling charges are not under our jurisdiction. And now, if I may, I would like to take this young man’s deposition, inasmuch as the fleet is to sail to-morrow.”

“Is that so? Well, in that case, Strong, I will [94] give you shore leave till midnight. You have earned it.”

“Thank you, sir,” rejoined Ned, his cup of joy brimful, “and—and, sir, may——”

“May Taylor, your inseparable, accompany you? Yes, by all means. This will give you lads an opportunity to accept the kind invitation of Mr. Bretherton to dinner. Now be off, my lad, and you can go ashore in the Chief’s launch. The steamer will be at the landing at midnight. Don’t fail to be there.”

Ned saluted and hastened to get ready for his shore trip. What a wonderful day it had been, he thought, as he looked about for Herc to impart the news to him!

CHAPTER X.
ACROSS THE PACIFIC.

“Make it so,” responded the captain in the time-honored formula of the navy to the petty officer who had just informed him that it was high noon.

The Manhattan from stem to stern presented a busy scene. From her tops and bridge stations the wig-wag flags were busily signaling the orders of the flag-ship to the rest of the squadron. A stiff northwest wind was blowing, and before it small white clouds were scudding like clippers across a bright blue California sky.

From the stacks of each of the grim sea bulldogs, black clouds of smoke were vomiting, and semaphore arms were jerking up and down frantically. On the bridges of every ship of the [96] squadron stood the officers in full uniform. On the bridge of the Manhattan , of course, was the rear-admiral, a bluff, hearty seaman known the world over as “Fighting Bob.” From the after truck of the dreadnought’s cage masts fluttered his insignia.

The steamer came off with the last mails from the shore and was swung hastily into her davits. Below in the engine-rooms and boiler spaces, the great vessels of the squadron throbbed and hummed with pent-up energy. It was as if they were impatient to get to sea once more after the royal time they had enjoyed in San Francisco. From the gaff of each ship of the long line fluttered proudly Old Glory.

“What a sight, eh, Herc?” remarked Ned to his red-headed chum as, being temporarily unemployed, the two found a chance to look about and to chat.

“Never could have seen anything like this if we’d stayed at home on the farm,” grinned Herc. [97] “Although, speaking of the farm, the ships do remind me of a long line of gray geese with the old Manhattan , the daddy gander, that shows ’em the way.”

“Well, I never saw geese that gave out black or any other colored smoke,” chuckled Ned, “nor do geese have funnels sticking up out of their backs. Otherwise your comparison is all right, Herc.”

“Now what in the world can this be?” wondered Ned as he opened his package, while Herc did the same. When the coverings were torn off, within each was revealed a purple plush box. Within these, in turn, nestling in beds of white satin, were two gold watches. On the back of each was this inscription: “ Presented in token of appreciation of a gallant act. San Francisco, 19——. ”

The boys’ eyes sparkled. No need to ask from whom the handsome presents came. The consul at dinner the night before had hinted at gifts, but that they were to be such magnificent ones had never entered the boys’ heads.

They had small time to admire them, however. Orders came to take stations, and each lad hastened to his turret to get everything in readiness for the good-bye salute of twenty-one guns.

The decks were in what to a landsman would have seemed hopeless confusion. Yet, underlying all was the system that has made our navy what it is. Orders were passing rapidly, bos’uns’ pipes screaming shrilly, and Jackies running hither and thither like so many ants when their nest has been disturbed.

High up on the lofty bridge, Commander Dunham and the admiral surveyed the scene.

The executive officer saluted, and then came a hoarse hail through his megaphone while the wig-waggers on the Manhattan transmitted the signal, “Up anchor,” to the other ships of the squadron.

The band crashed out into “The Girl I Left Behind Me,” swinging into “Nancy Lee,” “Auld Lang Syne” and other favorites. The blue-jackets grabbed each other around the waist and pirouetted about on the foc’scle like schoolboys. Some sang with the band until “Boom! Boom! Boom!” the stately measured farewell to San Francisco began to boom from the steel mouths of the big guns.

“Slow speed ahead!” ordered the captain to the ensign at the engine-room telegraph.

The Manhattan slowly swung around and headed to sea, with her big guns belching yellow smoke and flashes of scarlet flame. Ashore, every whistle in the city sent up a deafening roar of screeching and hooting. The wharves and tall buildings on the water-front, black with people, added to the din.

Slowly, and in stately fashion, the huge dreadnought maneuvered till her bow pointed straight for the historic Golden Gate. Each ship of the squadron followed at a measured distance of four hundred yards. From each came clouds of smoke, the fulminating roar of the big guns and the crashing of bands.

Gradually and as perfectly measured as if they had been figures in a minuet, the great fighting ships lengthened the distance between each other.

Out through the Golden Gate they steamed “in column,” and as they passed the twin headlands, the guns from the forts on either side answered the barking throats of the fleet’s heavy artillery. Out past the Farallones they steamed, keeping perfect distance or “interval,” as it is called, between each ship.

“Say, Herc,” remarked Ned, when after the firing was over he rejoined his chum on the foc’scle, “I’ve been doing some figuring. Do you know how much water this fleet displaces?”

“I suppose the misplaced water goes to the same place that your lap goes to when you stand up,” commented Herc, grinning broadly.

“I reckon that’s about it, Herc. Isn’t it good to get to sea again, though? They gave us a fine time in ’Frisco, but, after all, a sailor’s place is out on the ocean.”

“That accounts for so many recruits being all at sea,” rejoined Herc whimsically.

On the bridge of each ship stood a middy working a little instrument of bars and glasses and wheels, graduated to a scale of figures and called a stadimeter. It showed to a fraction of an inch the exact distance each ship was from the one preceding her, and according to the readings of this instrument the number of revolutions of the ship’s propellers would be slowed down or speeded up.

This involved incessant watchfulness, and was calculated to keep the bridge officers on the jump. Everything in Uncle Sam’s navy must be done [103] with a precision almost incomprehensible to a landsman, but which forms a part of every seaman’s training.

Looking back and watching the long line of “gray geese,” as Herc had called them, Ned gave a sudden exclamation. From the signal-yard of the Louisiana , the third ship in line, there suddenly fluttered a white triangular pennant with a red border.

The signal that the ship in question had just displayed meant that she was more than forty yards out of the way. This was duly noted against her on board the flag-ship, and it may be imagined that the officer on duty hated to have to send that signal aloft.

The Farallones were mere tiny clouds on the eastern horizon, as the sun went down with a [104] glow of burnished gold in the west that seemed like a benediction. Just as it sank below the horizon, the rays shone on the sullen, lead-colored sides of the grim sea-fighters, giving them a softened touch. To a landsman it would have appeared a beautiful sight. But to Ned and Herc, and to most of the sailors on board, that sunset bore a different significance.

“The glass is falling rapidly, sir,” reported the navigating officer to Commander Dunham.

“Yes; we are in for some sort of bad weather,” was the response. “Have all made snug.”

As the sun dipped below the horizon, bugles began to sing, and on the foremost main-truck, the stern and the sides of every vessel in that [105] long line, appeared simultaneously flashing lights. Night time had shut down on the fleet as it rolled across the vast Pacific wastes.

Other lights began to twinkle and glimmer through the gloom like the illuminated windows of a small city after night has fallen. Behind the great ships streamed a dark, sullen storm cloud of black smoke.

The supper call came and the crew sat down to a meal of beef pot-pie, jelly, bread and butter and tea. Conversation ran mainly on the prospects of the voyage and the lands they were to visit. Many of the old tars had been in the far East and the Mediterranean before, and these regaled the youngsters with many stories of their experiences. Naturally this talk only served to sharpen the appetites of the sailors who awaited their arrival in the Orient with avidity. Then, too, Ned’s rounding up of the recalcitrant stragglers was discussed, and the sentences meted out to the culprits were approved. Of course, Ned and Herc [106] had to show their handsome gold watches, also, and explain the story connected with them.

After supper the Jackies talked and lounged,—those that were off duty, that is. Then came tattoo, and following that the long, melancholy sweet notes of “Taps,” which is the bugle’s way of saying good-night. The sky was heavily overcast and the sea was beginning to heave and roll under the twenty-thousand-ton dreadnought as the bugles sang plaintively the sailors’ bed-time call:

CHAPTER XI.
IN THE GRIP OF THE STORM.

Before dawn, huge green seas were cascading over the forecastle and the ponderous steel mass of the big dreadnought was wallowing in the water-rows like a storm-tossed schooner. Occasionally a mighty comber would strike the bow a glancing blow, and then the spray flew high in a glistening waterspout over the bridge and high up on the cage masts.

Tons of salt water swept across the quarter-deck from time to time, burying it in a swirling, surging whirlpool, which gushed off in every direction as the great ship rose once more, shaking herself like a huge water animal.

The Jackies shouted with glee as each huge wave swept down on the battlecraft, threatening to engulf even its titanic mass. A mighty sea [108] would tower majestically high above the forecastle like a great wall of green water. The Jackies would scuttle to places of safety and then burst into enthusiastic yells as it flooded the fore-decks, swept around the forward turret, sent tons of spray dashing against the bridge and upper works and finally swept on, to be followed by another monstrous gray-back.

All watches were set, for in the spray and flying spume it was almost as hard to see ahead as if a fog overhung the ocean. As the day wore on the sea grew higher instead of moderating. Breakfast and dinner were eaten out of tin pannikins, for nothing would have stayed on the table. The blue-jackets thought all this fine fun, and shouted every time the ship took an extra heavy plunge.

On the bridge a consultation was held. It was all very well for the dreadnought, this plunging ahead through the mountainous seas at a fifteen-knot clip, but the smaller vessels couldn’t stand it so well.

A wireless message was sent out to reduce speed to ten knots an hour and extra men were ordered into the tops to help the other lookouts. Ned was assigned to the after cage mast. He sprang upon the iron-runged ladder leading aloft with agility. He was glad to have something to do, for of course the ordinary routine work of the ship was out of the question with the ship rolling till her indicator showed twenty degrees of heeling.

Accustomed as Ned was to climbing in high places, his head swam a bit as he paused half way up for breath and to dash the spray from his eyes. He looked down. A hundred feet below him was a boiling, foam-flecked sea, running mountains high. Viewed from that height, the Manhattan looked to be very narrow and unseaworthy, and her decks appeared to be constantly awash.

Now and then, when an extra big wave came along, she would swing over till it seemed as if [110] she never meant to come back on an even keel again. Cinders and gases from the big funnels swept about the boy at times, too, adding to his discomfort.

But Ned was pretty well hardened to most of these things by this time, and his pause was mainly to get some of the salt water out of his mouth, eyes and nose. Then up he went again, clambering on the slippery rungs with such speed that from the bridge below came a bellowed order through a megaphone:

“Aye, aye, sir!” hailed back Ned at the top of his voice and waved a hand to show that he was all right.

At length he reached the top, a small platform mounted by machine guns and surrounded by a steel rail. At one place there was an opening in this rail, across which a rope had been stretched. It looked very thin, small and unsubstantial to guard an open space more than a hundred feet [111] above the ship’s deck, but it was quite strong enough for the blue-jackets, who gave little thought to such matters.

As he gained the top, Ned received a surprise. The other man aloft was Sharp, the seaman he had taken out of the Chinese den in San Francisco. He had received, thanks to Ned’s lack of malice, only a short sentence in the brig and was now on duty again.

“I’m glad to see that you’re out again,” pursued Ned. “I hope you don’t bear any malice, Sharp. I was only doing my duty.”

“Oh, that’s what all you precious mamma’s babies say,” growled out Sharp in a sullen tone.

“Don’t talk foolishly, Sharp. Only fools and [112] children nurse a grudge. It’s all over so far as I’m concerned, and you know I tried to let you off as easy as I could at the mast.”

“What of that? My shore leave is being stopped, ain’t it? I don’t get ashore at Honolulu.”

“I don’t admit anything of the sort,” snarled Sharp. “If it hadn’t been for your Sunday-school way of sneaking around, the fleet would have sailed without me.”

“You’re a nice navy man, I must say,” said Ned contemptuously, turning on his heel.

“Just as good as you are, and maybe better, Mister Know-it-all. I’ve been in the service twenty years, and——”

Ned, ordinarily the most even tempered of lads, was beginning to resent Sharp’s slurring tone and could not have foregone this thrust.

Sharp’s face grew as dark as the slate-colored sea racing by far below them. He approached Ned with his eyes blazing like hot coals.

“So you’ll make game of me, eh, my young rooster? Well, you’ll regret it to the last day you live; I tell you that right here and now.”

A sudden frenzy of rage appeared to possess Sharp. He jumped forward and seized Ned, shaking his fist. The other shook him off with a quick movement.

“I don’t care if they did. I’m through with the navy. I’m going to quit it, first chance I get. The service has gone to the dogs when they promote [114] sugar-babies like you to be petty officers.”

Ned leaned over the edge of the top. He didn’t want to make the man more furious by replying to him. It was plain that Sharp was lashing himself into a malevolent rage.

Still Ned made no reply. He turned and walked across the top. He was passing by the open space, which was only railed off by the slender rope previously referred to, when the ship gave a sudden lurch. At the same instant he felt a shove from behind.

Powerless to stop himself, Ned was sent staggering toward the rope. He fell against it with all his weight. The stuff snapped like pack-thread.

Ned plunged through the opening head downward, and it seemed inevitable that he would fall into the boiling, leaping sea more than a hundred feet below!

CHAPTER XII.
NED’S TERRIBLE PLIGHT.

Time seemed to stand still and the world to poise on its poles as Ned shot through the narrow opening. A thunder boom sounded in his ears and his soul appeared to be flying from his mouth.

With quick instinct—it was no conscious effort of will,—he had spread his legs as he fell, turning his feet outward, as he had often done in the gymnasium when hanging from a bar. It was that swift movement, and that alone, that saved him from plunging straight down to the depths of the sea or striking the iron decks so far below him.

There he clung, head downward, sustained only by the grip of his feet on two steel posts. Every muscle of his body was strained to its utmost tension. His brain seemed bursting. With every [116] heave and roll of the ship he was swung far out and then back again, with every likelihood that if his foothold was not broken his head would be dashed against a steel brace.

“Look, sir, the other man, Sharp, his name is, has seen his plight. He’s trying to haul him aboard.”

“Good heavens, they’ll both go! Man the mast there! Jump aloft! Look alive, men! Poor boy! Poor boy!”

Up the ladder sprang a red-headed youth. It was Herc, and behind him swarmed a half dozen Jackies who had seen the peril of their ship-mate.

“Oh, they’ll never save him! Never!” cried the navigating officer with a groan.

Suddenly a second horrified shout went up from bridge and deck. Ned had made a frantic [117] effort to grab the mast on one of his wild swings. At the same instant Sharp appeared to be laying hold of his feet to try and drag him back into the top. Those who had set up that groan of dismay had seen Ned’s feet suddenly slip out of position.

Some of the crew shut their eyes. Ned had lost his hold and was doomed either to be drowned,—for in that sea it would have been impossible to launch a boat,—or else to be dashed to atoms on the steel decks of the dreadnought.

But the next instant a glad cry of renewed hope went up. It was a yell, a frantic shout of encouragement and joy.

Ned had somehow managed, by the instinct of self-preservation, to seize a stay, and there he hung, swaying wildly back and forth as the ship rolled, but still gripping it in a firm grasp.

That was the question that agitated every man who was watching the lad’s plucky battle for life.

But these cries, meant to encourage Ned, were not practical of execution. It was manifestly impossible to reach him. His salvation lay in his own hands and he must work it out alone.

Herc had, by this time, reached the top and now hung over the rail in an agony of apprehension. There hung his comrade, twenty feet below him, dangling high above the decks on a slender wire stay and he was as powerless to aid him as if he had been a hundred miles away. But he shouted encouragement.

Herc faced around on him like a thunderbolt. His red hair bristled like the hackles on an angry dog.

“Say that again, will you?” he demanded fiercely, his freckled fists clenching.

“I only said that there wasn’t a chance for him to get away with it,” rejoined Sharp, a leer spreading over his countenance. “He stands no more chance of being saved than a snowball in a furnace.”

“Oh, you think so, do you? Well, just let me tell you one thing, Ned Strong has got out of worse scrapes than the one he’s in right now. If it’s humanly possible, he’ll save himself yet, in spite of such croakers as you.”

Sharp slunk away before Herc’s broadside. He could not meet the other’s eyes.

“I did all I could to keep him from falling, but I couldn’t get him in,” he muttered.

A sudden shout from the decks attracted Herc’s attention at this moment. He rushed to [120] the edge of the top and beheld the most amazing specimen of grit in the face of overwhelming odds that he had ever witnessed.

The stay which Ned had caught stretched between the fore and the after masts. From it were suspended the signal halliards, the nether end of which ropes were on the bridge. Hand over hand, and painfully slowly, Ned was working himself along this stay. He appeared to have lost his presence of mind for the time being, for, instead of coming back to the after mast, he began working his way forward.

“The other way! The other!” shouted officers and men, but Ned appeared not to hear them.

“Oh, he’ll never make it!” groaned Captain Dunham. “Poor lad! Poor lad!”

And now began a spectacle that none of those who beheld it ever forgot. It was photographed indelibly on the minds of every witness, officer and enlisted man.

It was seen that, provided Ned could hold on long enough, his progress must bring him above the funnels, belching hot, suffocating gases and blinding, cinder-laden smoke. Captain Dunham sent a man below to order the fires smothered instantly so as to minimize the amount of vapor issuing from the funnels.

“I don’t believe that the lad has one chance in a thousand,” he said with an unaccustomed quaver in his voice, “but we’ll leave nothing undone to help him out.”

“That’s just the trouble, sir,” rejoined the navigating officer, “there’s so little we can do. It’s almost unbearable to have to stand here helplessly and watch that brave struggle.”

Discipline for the time being was entirely forgotten. The sailors crowded on the fore-decks, oblivious to showers of spray and water, and shouted encouragement at the tops of their voices.

“Come on! Come on! Not much farther now! Oh, stick to it, Ned! Stick to it!”

“Ned! Ned, old boy, we’re all with you!” howled poor Herc, almost beside himself. His face under the tan was ashen gray, and his freckles stood out like ink spots on blotting paper.

With anxiety and interest keyed up to a pitch that was almost unbearable, Ned continued to advance. The smoke from the funnels was perceptibly lessened by this time. The engineers, apprised of what was going on, had shut off all draughts, and if Ned could only maintain his grip he would be able to make the passage above the four huge smoke pipes without being suffocated.

His objective point was now plain. It was the signal halliards that he was making for.

“Rig up a bos’un’s chair and send it aloft on those halliards,” roared Captain Dunham.

In a jiffy the plank seat was attached to the halliards and sent aloft to the stay along which Ned was slowly but surely advancing.

His head was quite clear now and his fighting spirit was up. He would make those halliards. With every sense that was in him he exerted his will to reach the goal he was aiming for.

But no, Ned had only paused for a minute to draw himself up on the stay so that he could rest his aching muscles for the final spurt. Then he resumed his torturingly slow progress.

“Oh, I can’t stand this much longer!” cried Herc, beside himself with suspense and excitement.

“He’s coming ahead again!” went up the cry, as Ned began worming himself along once more.

A perfect babel of sound resounded along the decks. The officers made no attempt to check it. They were as excited as the men themselves.

Ned reached the signal halliards at last. A score of hands seized the free end of the rope to which the bos’un’s chair was attached and lowered the exhausted lad to the bridge, as soon as he had clambered, with a Jackie’s dexterity, into the swaying contrivance.

In the after top Herc, tears streaming down his face, danced a wild jig of jubilation, while on the fore-deck Jackies threw their arms around each other and shook each other’s hands and performed a hundred mad antics. On the bridge the officers stood with sternly compressed lips, but from the captain there broke out a fervent:—

As Ned, white-faced but smiling bravely, touched the bridge, he was hauled out of the bos’un’s chair by a score of hands, and for a minute he needed the support. But he rallied as he faced the captain and saluting said:—

“Great heavens, Strong, you gave us all the scare of our lives!” said the captain, with a great sigh of relief.

“I’m sorry, sir,” rejoined Ned, “I somehow missed my footing and——”

“Just as I said, sir. I missed my footing and fell against that rope-yarn. It carried away and I went through.”

“Very well, if there’s nothing further to report, [126] I’m not going to heckle you now. Mr. James, see that the ropes on the top openings are replaced by pipe rails. We want no repetition of to-day’s experience. As it is, I don’t believe that there is another man in the fleet that would have come out of the ordeal alive. Where are you going, Strong?”

“Nonsense. You’ve been through enough to incapacitate most lads for a week. Go below and take it easy. Carry on.”

This was tantamount to an order, and Ned, although he disliked to go off duty at such a time, had no recourse but to obey. As he passed along the decks, the blue-jackets crowded about him to press his hand and cheer him. Through the throng Herc pushed his way, having descended from the after mast at express speed.

“Good boy, Ned! Oh, good boy!” was all that he said as he wrung his comrade’s hand, but his voice held an unaccustomed quaver as he spoke [127] and Ned saw what an ordeal Herc had been through.

“I don’t know. I’d accuse no man of such a dastardly thing. But I thought, only thought, mind you, that I felt a shove as I fell.”

“Now see here, Herc, don’t breathe a word of this. In times like that a fellow might imagine anything. It might all be fancy on my part.”

But, although Ned passed the matter off in this way, he had a well defined impression, which refused to be obliterated, that at the moment that he was sent staggering to leeward in the top he had received an accelerating shove. Henceforth he resolved to watch Sharp narrowly. He knew that the man hated him with all the malice of a small, mean nature; but that he would actually attempt such a thing as Ned was forced to suspect of him, the Dreadnought Boy was loath to believe.

CHAPTER XIII.
“FIRE!”

It was the third day of the gale. Life-lines had been rigged on the fore and aft decks, and the Jackies clawed their way about as best they might. Mountainous seas still towered all about the great fighting ship, tossing her about as they might have handled a fishing smack. The men who had at first looked upon the storm as a lark began to be disgusted with the monotony of cold rations, eaten as best they might be, and the never ceasing motion of the storm tossed ship.

A man-of-war, from the fact that she carries such a heavy deck load in the shape of her turrets and big guns, not to mention her ponderous cage masts, rolls to a much greater extent than an ordinary craft, and the Manhattan proved no exception to the rule. The great mass of steel [129] that in harbor looked as impossible to disturb as the Rock of Gibraltar itself, was a plaything of the gale and the seas.

The wireless kept the rear-admiral and the commander informed of all that was going on on board the other craft of the squadron, and all reported that they were making good weather of it, despite the fury of the sea. But speed was still kept down to ten knots, and it was only when the Manhattan rose on the top of a big comber that those on board, except the men kept constantly stationed in the tops, could sight the other ships steaming on through the storm in column formation.

Many of the greener hands were incapacitated by sea-sickness, and several seamen were in the ship’s hospital for minor injuries incurred on the decks. Orders had been issued that the men were to take no chances, and those not on duty were to remain below. Ned and Herc, being petty officers, were on duty every day during that week, [130] and on the third day of the blow they found a moment’s leisure to chat in the lee of the big thirteen-inch turret forward.

“Well, this is a corker and no mistake,” remarked Herc. “I thought that ‘Pacific’ meant nice and gentle and all that. This ocean is just about as quiet as a mad bear with the toothache.”

“It’s about as bad a blow as we’ve been in since we were in the service,” agreed Ned; “but a ship like this is in no danger. It is just uncomfortable, that’s all, and we will have to put up with it like sailors till it decides to quit.”

“That’s so, I suppose,” said Herc, “but I’m getting sick of being wet through all the time.”

“You’re no worse off than any of the rest of us, Herc,” laughed Ned; “and say, by the way, have you noticed a peculiar odor about the ship for the last few hours?”

“Well, I suppose that describes it as well as anything else. But, Herc,” and here Ned came [131] close to his comrade, “I’m almost sure that the odor is that of coal gas.”

“Just this, that I think we ought to investigate. I don’t want to cause an alarm without due cause, but if there is coal gas coming from the bunkers, it means only one thing.”

“I heard a fireman say that the coal we took on at ’Frisco was damp when it was loaded. It has been rolled about now for three days in this storm, setting up a lot of friction.”

Herc’s face blanched. There is no more terrible word at sea, and no wonder Ned had hesitated to voice his suspicions before. On an ordinary ship it is bad enough, but on a floating arsenal of high explosives, such as is the modern fighting ship, it has an added terror.

“Gracious, Ned! Don’t, for goodness sake, say a word of this! You’ll have the whole ship in a scare.”

“That is just why I don’t mean to say anything till I’m sure. I’ve noticed that the odor is strongest by those port ventilating pipes yonder. I’m going over to investigate again. Want to join me?”

“Surely. But, Ned, great Scott, this is a mighty serious thing if you’re right!”

“Serious! That’s no name for it. That is why I want to make dead sure before I report my suspicions.”

The two boys made their way, not without difficulty, [133] to the port ventilating pipes mentioned by Ned. These pipes are especially designed to ventilate the coal carried in necessarily large quantities by cruising battleships.

As almost everyone is aware, there is no more dangerous cargo than coal, especially if it has been loaded while damp. Spontaneous combustion is the dreaded foe of all colliers, and a modern battleship carries to the full as much coal as the ordinary collier. No wonder, then, that every precaution is taken to guard against the combustion of the dangerous cargo.

“Now,” said Ned, as they approached the ventilators, “do you notice how much stronger the odor is here?”

“I should say I did. It smells like the old furnace did at home when something went wrong with it.”

Ned went up to one of the ventilators and poked his face against the opening. He staggered back coughing and choking. As he did so, from [134] the ventilator’s mouth came a tiny wisp of yellowish-green smoke. It was instantly whipped away by the wind. But both boys had seen it. There was no longer room for any doubt.

The constant rolling and plunging of the ship combined with the dampness of the coal taken on at San Francisco, had caused spontaneous combustion to be set up, and the port bunkers of the Manhattan were on fire!

“There’s no doubt about it now,” breathed Ned to Herc, in what was almost a whisper.

He knew to the full what a grave situation faced them. Of course, the lucky fact that he had discovered the fire before it had, presumably, made much headway, was in favor of its quick suppression. But it was not a thing to be faced lightly.

“Yes. It may be a breach of discipline, but [135] it’s a case where necessity goes ahead of etiquette.”

“Because the news would leak out all over the ship and cause no end of flurry and excitement. As it is, they may be able to check the fire’s headway without anyone being any the wiser till the danger is all over.”

Ned started for the bridge. As he did so another little puff of smoke, the danger signal of impending calamity, issued from the ventilator. There was no time to be lost, and Ned knew it as he hastened aft with his alarming intelligence.

CHAPTER XIV.
FIGHTING THE FLAMES AT SEA.

Captain Dunham put the question to Ned after the lad had breathlessly related to him his alarming discovery. High up on the bridge, his face lined by care and sleepless nights, the captain looked far different from the gilded idol that he was in calm weather or in port. He was clad in oil-skins like any old salt on a whaler.

“Absolutely, sir. I didn’t dare to say anything till I was quite positive.”

“Very good, my lad,” said the captain, without betraying a trace of the grave alarm that he must have felt for the safety of his ship. “Daniels,” he turned to a quartermaster, “send Mr. Briggs to me at once,—at once, do you hear?”

Daniels hurried off on his errand. Ned stood waiting the captain’s next orders.

“When Mr. Briggs comes on deck, I’m going to send you with him to show him where you discovered the fire, always supposing there is one,” said the captain. “Of course, you haven’t said anything about this to anyone?”

“That’s right. A report such as that spreading through the ship might cause untold trouble.”

Mr. Briggs, a big, active man, soon came bustling up. He saluted and awaited the captain’s orders.

“Briggs, Gunner’s-Mate Strong, here, tells me that he thinks he has discovered a fire in the forward port bunkers.”

Mr. Briggs nodded. For all the emotion that the two trained officers displayed they might have been discussing some ordinary matter of ship routine, instead of the vital danger which Ned had brought to the captain’s attention.

“The forward bunkers on that side of the ship are next to the forward magazines for Number One turret, are they not?”

“You will have the intervening bulkhead flooded at once. Strong tells me that he heard that the coal in that bunker was damp when it was shipped in San Francisco. Is that right?”

“It is, sir. It was the best we could get. I’ve been afraid of this very thing and have had men watching the bunkers since we sailed. The fire must have started at the top.”

“My idea exactly. The friction and disturbance caused by the ship’s rolling must have set it on fire. Strong, take Mr. Briggs to the ventilator where you discovered the smoke. Mr. Briggs, will you make as speedy an examination as possible and report back to me? First, however, give orders to have the space between the magazine and the bunker flooded.”

Followed by Ned, the chief engineer turned from the bridge and made his way to the main deck. He instructed one of his assistant engineers to have the latter part of the captain’s orders carried out at once.

The young engineer asked no questions, although he raised his eyebrows at the order.

“Now, my lad,” said Mr. Briggs, “show me where you saw this smoke issuing.”

Ned lost no time in escorting the officer to the pipe from whence he had noted the alarming symptoms first. As they came abreast of the pipe, all doubt that a mistake might have been made was removed. Puffs of sulphurous smoke were coming from it in a constant stream now. Mr. Briggs looked very grave.

“I’m sorry to say, Strong, that your conclusions were certainly correct,” he said. “That bunker is on fire.”

Captain Dunham received the chief engineer’s report without moving a muscle of his face.

“We must take immediate steps to fight the fire,” he said. “The partition is flooded?”

“Very good. Strong, you will go to the master-at-arms and tell him to assign you a squad of at least twenty men. They must be silent about their detail and you will instruct the master-at-arms to say nothing. You will report to Mr. Briggs in the fire-room and he will direct you what to do.”

Ned hastened off while the two officers remained in grave consultation on the bridge.

“Very, sir. The storm makes it all the worse. It is dangerous work in the bunkers in such weather as this. There’s some fear, too, of the [141] coal sliding as the men get it out, even though we’ve got it timbered.”

“If necessary, sir. Half-way measures will be no good in a case of this kind. We shall have to get the coal out from below till we reach the fire.

“Very good. I leave the matter in your hands. Try not to let the news leak out, although I suppose it is bound to.”

“I’m afraid so, sir. You can’t keep the firemen quiet, and they are bound to know about it as soon as the special squad goes to work.”

“You can rely on me, sir. That Strong is a smart young fellow. If it hadn’t been for him we might not have known of the blaze till it was too late.”

“He is one of the brightest fellows on board,” said the captain warmly, “that is why I am putting him in charge of this squad. Don’t let them expose themselves unnecessarily to danger, Briggs.”

Mr. Briggs saluted and departed below. In less time than he would have thought possible Ned and his twenty picked men joined him below. Among the fire-fighters was Herc. They were all responsible men, chosen for their ability and experience. They must have known that their task was going to be difficult to a degree and dangerous, too. But no traces of anxiety appeared on their faces. Such is the training of a man-o’-war’s-man. He is taught not to flinch from any duty but to obey all orders implicitly, even though he may sometimes doubt their wisdom.

The fire-room was new territory to most of the men on the special fire-fighting squad. It was a place of darkness illumined only by glaring lights which shone through a haze of black coal dust like lamps in a fog, of sweating, half-naked firemen, of gleaming tongues of flame and hissing jets of steam, of heat almost insupportable; and [143] the air was filled with a vibration that hummed like the bass string of some gigantic viol under the tremendous force imprisoned in the high-pressure boilers.

Mr. Briggs explained to the men what they were to do. Their task was to get into the bunkers and remove the coal ton by ton till the burning top part was reached. It was his plan, once this was accomplished, to flood the bunker by high-pressure pumps and extinguish the fire in the smoldering coal.

Sacks were brought and the men crawled into the bunker in squads of three at a time, and as fast as the coal was shoveled into the sacks it was dragged out by those remaining outside and dumped into an extra bunker which happened to be almost empty.

The heat was fearful and the men in the bunker could not stand it for more than fifteen minutes at a time; hence the squad took frequent turns at the work.

“Phew! This is awful,” panted Herc, as he and Ned, black and begrimed as any miners, worked side by side in the bunkers. “It’s worse than being in an oven.”

“Stick to your job, Herc, and don’t talk so much,” counseled Ned, who was wet and streaming perspiration. “We’re working to save the ship,—isn’t that enough for you?”

“It can’t; to provide against just such emergencies there is a partition all around the magazine which can be flooded.”

In silence they shoveled on till their “trick” was finished. Then in crawled their relief, and so, hour after hour, with a brief intermission for dinner, the work went on. It was the hardest [145] task either of the boys had ever tackled. In the bunker the air was foul with gases and thick with coal dust, which got in their eyes, nostrils and mouths, blinding and choking them. Their hands grew sore and they ached cruelly in every limb. But they stuck doggedly to their task, “working to save the ship.”

Begrimed with black, and panting, men would stumble out of the bunker as their “trick” was finished and sink down exhausted. But in a few minutes they would be at it again, striving to keep up their good spirits by laughing and joking over their task.

“The black diamonds, you mean,” retorted Herc. “There’s one thing on earth I’d never be.”

“Just think what this fire-room must be like in [146] time of action under forced draught!” struck in another man. “I’ve heard that the temperature runs up to one hundred and twenty degrees sometimes.”

Supper was eaten in the fire-room and a brief rest followed, then at it again they went. And all the time it grew hotter and hotter, till it seemed that flesh and blood could not stand the strain much longer. Only their healthy bodies and the clean lives they lived enabled them to stand up to the work as they did. To make their task harder, too, the ship was still rolling heavily, and it was difficult to stand upright at times.

Ned and Herc had just entered the “Black Hole,” as they called it, to take up their job once more, when Ned’s ear caught a rumbling sound. The ship gave a heavier roll than usual at that instant, and the next moment Ned grasped Herc’s arm convulsively.

Together both lads made a leap for the entrance of the bunker. As they did so, behind them there sounded a mighty roar, like the voice of an avalanche.

Ned found himself outside the bunker as, dislodged by the rolling of the ship, tons of coal came sliding down into the place where they had been digging.

He had been too slow to escape the collapse of the coal and was trapped in a living tomb. Ned’s senses swam, his vision blurred, and for an instant he thought he was going to collapse.

The other men, alarmed at the sudden roar from within the bunker, rushed forward. Ned’s glaring eyes and his terrible expression as he pointed to the bunker apprised them that some accident had happened.

“The coal—the coal came down on us—and—and—Herc’s inside!” choked out Ned frenziedly.

CHAPTER XV.
A MIRACULOUS ESCAPE.

Mr. Briggs, his face pale with anxiety, stood over half a dozen men who were making the coal fly as they dug into it in search of what they dreaded to find. Ned, in a state of semi-collapse, stood by the engineer.

“Now, bear up, Strong,” said that officer, “there’s a chance that he may be all right. Don’t give way.”

But, although the chief engineer spoke hopefully, he did not entertain a doubt that Herc must have been crushed into annihilation beneath the subsided mass of coal. There was just one chance, though, and it was that which incited the engineer to urge the men engaged in the work of rescue to work as they had never worked before.

But they needed no urging. Herc was a general favorite on board, and the thought that he was in there under that mass of coal gave each man twice the strength that he normally possessed. They dug on, careless of fatigue under the stimulus of the work in hand. Suddenly one of them stopped.

“I thought I heard a kind of a tapping sound,” rejoined the man who had first spoken.

“It’ll be the spirit of the poor lad,” remarked an old sailor who was one of the diggers.

“Nonsense,” spoke Mr. Briggs sharply, stepping forward. “What did you say you heard, Adams?”

“I thought I heard a tapping sound, sir; but I couldn’t be sure. Yes; there it is again! Hark!”

They listened with strained ears. If there was really tapping going on within the bunker it could [151] only mean one thing, and that was that Herc was alive!

The next instant they thrilled with excitement. Slowly and not very loudly amid the manifold noises all about, there came the distinct sound of a regular tap-tap—tap-tap-tap!

“It is the one hope that I held on to in the face of everything!” he cried. “The boy is alive.”

“But how—how could he have avoided being crushed to death when the coal fell in?” demanded Ned.

“When that coal was loaded, as is customary, certain board partitions were put in at intervals to keep it from shifting. When I heard that the coal had caved in on you, I made up my mind at once that it was one of these partitions that had been undermined and had given way. My faint hope that by a miracle Taylor might have been saved, was based on a desperate belief that [152] by some marvelous chance the boards might have fallen in such a way as to keep the coal above them from crushing Taylor’s body.”

As may be imagined, while Mr. Briggs was giving this explanation, the digging had been resumed with even more frenzied haste than before.

“Stick to it, boy! We’re coming!” shouted the diggers, and each time they uttered these and other encouraging shouts the tapping came back in reply.

Ned, half frantic with excitement, had seized upon a shovel and was digging with might and main. At last their shovels broke through the coal and penetrated into a hollow space beyond. The beams falling from above where the bunkers widened out had become wedged in the narrower part of the bunkers below. In this way a shield had providentially been interposed between Herc and the ponderous masses of coal above.

As the opening was widened out and Herc’s face appeared, Ned leaped into the bunker and dragged his chum out amidst the cheers of the men who had taken part in the rescue.

“Wow!” exclaimed Herc, “that was close quarters in there, all right. I thought I’d suffocate sure before you got to me.”

“How did it happen?” asked Ned, in a voice still shaky from his shock. “I thought you were beside me.”

“So I was, but I tripped in the darkness. I remember thinking, ‘Good-bye, everybody!’ as that coal came thundering down. When the noise stopped I didn’t know whether I was dead or not for a minute. Then, to my surprise, I found that I could move about. I reached up a short distance above and I felt some planks. Then I knew what had happened. They’d got wedged across where the bunker grew narrow at the bottom and my life was saved.

“But I was scared stiff that I’d die anyhow [154] before you got to me, and that’s why I kept banging on the planks with my shovel to hurry you up.”

“Well, young man,” said Mr. Briggs, “go up on deck and fill your lungs with fresh air. You’ve been near enough to death to shake hands with him. I believe that you two boys must bear charmed lives. Strong, you may accompany your ship-mate on deck. Carry on, men.”

The work went forward as if nothing out of the way had taken place. On Uncle Sam’s big fighting ships men are expected to take narrow escapes much as a matter of course when there is work in hand.

At eight bells, midnight, so much coal had been removed that it was impossible for the men to work any longer. They were so close to the fire now that only a thin wall of coal separated them from it. The heat was terrific. Above, the steel sides of the bunker began to glow with a dull red color from the seething inferno inside.

Mr. Briggs went on deck and reported to the captain what had been done. By this time both Ned and Herc had returned to work and taken their share of the gruelling task just as if nothing had happened to upset them.

The chief engineer was in a quandary. He dared not try to flood the bunkers with water. A sudden rush of water on the blazing mass of red-hot coals would be likely to blow the side out of the ship, or, at any rate, to cause a serious accident. He was still wrestling with the problem when he came below. A consultation with his junior officers followed, but nobody could suggest any solution but to let the fire burn itself out.

But this Mr. Briggs was unwilling to do. The fire might communicate to the other bunkers if not promptly checked. At length he decided to rig steam pipes into the bunkers and throttle the blaze in that way. The pipes were rigged through the ventilators and then steam at high [156] pressure was forced through the reënforced hose employed for the purpose. The experiment was completely successful and by daylight the Manhattan had escaped a grave peril and the Dreadnought Boys had passed through an experience which neither of them was likely to forget for a long time to come. Nor till it was all over did a man of the crew, except those immediately concerned, know of the dire peril to which the ship had been exposed.

CHAPTER XVI.
A STRANGE CRAFT, INDEED.

It was some days later, long after the storm had blown itself out, that the fleet was making its fifteen knots in column formation over a waveless sea, smooth as a mirror under a clear blue sky. The Jackies lolled about the decks in the hour after dinner, some smoking, some writing long letters home and some reading or skylarking.

Now the monotony of a sea voyage is always agreeably interrupted by the sighting of a vessel, and the one Herc had spied was the first to be encountered since the fleet had sailed from San Francisco. All sorts of speculations flew about regarding the ship that Herc had sighted.

“Maybe we can send mail home on her,” said some one, and the letter writers hastened to put their epistles into envelopes and hurried off to the ship’s writer for stamps.

But they might have saved their efforts. It was Ned who called their attention to the fact that, inasmuch as the strange craft was a sailing ship, it was not likely that she would reach America before the mail steamer from the Sandwich Islands.

The Jackies clustered forward like a swarm of bees watching the ship as they came closer to her. She was an odd-looking craft, bluff-bowed, clumsy, and rigged as a barque with short, stumpy masts and wide yards. In the calm she appeared to be hardly moving and it soon became evident that they would pass quite close to her.

All sorts of guesses were hazarded as to what the wanderer of the seas would prove to be.

“She’s a Rooshian, you can tell that by the cut of her jib,” declared old Harness Cask, knowingly.

“No such thing,” contradicted another ancient mariner, “she’s a whaler.”

“You’re right there, young feller,” growled old Harness Cask. “Afore I jined the navy I’d sailed on many a craft just like her, but they don’t build nothing but eighteen knot steel tanks nowadays, an it ain’t often that a good old barky gets your eye.”

“Aye, aye, all sailoring’s gone adrift,” agreed another veteran of the seas. “Young chaps nowadays who can handle a paint-brush or a gun are shoved ahead of them as knows every rope and sail on a ship. It weren’t so when I was a young feller.”

“No; there’s nothing but ‘monkey-wrench’ sailors to be met with nowadays,” came from another “sea-lawyer.”

As they drew closer to the strange vessel, they could make out various odd-looking marks on her sails.

“Crow’s feet!” cried Ned. “Red crow’s feet! What in the name of time is the reason of that?”

On the bridge, officers stood with glasses leveled at the odd craft with the strangely bedezined sails.

A sailor who had formerly sailed in the British navy partially explained the mystery.

“That’s what the Britishers call the broad-arrow’,” he said. “It’s the mark they put on their convicts’ clothes.”

“Hullo, look at that lettering on her bows,” cried Herc a few minutes later; “can you make it out?”

“Not yet,” responded his companion, “but we’ll be close enough in a while to read it.”

“Oh, that explains it all,” cried Ned. “I remember reading in a newspaper before we left that the Victory was on her way from Australia to America to be exhibited. They say that she was built in 1790 and was used for many years to bring out convicts from English prisons to Australia, which was at that time a convict settlement. She’s supposed to be just as she was in those days, with whipping posts, irons, and all sorts of instruments of punishment still intact.”

“Cracky! I’d like to see her,” exclaimed Herc, a wish that was echoed by not a few. There was a sort of fascination in gazing at the craft which had been the scene of so much barbarity in the bad old days when she had been known as a floating inferno.

“Look, they’re signaling something!” cried Herc suddenly as a string of bunting went up in the stranger’s peak.

“Short of water,” spelled out a signal-man, who happened to be in the group of interested tars.

“And we’re going to help ’em out, too,” he added soon after, as an answering string of flags went aloft on the Manhattan . “The old man’s signaling the rest of the fleet to heave to while we help them out. Maybe you’ll get a chance to see that old hooker, after all,” he added, turning to the boys.

“If they send away Number One cutter we will,” rejoined Ned, naming the boat to which both of the Dreadnought Boys were assigned and in which he pulled stroke oar.

“Aye! aye!” cried the sailors assigned to that boat, and headed by Ned and Herc they hastened to the boat deck, where they found a young ensign in command. The boat was swiftly lowered and several casks of water placed on board.

“Give way,” came the command, and the cutter began to move over the water toward the becalmed ship, Ned setting a swift, deep navy stroke.

As they came alongside, a Jacob’s ladder was snaked over the side of the old craft, and her crew ranged along the bulwarks looking admiringly at the trim, sun-burned navy men in the cutter.

“Right glad you could help us out,” he drawled with a strong New England accent. “We’ve bin uncommon short of water fer ther last ten days an’ it looked like we would be a floating Sahary afore long, when you hove in sight.”

The ensign scrambled upon deck and Ned took charge of the conveyance of the water kegs on board. While they loaded the water into the Victory’s tanks the captain, whose name was Abner Samuels, was explaining to the ensign how he [164] had bought the old convict ship as a speculation and had made quite a lot of money exhibiting her at different points. The young officer, in his turn, informed the down-east skipper that he ought to feel highly flattered at halting the United States fleet to supply his needs.

“Wa’al, Uncle Sam is always powerful good to his nevvys,” responded the old captain, who was quite a character.

When the transferring of the water was finished, the skipper invited all hands to look over his unique craft.

“Everything’s just as it was in the old days when seven hundred convicts used to be packed aboard,” he said, “all the torture instruments and thumb-screws and whipping posts and all. She’s a right interesting old ship.”

The ensign agreed to allow the Jackies then on board to make a hasty survey of the old craft, and they scattered through her while the skipper took charge of the ensign.

The old ship was just as interesting as her owner and captain had proclaimed. Her gloomy holds were partitioned off into tiny cells in which a man could not stand upright, and iron manacles and wooden stocks were on every side. Ned and Herc felt oppressed and gloomy as they viewed the venerable craft, and saw unmistakable evidences of the suffering and torment that the unhappy human beings on board her must have endured.

Suddenly, from the deck, came the shrill sound of a pipe. It was the call to return. Ned darted off, but Herc, always curious, lingered just a minute to peep into what had been a solitary cell, a tiny, black hole with a heavy iron door.

“Wow! Just think of being shut in a place like that with the ship boiling and roasting in the tropics!” he exclaimed with a shudder. “Why a man could hardly live in such a——”

The iron door had suddenly banged to as the ship gave a slight roll on the swells generated by the close proximity of the big dreadnought. Herc sprang at the door. But it resisted his stoutest efforts to open it. It had closed with a spring lock and there was Herc a prisoner in the bowels of the old convict ship.

After the lapse of so many years, the solitary cell once more held a victim. This time though, it was no cringing, shaven convict going into exile, but a Yankee blue-jacket.

Herc set up a lusty yelling for help. He shook the solid door and roared for release out of his predicament.

“Goodness,” he exclaimed, “in trouble again! But this time the joke is certainly on me. It’s a good thing I was never a convict,” he added in his whimsical fashion, “or they’d have been feeding me to the sharks in a very short time. Gracious! what a hole! Hot as a furnace, too, and as dark as it was in those coal bunkers. I hope they hurry and let me out!”

CHAPTER XVII.
SOLITARY CONFINEMENT.

“Wow! Help! Let me out! I’m suffocating!” yelled Herc, beginning to regard his imprisonment seriously.

“Get aboard, men, and hurry back to the ship,” he ordered; “we’ve spent enough time here.”

He thanked the old Yankee skipper for his hospitality, and the commander of the old convict craft was profuse in his gratitude for the assistance Uncle Sam’s navy had extended him.

In the meantime, Herc’s absence had been noted. Ned stepped up to the ensign and, saluting, reported:—

“I can’t imagine, sir. We were below together when we heard the whistle, and I only discovered his absence a minute ago.”

“I can’t make out how he could vanish on board a small ship like this,” exclaimed the ensign in a puzzled tone. “Confound that boy, he’s always getting into some mischief or other.”

“Yes, do so. Carry on, and be as quick as you can. The commander will be seriously annoyed if we don’t hurry back on board.”

The men followed Ned below. All sorts of conjectures were made as to what had become of their ship-mate. In the meantime, Herc was shouting his head off in the cell and realizing to the full the horrors of solitary confinement in such a place.

But the door was thick and his voice hardly penetrated outside. It was by the merest chance that one of the men caught a faint echo of his yells. He reported to Ned at once and they traced the sounds to the door.

“Yes, what’s left of me. Wow! Let me out of here quick, if you ever want to see me again before I’m melted.”

The skipper of the Victory was summoned and the door was soon opened. Out came a very red-faced, perspiring Dreadnought Boy.

“Well, you’re a nice specimen,” exclaimed Ned. “How in the world did you get into such a fix?”

“I just looked in to see what that hole in the wall was like and the door slammed to on me,” exclaimed Herc. “Gracious, but I’m glad to get out again. Talk about our brig, why it’s a palace compared to that cell!”

“And yet men were placed in there for voyages [170] of a hundred days and more,” said the captain of the Victory .

“Hurry up on deck, men,” ordered Ned. “Come along, Herc. I guess your troubles are only beginning.”

“You shouldn’t have gone in there after the whistle blew. It was your duty to go on deck at once.”

“I guess the captain will take a different view. You’ve held up the fleet for half an hour.”

“Well, it isn’t every seaman that could do that,” said Herc with a grin as he fell into line.

Ned was right. On their return to the ship the ensign in charge of the party got a severe lecture for wasting time, and in order to divert the blame he informed the captain of Herc’s involuntary [171] imprisonment. Accordingly, the red-headed lad’s name was down on the list of those whom the master-at-arms was required to notify to report at the mast the next day.

As has been explained in other volumes of this series, the “mast” is in reality the quarter-deck, where every day the captain adjudicates infractions of naval law and listens to complaints and excuses. The next afternoon Herc faced this tribunal, cap in hand, and inwardly much perturbed.

“Taylor, I am informed that your disobedience of orders delayed the cutter’s return yesterday,” said the captain. “How was that?”

“Yes, sir, a door that I couldn’t open. You see, I was in solitary confinement——”

“Don’t be flippant, sir,” said the captain sternly; “explain yourself properly.”

“I am, sir. I was imprisoned on that convict ship, although I had done nothing but peek into a solitary cell.”

“What are you talking about, sir?” exclaimed the captain, hiding a smile at Herc’s whimsical way of explaining his predicament. “Tell me plainly what happened.”

Herc went on to relate his experiences. When he had concluded, the captain said:—

“It is plain by your story that you were not prompt to obey orders and that your imprisonment was your own fault entirely.”

The Dreadnought Boy shifted about uncomfortably. Something dreadful was going to be done with him, he felt sure.

“However,” went on the commanding officer of the Manhattan , “I think that your period of detention on board that ship has taught you a good lesson. Carry on.”

The captain had to pass a hand over his face to hide a smile at Herc’s tone of relief.

“No; not this time. But be warned in the future. Your offense was a serious one. You delayed the fleet entirely without necessity.”

Herc was received on the forecastle by a group of his cronies. He told them all that had occurred at his session at “the mast.”

“Good for you, Red Head,” they cried; “you gave the brig a wide berth this trip, all right.”

The red-headed boy drew himself up quite proudly. Mentally he was patting himself on the back.

“Why, the commander as good as said that the fleet couldn’t get along without me. They had to wait for me, didn’t they?”

“See here, Herc, don’t get all puffed up over that. I’m sorry we didn’t let you stew in there [174] a while longer to take some of the conceit out of you. You ought to thank your stars that you didn’t get the brig.”

“Pooh!” exclaimed Herc, “the brig would have seemed like a little Paradise after that solitary cell. As the old man said, ‘I was punished enough.’”

The bugle for afternoon gunnery practice with the Morris tubes cut short the boys’ conversation. They hustled to their stations for the “small caliber” duty on the big guns, which was an almost daily feature of their work and one that they enjoyed hugely.

CHAPTER XVIII.
IN GOLDEN SEAS.

The following days passed uneventfully. The ships were now running into golden seas where the sun shone down hotly. Awnings were rigged and “white uniforms and bare feet” was the order sent aloft on the flag-ship for the instruction of the rest of the squadron.

One afternoon the lookout sang out in a voice that carried fore and aft the always welcome cry to a sailor:—

“Where away?” came from the bridge as the Jackies craned their necks and gazed forward.

Glasses were leveled at the purple patch lying like a tiny cloud on the far horizon.

“What land can it be?” wondered Ned, shading [176] his eyes, but from the low elevation of the forecastle it was hard to see anything but a faint blue line.

“Yes; the island on which Honolulu, the principal port of the islands, is located.”

Ned and Herc exchanged delighted glances. It was like coming toward a land of their dreams. As the battleships plowed onward, the land rose higher out of the sea. Soon they could see towering mountain peaks, and gradually, as they drew nearer, all the details of the green hillsides clothed with tropical verdure and the numerous plantations that dotted them came into range.

“Well, we’re going to see things now,” declared Ned enthusiastically, his eyes shining.

“No; not in the Hawaiian group,” responded a [177] ship-mate. “There are more Chinese and Japs on the islands, on Oahu anyhow, than there are Kanakas.”

“I said Kanakas, Red Head,” laughed the sailor; “that’s the name given the natives.”

“The old man hasn’t taken me into his confidence concerning that yet,” grinned Herc.

“Well, you can’t blame him for that,” laughed a sailor, and there was a general laugh at Herc’s expense.

“I heard a rumor before we left ’Frisco that there was plague on Oahu and that the port was quarantined,” interjected a bos’un’s-mate, who was in the group.

“No. We may go on to some other port. I imagine that after the banging about we had in [178] that storm, the old man will want to hitch up to some post or other and give the ship a currying down.”

“You talk as if the ship were a stable,” cried Herc. “I suppose that’s how the beef kegs got the name of harness casks.”

“No; I guess Hicks talks that way because there are so many kickers on board,” chuckled Ned.

“Well, you ought to know, Red Head,” spoke the bos’un’s-mate, and there was another laugh.

“I hope we get a chance to take a run ashore,” said Ned, “but if we are put to cleaning ship, I guess there’s not much chance of that.”

“About as much as you like that stuff the Sawbones (doctor) serves out,” retorted Herc with a grin.

“There’s Diamond Head!” came a shout some time later, during which interval the fleet in a long orderly line had been steaming by rugged shores of surpassing tropic beauty.

“I see the diamonds!” yelled Herc, calling attention to some bright patches of mica that glittered in the sunlight.

The masts of shipping and the black smoke of steamers began to show in the distance.

Majestically the squadron steamed into the harbor of the principal city of the Hawaiian group. The boys excitedly admired its site at the foot of towering hills that were covered with luxuriant tropical growth, amidst which they could see tall palms with feathery tops.

“You’d have to be more of a monkey than you are to climb those trees,” chuckled somebody.

“I’ll let you climb for me then, Hughes,” came back Herc as quick as a flash, and the laugh was on the other fellow.

The squadron came to anchor off the harbor and fired a salute which was returned from the shore. Flags could be seen flying everywhere.

“They’re glad to see us,” chorused the Jackies delightedly. “I’ll bet we have great old times ashore, regular field day.”

As the great anchors roared downward, on the stern of each battleship appeared Old Glory,—men-of-war not displaying their ensigns at sea. Speculation was rife throughout the fleet as to whether the rumor concerning the plague was correct. The rear-admiral and Commander Dunham went ashore and on their return all doubt was set at rest.

“We’re not going to stop!” groaned the Jackies. [181] “Good-bye, Honolulu, much obliged to have met you.”

Both Ned and Herc felt their full share of the general disappointment, but their gloom was brightened when the news ran through the ship that the squadron was headed for Hilo on the island of Hawaii, the largest of the group and in some respects the most interesting.

Early the next morning, after they had steamed among the islands all night, the lofty crest of Kilauea, the famous active volcano, was sighted. It was smoking away in a manner that delighted the Jackies.

“Old Dame Nature’s chimney is on fire,” said Herc. “I wish we could see a regular blow-up.”

“I guess if we did you’d change your mind,” said an old sailor. “I was at Apia when they had that big earthquake and tidal wave, and I don’t want to go through another volcanic eruption. Our ship was landed two miles inland in a cocoanut grove, and for all I know she’s there yet.”

“Here we go into Hilo Bay,” came a cry not [182] long after, and the long line of ships swung frowningly around a point and into a beautiful natural harbor, faced by a city of white and gray houses and hemmed in by a horseshoe of hills. But the Jackies had no eyes but for the volcano, whose mighty peak, ceaselessly smoking, towered four thousand feet above the city.

“Isn’t it wonderful!” exclaimed Ned, in a tone that was almost awe. “They say that at night you can sometimes see a red glow from it on the sky.”

“Give me the Catskills any day,” snorted Herc, referring to the place from which both the lads came. “As for that smoke, we saw almost as much when granpop was curing hams.”

“I’ll tell you what,” Herc resumed a few minutes later, “I’d like to knock the block off that old mountain with one of our thirteen-inch guns. I bet we’d see some fireworks worth while then.”

“Well, if you did you’d have to show better marksmanship than you have up to date.”

“How can I get to be a good shot when we don’t fire the big guns once in a blue moon?”

“Well, you’ve had lots of small caliber drill and that’s the same thing. Besides, every time we have big gun practice the expense runs into hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

The British man-o’-war, a black, grim-looking sea-fighter, lay just inside the harbor. As the American squadron came sweeping in from the sea, her guns began to boom. All work was suspended for the moment, and then came the orders [184] to return the salute. Flag after flag was dipped as the British battleship’s ensign, with its red cross, was run up and down. Bands crashed and blared the national anthem of both nations, Jackies cheered and waved and the guns boomed and roared deafeningly.

As the fleet came to anchor, a swift launch put off from the side of the English ship and the commander of the craft, the Indomitable , in a cocked hat and ablaze with gold lace, came on board the Manhattan to pay an official call on the commander of the Yankee squadron of world cruisers.

Great ceremony marked his coming. The gangway was manned and the officers all donned full uniform. The band played “God Save the King,” and the amount of bowing and ceremonious hand-shaking and saluting that was gone through caused Herc to remark to Ned later on that he felt as if he’d been mixing up with a book of etiquette. At the English commander’s departure [185] the same ceremony took place. The boys had had their first introduction to the strict laws of ceremony which govern an interchange of courtesies between the commanders of fighting ships of different friendly nations.

CHAPTER XIX.
BLUE LIGHTNING ASHORE.

Next morning, after the routine work was out of the way, word was passed that parties would be allowed to leave the ship for a cruise ashore. The signal of this decision was sent to other vessels of the fleet, and before long boats were making for the shore in tow of the battleships’ steamers, carrying parties of singing, joyous tars.

On board the Manhattan upwards of a hundred men were allowed liberty, and among them were Ned and Herc. Before they left the ship, the liberty parties were lined up aft and the captain made them a little speech.

“You men are to be allowed a run on shore as a reward for faithful service,” he said. “You will be expected to conduct yourselves in a manner [187] befitting your country and the service. I hope that in your own interests you will report back on board ship within the forty-eight hours I am allowing you. That is all.”

Discipline went to the winds for a minute. The men cheered Commander Dunham as he turned away.

“Yes, he’s no bucko skipper, always working up a poor sailor,” put in another. “He’s all wool and a yard wide.”

“And so say we all of us!” cried Herc, heading the rush for the boats that were to take them ashore.

The shore parties, laughing and cheering and cutting up all manner of antics, climbed over the side and piled into the boats. No effort was made to check their somewhat noisy flow of spirits. The officers wisely recognized the fact that for the time being they were only a happy lot of blue-jackets acting much like boys just let out of school.

Herc injected more amusement into the situation when after a brief absence he appeared at the gangway leading Blue Lightning, the goat mascot of the Manhattan . Blue Lightning was a slate-colored goat—battleship gray, the sailors called his color—of a combative temperament. He had spent many years in the navy and had been a present to the Manhattan from the crew of the old cruiser Texas , when the latter vessel went out of commission.

“Hooray! Here comes Red Head with his goat!” cried the sailors. “Going to give him a cruise ashore, Herc?”

“Sure,” responded the Dreadnought Boy. “Isn’t he entitled to shore liberty just as much as we are? I guess a good feed of grass and a run will do his temper good. He’s been kind of grouchy lately.”

This was true. Only a few days before the goat had run amuck along the decks during the dinner hour, upsetting ditty boxes, butting incautious [189] sailors, and finally charging, regardless of discipline, up on the quarter-deck itself, nearly upsetting the rear-admiral who was taking a dignified stroll about his precincts.

“Come on, Lightning,” coaxed Herc, as he descended the ladder with the goat following close behind.

“Better look out, Red Head, he’s liable to attack you from the stern!” cried a voice.

“Not he,” scoffed Herc, “he’s got too much respect for me. Come on, old fellow.”

The goat followed Herc docilely enough till he had almost reached the bottom of the steep steps. Then, suddenly, he lowered his head. His yellow eyes gleamed viciously.

But there was no time to add more. The goat’s lowered head suddenly collided with Herc’s anatomy, [190] and amidst a roar of yells and shouts the red-headed boy was impelled in a flying leap off the gangway and into the water.

Herc rose sputtering and puffing and struck out for the boats. There was no use in being mad, so he only laughed as he was helped on board.

“What for? I’ll soon dry out in this hot sun. Say, you fellows missed a nice swim; that water felt fine,” said Herc, putting the best face he could on his ludicrous accident.

“Well, I’d prefer to go into it in some less strenuous way,” laughed Ned; “the way you took your dive looked as if you’d been shot out of a gun.”

“It felt like it, too,” grinned Herc. “Come here, Blue Lightning, I’ve a good mind to administer a licking to you.”

“He’s laughing at you,” cried Ned amidst a shout as the mascot was taken on board.

“All aboard!” yelled the happy tars, grinning up in a superior way at the men left behind. “See what we get for being good little boys.”

“Hurrah for Hilo!” shouted somebody as they got under way, the boats towing behind the steamer.

“Three cheers for the fleet, boys!” cried Ned, looking back at the imposing array of slate-colored fighting-ships, from the stern of every one of which fluttered the Stars and Stripes.

The cheers were given in true man-o’-war’s-man style. The glad shouts went echoing over the still water and were flung back from the mountains behind the town.

They were soon at the wharf where a clustering throng of natives and white men, mingled with Chinese and Japs, were gathered to stare at the new arrivals. Hilo was a town of white buildings, many of them quite imposing in their architecture, but few above two stories in height.

“They’d make you an idol if they saw that red head of yours,” laughed a ship-mate.

They disembarked in orderly fashion, and, breaking through rows of importunate beggars, hotel runners and restaurant and café men, headed for the town. As they were leaving the dock, a native rushed up to Herc and threw his arms about him.

The native indeed appeared to be trying to do just that very thing. But somebody explained the situation. It appeared that when sailors came ashore some of the natives liked to act as their guides. Their form of showing homage was to rub noses, and this was what Herc’s native was trying to do.

Suddenly he desisted with a yell, and impelled by some hitherto unseen force went flying through the air, landing with a hard bump some feet away. Blue Lightning had been watching the scene, and lowering his head had charged the Kanaka with all the effect of a battleship’s ram. [194] Not content with this, the goat dashed into the midst of the importunate throng scattering them right and left.

“Whoop! Buck the line! Send ’em flying! Sock it to them!” shouted the sailors in huge glee, as before the furious onslaughts of Blue Lightning the annoying crowd was driven in all directions.

“It’s a destroyer,” came another shout, “a land-going destroyer armed with twin twelve-inch horns.”

Finally Ned and Herc succeeded in rounding up Blue Lightning, and then they set off up the blazing main street of the town, upon which the sun was beating hotly down.

“Well, I reckon we’ve created a sensation,” grinned Herc. “From the noise those fellows made they ought to change the name of this place from Hilo to Hi! Hi!”

CHAPTER XX.
BOUND FOR THE VOLCANO.

“Come on. Hurry up,” urged Ned, as Herc came out of a store where he had purchased a long coil of rope. The rope was to be used to restrain the pernicious activities of Blue Lightning, for the boys were rather afraid that he might get them into trouble if they did not confine him in some way.

“There’s no sense in our hanging about this hot town which, so far as I can see, is very much like any other town.”

“We ought to take a look at that volcano while we are here. They say the crater is wonderful. The Hawaiian word for it is ‘Sea of Fire.’”

“Humph! What guarantee have we that the thing won’t blow up while we’re there?”

“That’s very unlikely to happen. We won’t be taking any more of a chance than the people who go to see Mount Vesuvius all the time.”

“I’ve been making inquiries. For a reasonable sum we can get ponies and a guide.”

A short trip on a wheezy train landed them in Glenwood and then the boys set off for the place where Ned had been told that guides could be procured. They soon found it and discovered that the men who made a business of taking parties up the volcano were not so moderate in their prices as Ned had been led to believe. However, they managed to strike a bargain with an old Kanaka named Okeechee and soon after they rode out of the town in high spirits.

Behind Herc’s pony trailed Blue Lightning. He was at first unwilling to accompany the tourists, but a few yanks on the long rope to which Herc had him hitched soon persuaded him to follow. The boys shouted greetings to pedestrians as they passed, in great good humor. They felt like two school boys off on a picnic.

The road soon began to climb the mountain side. It hung on the edge of the steep hills behind the town like an eyebrow. All sorts of luxuriant tropical fruits and flowers overhung the dizzy path. Below them was spread a magnificent panorama,—the American fleet at anchor in the bay with smoke lazily drifting from the banked fires. The flags made brilliant spots of color as ship signaled to ship along the line, transmitting the orders spelled out in bunting by the flag-ship.

“Doesn’t that make you proud you are an American, Herc?” asked Ned, pointing to the inspiring panorama of sea, sky and grim, drab fighting-ships.

“It makes me think I’m glad we don’t have to work for forty-eight hours,” rejoined Herc, thumping his pony with his heels.

Up and up they climbed till they surmounted that ridge. Then they dipped into a valley of rare beauty, above which towered the frowning sides of the smoking mountain in majestic splendor. As they descended the trail, they came upon an odd picture. In a patch below the road some native men and women, who had been working in a cocoanut grove, were seated on the ground eating out of gourd dishes a native food called poi .

“Hullo, there’s a picnic party!” cried Herc, as he saw the group, the women of which were begarlanded with flowers after the pretty custom of the South Seas.

Blue Lightning had broken loose from Herc’s [199] grip, which had relaxed as he gazed on the Arcadian scene. With a grunt and a jump the goat, trailing several yards of rope behind him, dashed straight down on the unconscious diners. Maybe the sight of food had excited his appetite, or maybe he was actuated just by pure goatishness. Anyhow, like a torpedo-boat bearing down on a squadron, he dashed at the group below.

But no attention was paid to him. In another instant pandemonium burst into that peaceful scene. Herc had thrown himself off his pony and managed to grab the end of the rope, but the impetus of Blue Lightning’s rush had jerked him off his feet. He rolled down the embankment, landing with a crash in the midst of the luncheon party at just about the same instant that the Manhattan’s mascot made his presence known by butting a dignified old gentleman into a big bowl of the soft sticky poi .

The islanders yelled in terror at the sudden apparition, Herc shouted as he went rolling and crashing among a variety of dishes, and above them Ned and the guide shouted advice and directions. Recovering from their first surprise, the islanders massed angrily and made a concerted rush for Herc. Some of them wielded clubs and stones.

“It’s all a mistake. Don’t hit me. I’ll make it all right!” cried the Dreadnought Boy, trying to brush the sticky remnants of poi and custard-apples from his uniform.

The islanders buzzed like a hive of angry bees. They did not understand him. All they knew was that a peaceful meal had been rudely interrupted by a red-headed sailor and a goat with a butt like an eight-inch shell.

A stone struck him on the forehead. Another and another began to whiz about him.

He dodged them as best he could and began [201] running for the road. But he had reckoned without Blue Lightning. The animal had been hit by a rock and had faced straight about. With lowered head it began rushing at the Hawaiians. Behind it trailed the rope.

“Biff! Bang! Hurray!” yelled Herc as he saw the Manhattan’s mascot rushing into the fray.

Down went one of the men in a heap as the goat collided with him. The rope tangled into many loops, and convolutions caught the ankles of two more and down they went with a yell.

“Wow! Charge ’em! Never say die! Good for you!” roared Herc enthusiastically.

Blue Lightning needed no urging. Right and left he sped with lowered horns, spreading disaster whenever he encountered a solid body. The women had fled screaming, and only the men were in the danger zone. At last the men all took to their heels, too, and Herc, running forward, grabbed the goat’s rope and began hauling the creature up the slope.

“Whee! Whoop!” he yelled, as he clambered back to the road. “Didn’t that beat any circus you ever saw? Wasn’t it fun?”

“I’m afraid it may have serious consequences,” commented Ned, who, however, couldn’t keep from laughing. “The guide tells me that he heard one of the men shouting in Hawaiian that they would have us arrested.”

“In that case, we’d better stay up by the volcano,” said the irrepressible Herc. “Under such circumstances I’d rather face it than the old man.”

CHAPTER XXI.
THE MOUTH OF FIRE.

Ned uttered the exclamation as the boys stood on the western lip of the fiery crater of Kilauea.

All about the boys and their guide, not to forget Blue Lightning with his confining rope, shot up arid precipices, wrought into fantastic forms by fire and lava. Below them glowed the eternal fires of the volcano, and the air was filled with a sulphurous reek proceeding from several boiling springs.

Not a bush, or tree or a blade of vegetation of any sort was to be seen. Against the blue sky, like a smoking factory chimney, the crater poured heavenward unceasingly a veil of yellowish smoke.

The guide told them that it was some years since the volcano had been in eruption, but that at times streams of lava had flowed down the mountain side, wiping out plantations and native huts. Far out at sea, ships had been showered with the ashes, and a pall of smoke so dense as to render the island almost invisible had involved it in a perpetual twilight during the hours when the sun was above the horizon.

“I’d like to get some souvenirs of this place to take home,” remarked Herc. “Look at that shelf down there. It seems to be formed of some sort of glittering rocks. I guess I could get some easy enough.”

“You’ll stay right here,” rejoined Ned firmly. “Every time you come ashore you get into trouble and I’m determined to keep you out of it this trip if I can.”

“Pshaw! that ledge isn’t more than twenty feet [205] down and it’s an easy scramble for a sailor,” scoffed Herc.

“Well, I’d be cremated free of charge, unless the mountain refused to swallow me and chucked me up again with a fireworks display.”

Both boys peered over the edge into the fiery abyss below. Even in the daylight they could catch a faint glimpse of nature’s vast furnaces. The guide told them that not long before a love-sick young Hawaiian had cast himself into the depths of the volcano when he learned of the death of his sweetheart. In ancient times before the white man came, he said, when a chief died many of his subjects were thrown alive into the fiery pit as a sacrifice to the gods.

“Umph!” grunted Herc. “I’ll bet it’s not much hotter than that bunker, at that.”

The guide told them to follow him to the other side of the crater where an even finer view could be obtained of the subterranean fires. Ned set [206] off by the Hawaiian’s side, listening with interest to his description of the old tribal rites that took place on the very ground which they now trod.

So engrossed was he with the guide’s tales and legends, as they made their way over the rough ground, that it was not till they had gone some distance that he noticed that Herc was not with them. At the same instant there came a wild yell and cry from the rear.

A shoulder of rock hid from them the place where Ned had last seen Herc, but the boy darted quickly back. What he saw as he came into view of the spot almost froze the hot blood in his veins.

Straight down toward the fiery mouth of the volcano Herc was tumbling, grabbing frantically as he went any projecting bit of rock. But none of them held him.

The sight was almost too painful to be borne. There didn’t appear to be a chance that Herc could save himself. To Ned and the guide it seemed that he was doomed to be plunged into the crater and burned to death in its glowing, oven-like depths.

But suddenly Ned gave a cry of joy. In his fall, Herc had struck the very ledge upon which he had spied the glittering specimens of rock, one of which he had been so anxious to procure. By an almost superhuman effort he had checked his fall, and was now lying trembling and pale on this insecure shelf overhanging the glowing mouth of the crater.

Ned set out running, with the guide at his heels. When he reached a spot directly above the ledge to which Herc was clinging, he shouted down at him:

“Yes, so far; but the gases from this bake-oven are choking me. Get me out of here quick!”

“Goodness, what are we to do? Here, you,” to the guide, “hurry and get a rope some place.”

Ned racked his wits desperately for some way out of the dilemma. It was clear that Herc could not long hang suspended over the gaseous volcano without choking and losing his hold. And yet what was he to do?

In his quandary he glanced about him seeking some way out of the difficulty. Suddenly his eyes fell on Blue Lightning. The animal was nosing about among the rocks vainly seeking a blade of grass. From his neck trailed the long rope that Herc had purchased that morning.

“The very thing!” cried Ned, as his eyes fell on the rope. “What a bit of luck that Herc bought it!”

Ned ran back and disengaged the rope from Blue Lightning’s neck. He raced for the cliff edge again, and having made a loop in the lower end of the rope, lowered it to Herc. He wished it had been thicker, but it appeared to be made of good, close-woven manila and Ned prayed that it would stand the strain.

Ned and the Hawaiian laid hold of the rope and began to haul with all their might. Herc helped them by digging his toes into the rocks and climbing upward, his weight supported by the rope.

But his jubilation was premature. The Hawaiian, a short, slim fellow without much muscle or weight, gave a sudden yell.

He dropped the rope at the same instant, and Ned felt his feet fly from under him as the weight of Herc came suddenly on his arms alone.

“Wow! I’m gone!” came a terrified yell from Herc as he felt his body rush downward. All at once he was stopped with a jerk that almost dislocated his shoulders. There he hung, dangling out over the crater and wondering how long [211] it would be before he would be precipitated into the natural furnaces that seemed to be reaching out for him.

What had happened was this. Ned, after the first shock of surprise when the guide dropped the rope, had succeeded in digging his feet up against a rock as Herc’s weight pulled him toward the edge of the crater. This rock cropped out of the ground in pillar-like formation, and he had swiftly taken two turns around it with the rope as if it had been a hitching post. As he did so, a sudden idea came into his head.

“Bring up those ponies,” he shouted to the cowardly, mean-spirited guide who had so nearly been responsible for Herc’s death.

“Now help me hold on to this rope,” ordered Ned brusquely. “If you let go again, you’ll go over into the volcano yourself, sabe?”

Ned unwound the rope from the rock, being careful to take up the strain as it came. This done, he secured the rope around the pommels of the saddles of both the ponies, the saddles being of the high-peaked Mexican variety best adapted for mountain riding.

“All right!” came from below, and Herc began to feel himself rising as the two ponies were driven forward by the guide.

“Keep on going till I tell you to stop,” cried Ned to the man. Then the Dreadnought Boy hastened once more to the edge of the cliff. He could have shouted with joy as he saw Herc being drawn steadily upward toward him. But he dared not shout or talk till he had Herc safely beside him.

“Stop!” he yelled suddenly to the guide as Herc’s red head bobbed within reach.

Ned reached out his arms and Herc grabbed [213] them. An instant later the Dreadnought Boys stood side by side on the lip of the crater in which Herc had so narrowly escaped immolation.

“Thank goodness, you’re all right!” cried Ned, wringing his chum’s hand frantically.

“Yes, and I’ve brought you a little souvenir from there, too,” said Herc with perfect calmness, thrusting his hand into his blouse. “It was while I was rubbering over looking for specimens that I lost my grip and went topsy-turvy down the cliff. So while I was down there I thought I’d bring some up with me.”

He thrust into Ned’s hand a bit of the glittering stone to which he had first called attention.

“Well, it would take about ten times that to persuade me to go down there again.”

The rope which had done such good service was attached to Blue Lightning again, and as [214] the boys had seen quite enough,—almost too much,—of the volcano, they began the descent without delay. The guide was full of all sorts of explanations for his action in dropping the rope, but as may be imagined the boys did not pay much attention to him.

As they rode into Glenwood in plenty of time to catch the evening train back to Hilo, a white-uniformed native policeman came up to them.

“Delighted. But what for?” asked Herc. “Has some big-wig invited us to dinner?”

“I don’t know what you mean. You are charged with assault on Onamee, a farmer back on the mountain.”

“Oh, it’s the picnic party we broke up,” cried [215] Herc. “Well, you’d better arrest the goat for that.”

“I have orders, also, to bring the goat before the magistrate,” was the serious reply.

“Herc, don’t make fun of this thing. It may be serious,” spoke Ned in a low voice. “We will go with you, sir,” he added, addressing the constable.

“Great starboard salvos! In bad again,” groaned Herc dismally as, followed by a jeering crowd, they set off down the street.

CHAPTER XXII.
UNDER ARREST.

The courtroom was a large, cool chamber, protected from the hot sun by green latticed blinds. The judge proved to be a humorous-faced American dressed in white ducks. As the boys were marched into the courtroom, a great hub-bub was set up by a group that they recognized as the party whose luncheon had been so rudely interrupted by Blue Lightning’s charge.

“So you lads are from the fleet?” the judge asked, as the boys were formally arraigned at the bar of justice, which, in this case, was a plain kitchen table with a big jug of ice-water on it.

“Hum! These people charge you with assault and battery. What have you to say about it?”

“I guess Blue Lightning could tell you all about it, sir, if he could talk,” put in Herc, despite Ned’s nudgings to keep silent.

“Ahem! He doesn’t appear to be much of a mascot if he got you into this trouble. Since the United States annexed these islands it has been the aim of the Government to keep friendly relations between the natives and the Americans.”

“Yes, sir,” said Herc meekly, “but if you will let me explain, I think I can show that it was an accident. I was trying to save these people from being butted into the middle of next week, when——”

Ned gave a concise account of all that had happened. Then came the turn of the natives, who spoke through an interpreter. Their testimony agreed with Ned’s. The magistrate explained to the boys at the conclusion of their depositions that the natives said they would be satisfied with a settlement.

A great pow-wow ensued, and finally the spokesman of the natives said that two dollars would be ample. It was paid smilingly by the boys, who were then told that they were free to go.

“And I would advise you to stop your mascot’s shore leave in the future,” smilingly said the gentleman who officiated as magistrate.

They had some pleasant conversation with the magistrate about the fleet and its great world cruise, after which it was time to take their train. They spent the night in Hilo and rejoined the ship the next day.

“Well, lads, did you have an interesting time ashore?” asked the captain, as he passed them soon after their return.

“Yes, sir,” responded Taylor saluting, “especially at the end of a rope.”

Of course this called for explanations and Herc told the whole story with much graphic illustration.

“I see there is no killing you two lads,” laughed the captain as he walked on, “but in the future be more careful. What ended as a joke might have had a more serious side.”

Once more the fleet was at sea. Everything was ship-shape and “man-o’-war fashion,” the days spent at Hilo having been devoted to putting the big battle fleet in tip-top condition after the buffeting it had gone through in the big storm. Officers and men were all a-tip-toe with anticipation at the prospect of the next stop, which was Yokahama. The Dreadnought Boys particularly [220] were anxious for a sight of the Flowery Kingdom.

Ned’s duties having called him, one calm, peaceful evening, to the after part of the ship, he was passing the wireless room on his return forward when he caught the sound of a message being sent out from the flag-ship to the rest of the fleet. The boy had been keen to learn everything connected with his profession, and the study of wireless had been included in the curriculum he had set himself.

He spent spare moments when he could in the wireless room and under the operator’s tutelage had become quite a fair hand at the key. He paused and listened to the dots and dashes as the flame leaped and crackled between its terminals, sending out into space a message to the long line of ships behind the Manhattan .

Ned listened till the message was complete and then, with sparkling eyes, he resumed his journey.

“I guess there’s going to be a surprised bunch of blue-jackets on board before morning,” he said to himself, as he hurried along through steel-walled corridors and metal-enclosed casements. “I’m glad I caught that message. Forewarned is forearmed.”

Herc noted his comrade’s suppressed excitement at supper that night and tried to find out the cause for it, but he was unsuccessful. Ned, however, could not forbear giving him a hint a little later.

“No, but as soon as I get into my downy hammock, it doesn’t take me long to slip off into dreamland.”

“I can’t tell you. But I’ve got information that something out of the ordinary may happen.”

“I’m not at liberty to. I came by my information in a sort of confidential way.”

“Humph! I suppose the old man asked you into his cabin and gave you all his plans for the next twenty-four hours.”

The night wore on. Lights gleamed out; watches were set as usual. The bugle sounded taps and the Jackies were all wrapped in their usual sound slumbers. Ned alone lay awake waiting for the signal that he was sure would not be long in coming. On the bridge the captain paced back and forth and almost all the officers were out, none of them having retired.

It was past eight bells, midnight, when a sudden voice sounded loud and sharp above the monotonous vibration of the big propellers. “Bos’un’s-mate!”

Buglers, hastily aroused, began sounding the “assembly!” Instantly the sleeping ship galvanized into what appeared to be a pandemonium. High on the masts the red and green “Ardois” lamps were winking and flashing the signal to the ships. The wireless was fretting and whining. “The idlers,” cooks, messmen, stewards and boys took their places below in the magazines. The Jackies tumbled out of hammocks and slipped into uniforms as if by magic. Officers hastily took their stations. Questions and conjectures as to the reason for the sudden call flew thick and fast.

Some thought that there had been a collision; others that the ship had gone aground; yet others [224] hazarded a guess that fire had broken out. All knew that some urgent business was on hand and lost no time in getting on deck.

Ned was at his gun almost before the last notes of the bugle calls had died out. Herc was not much behind him. The Dreadnought Boy hastily inspected the shining butt of the big twelve-inch gun that was in his charge. He patted it smilingly.

“They’ll do,” he remarked to the executive officer with him; “smart work. A likely lot of lads. They all have themselves well in hand even though they have no idea what is going to happen.”

“Man magazines and ammunition hoists. Stand ready. Pass loads to the batteries!” came the sharp orders from the bridge in rapid succession.

High up in the superstructure, the range finders and “spotters” with telephone receivers clamped to their heads were ready. Down in the bowels of the ship the men who would transmit their reports of range and kindred matters to the batteries, sat at what looked like giant switchboards, covered with winking lights of different colors.

In Ned’s turret, the ammunition hoist came up with a bang and clang. Bags of powder and a great projectile were unshipped by the gun crew with what appeared to be magical speed. Every man had his work and knew just what to do.

“Load and stand by,” ordered the ensign in Ned’s turret. “We’re going to have some night target practice, my lads. See to it that you do your best,” he went on.

This was the information that Ned had heard flashed out over the wireless. The crew of the big twelve-inch gave a cheer. Stripped to the waist, they awaited the next order.

The Jackies outside began stripping the ship of everything movable. Boats were lowered and cast off astern, railings, stanchions, everything movable came down and was marked “Overboard.” Some wag even affixed a label marked in this way to the horns of Blue Lightning, who was careering around the decks in great excitement.

“Have your wits about you. We must hold the record we possess, if it is possible.”

A bell buzzed and a light flashed twice in the turret. It was the signal to load. The ensign barked out a sharp command. In a moment the load and the projectile were sent “home.” The breech was closed with a snap, the electrical connections made, and Ned, with his hand on the big wheel that controlled the monster gun as if it had been a toy rifle, awaited the next order.

Peering out through the turret opening he could see the rays of the Manhattan’s searchlight sweeping like radiant fingers over the sea. They were searching for the target which had been sent out from one of the other ships. The different ships were to steam by it at a set speed blazing away as they passed.

At last it flashed into view,—a tiny square of white in the far distance. Ned brought the cross-wires on the telescope sights to bear on it. His heart beat tumultuously.

Suddenly a shrill whistle sounded. The officer snatched up the speaking tube. From the switchboards below came the required information.

Ned’s fingers hovered over the firing device. The other men balanced themselves on their toes prepared for the shock when the actual moment for firing the big gun came. Cotton was stuffed [228] in their ears. The five great searchlights that concentrated on the target showed it as clearly to Ned as a chalked square on a blackboard. But it looked terribly small.

Ned’s fingers twitched the firing device. It seemed as if an earthquake had been let loose. Through the night rushed the huge projectile, its course blazed across the night sky by the red glow of a trailer, a flaming attachment that enables the “spotters” to follow its course as accurately as if it were day.

The gun was still trembling from the force of the recoil when the swish of air-compressors, driving dangerous stray sparks out of it, was heard. This was done so that there should be absolutely no danger of a speck of fire remaining when the next charge was rammed home.

The next projectile, well oiled, was jerked into the big gun and rammed home with clock-work-like [229] precision. Then came the powder bags and the snap of the breech block as it was slammed to.

“Hit!” cried the ensign, announcing that he had just got the news that Ned had hit the target. Then the red light flashed again, and once more the ship shook to the thunders of the giant forces released when Ned lightly pressed the trigger.

Again and again was the process gone through. The shots came with the rapidity of an automatic shot-gun. It seemed incredible almost that human beings could work with such precision and accuracy. Hardly a word was spoken. Only short commands and brisk replies were heard.

From the spotters’ roost, where with night glasses they followed the flaming trailers, came the monotonous report to bridge, switchboard and turret, “Hit—hit—hit—hit—hit!”

And then finally, as the command came to cease firing the twelve-inch, was this report:

Then, as the other guns took up the deafening fusillade, all discipline vanished in Ned’s turret. The ensign shook his hand while the gun-crew danced around shouting:

But the racket of other guns drowned their voices. Up in the tops the spiteful crash of the little three-inch guns could be heard cracking viciously. The eight-inch rifles rumbled and roared. It was like being on a train going through a vast tunnel at sixty miles an hour. That is about as nearly as the uproar of the vast forces of power released at gun practice can be described.

Two hours after the signal to “commence firing” had been given, the night practice was over and all hands were set to work to clean ship. But even before this, it was known on board the Manhattan that the coveted “Meat-ball,” the token of supremacy at the guns, was still the [231] flag-ship’s trophy; and that Ned Strong had contributed no small share to the retention of the red flag with the black center that means so much to the Jackie whose ship is entitled to fly it.

CHAPTER XXIII.
HERC LUNCHES WITH AN IDOL.

Herc Taylor lolled negligently back in the ’rickshaw in which he and Ned Strong were being spun along on a smooth road outside Yokahama.

“It’s comfortable, all right, but somehow I hate the idea of seeing a human being playing the part of a horse,” rejoined Ned.

In front of the two Dreadnought Boys, between the shafts of the ’rickshaw, a half naked Jap toiled along at a dog-trot. His skin was as dry as a bone and showed not a sign of fatigue, yet he had drawn the boys some distance in the vehicle which is peculiar to Japan.

The road along which they were riding was [233] an attractive one in every respect. Odd temples, bridges that looked like toy spans crossing miniature brooks, little pine trees, tiny people were to be seen everywhere. As it was the month of the cherry blossom, the trees of that variety were decked with delicate, fragile flowers and the neat little houses were decorated with the fragrant petals.

The Jap between the shafts jogged along as unconcernedly as if he had been not a human being but a beast of burden.

“Hey, stop!” cried Ned suddenly, as they passed under a majestic grove of big trees bordering both sides of the road. The shade felt grateful after the heat of the sun. At the end of the colonnade of trees was a temple, a fairy-like structure about which people were clustered. It had struck Ned that something interesting might be seen there.

“No, honorable sailor. Me no tired. Me go all same one, two, ten, twenty mile.”

“Wow!” exclaimed Herc, “you can have your job! I wouldn’t pull one of these rickety shaws, or whatever you call them, half a mile on a bet.”

“Hey, Ned, did you hear what he called me?” sputtered Herc, full of indignation.

“That’s all right, Herc. Your thatch was a birthday present. Don’t be ashamed of it. Come on, let’s go and have a look at that temple. I’ve a notion something interesting is going forward yonder.”

“All right; but I don’t want these Japs calling me ‘red-head.’ I get enough of that in the fleet. I can dispense with it on shore.”

Arm in arm, the two young blue-jackets set off under the trees. In many of the branches hung little articles formed of bits of glass decorated [235] with bright colors. As the breeze blew, the bits of glass jangled together with a pretty tinkling sound that made Ned exclaim admiringly.

“The Japs are the only people on earth who could have thought of such a pretty device. Isn’t it delightful, Herc?”

“Humph, sounds to me like they were washing dishes or using their knives and forks. It’s just the noise our mess makes at dinner. That reminds me, I’m awfully hungry.”

“We’ll have something to eat when we go back. Come on now and let’s see what’s going on.”

Under a cherry tree in the full glory of its blossoms was an odd-looking figure carved out of some sort of dark wood. Under the feet of this idol, for such it plainly was, Herc had beheld an elaborate feast spread out. There was [236] fish, meat, and cakes of all kinds and a big jar of water.

“Gracious, Ned, a regular table de hotey! I’m so hungry I could eat the whole thing, idol and all. What do you suppose it is there for?”

“Hist, Ned,” he exclaimed with shining eyes. “I’ve a notion that here is where I get a snack.”

“Then you keep watch while I put myself outside some of that grub. It’s a shame to see it going to waste. They ought to be thankful to me for helping the idol dispose of it. It is plain that he has no appetite.”

It was useless to argue with Herc in this [237] mood. He vaulted a low wall and made for the feast spread out under the cherry tree. Soon he was deeply engrossed in stuffing away whatever looked best among the various viands across which he had stumbled.

“Come here, Herc, quick! There are a lot of men coming down the road. I guess they’ve seen you making a pig out of yourself and are coming after you.”

Herc dropped a cake that he was eating and made for the road. But he was too late. Before he reached there, a crowd of Japs, buzzing like angry hornets, had closed in about him. They were all jabbering at once and some of them began to lay hands on Herc.

“Belay there!” shouted the red-headed youth. “What in the mischief is biting you fellows?”

“They say you insult Dai Butsu,” said the ’rickshaw man who had come running up.

“But who?” demanded Herc. “I only joined the old gentleman at his lunch. He didn’t seem to have a good appetite and I thought I’d butt in on old But-what’s-his-name.”

The ’rickshaw man hastily translated this speech to the angry Japs. But instead of allaying their anger, the Dreadnought Boy’s explanation appeared only to anger them the more.

“I’m afraid we’ve let ourselves in for trouble,” exclaimed Ned in a worried tone; “this is a serious matter with these fellows.”

“Dai Butsu, the guard of the tomb of Tyemitsu the third Shogun of Japan,” volunteered the guide; “him very holy.”

“I wish I had an eight-inch gun here,” cried Herc as the crowd drew closer about the boys. “I guess that’s as good as any old show-gun or blow-gun or whatever it is.”

Suddenly the crowd closed in with an angry [239] roar. Taken by surprise, the boys were forced backward. Herc felt his feet tripped from under him, and fighting desperately, he was borne to the ground by sheer press of numbers.

CHAPTER XXIV.
THE CRUISE RESUMED.

But Ned had all he could do to help himself right then. Like so many ants swarming upon and attacking an interloper in their domains, the little brown men had swarmed upon him, also. The brawny arms of the Dreadnought Boy flung them off right and left, and as they fell back in the crowd they knocked over more of the clustering people like balls in a bowling alley.

“Hurray! A king-pin!” cried Ned, as down went five or six of the Japs in a heap.

But before the words were fairly out of his mouth, more of the men leaped upon him from behind. By a quick movement, Ned fell backwards, crushing the breath out of his surprised opponents. He was up again in a jiffy, only to [241] find that he was still assailed by uncountable numbers. They swarmed like flies round a honey-pot, and do what he would, the boy could not shake them off.

A short way from him he saw Herc being borne down, and then saw him struggle to his feet again.

Around the corner had come a string of ’rickshaws, each containing two jolly tars.

“Ahoy, mates!” shouted the sailors in the foremost ’rickshaw, and then, as they saw who it was, they set up a yet louder yell.

The Jap ’rickshaw pullers dropped their shafts and ran for their lives. They had no desire to get mixed up in a mêlée. Out of the odd rigs in which they had been enjoying a sight-seeing [242] spin, the sailors came jumping. Many of them were from the Manhattan , and several were from other ships. But both Dreadnought Boys were general favorites and in a jiffy the Japs were parting right and left as the American seamen waded in to the rescue of their ship-mates.

Five minutes after the arrival of the men-o’war’s-men not a Jap was to be seen, and the two boys were explaining how they had come to get into trouble.

“Red-Head, as usual,” laughed a tar from the Manhattan . “Strong, you ought to leave him tied up some place when you come ashore.”

“I like that! Haven’t I the right to take a bite to eat when I see an old wooden idol letting good grub go to waste?” expostulated Herc.

“When you’re in Rome, do as the Romans do,” put in another sailor,—the one whom the sailors nick-named “Ben Franklin.” “In some parts of the island your appetite might have been gone for good after your escapade, Master Red-Head.”

Ben Franklin made an expressive gesture, signifying that Herc might have lost his head for his prank.

“Woof!” exclaimed Ned’s chum, “that would have been a fine dessert. Come on, ship-mates, I’m going back to the ship and sleep in the magazine. It’s safer than it is ashore.”

“For you it is, anyhow,” chuckled a tar. “But hullo, mates, where are all the ’rickshaw men? They’ve all gone.”

“Scared away, I reckon,” laughed another, a man off the Idaho . “Tell you what we’ll do, we’ll be our own ’rickshaw pullers.”

“Hooray!” cried the men; and amidst a great to-do and lots of laughter the blue-jackets placed themselves between the shafts, the fortunate riders (whose turn at pulling was to come later on) shouting with glee.

“Get up there!” roared Ben Franklin at Herc, and off the red-headed youth darted at top speed.

“Whoa! Whoa!” bawled the philosophic sailor, “not so fast! Take in sail, mate! Shorten sail! Rocks ahead!”

The warning came too late. One wheel of the ’rickshaw struck a rock at the edge of a little bridge and Ben Franklin, amidst the roars of the tars, went sky-rocketing into space over the rail of the bridge. He landed in a lot of soft mud and injured nothing but his dignity.

“You’re a horse that needs breaking,” he said to Herc, as he took his seat once more in the ’rickshaw; and, despite all Herc’s pleadings, he was compelled to pull the mud-stained Ben all through the streets of Yokahama as a punishment for his skylarking.

The ’rickshaws were left at the ’rickshaw stand near the docks where it was certain that their owners would reclaim them. Then the liberty parties embarked and were towed back to their ships by the various steamers.

So ended a stay in Yokahama, not a quarter of the details of which we have had space to describe. [245] The fleet there, as everywhere, met unbounded enthusiasm and entertainment, and thousands of post cards and photographs were sent home to the United States by the Jackies. A big naval parade and a review of the fleet by the local dignitaries served still further to impress upon the Far East Uncle Sam’s place and dignity as a sea-power.

Many weeks now passed uneventfully. The fleet stopped at Melbourne and Sidney, the two chief places on the island continent of Australia. But at neither of these towns did the boys go ashore, as there were others to take their turns at shore leave. However, from what they heard they judged that the two cities named did not differ materially from any progressive, modern American community, so that they were not so disappointed as they would have been in strange lands among foreign-speaking peoples.

Ahead of them lay Egypt and a planned trip to the Pyramids and the Sphinx, and the wonders of Gibraltar with a side excursion into Spain. [246] All this helped to enliven their anticipations and made them regret all the less that their liberty was curtailed at the Australian cities.

Through the Indian Ocean, across the blisteringly hot Red Sea, the fleet had made its way, and now it was on what the Jackies called the “home stretch.” One blazingly hot afternoon the long line of battleships swung into the Gulf of Suez on its way to the Mediterranean. Speed was reduced to four knots in accordance with the rules of the canal which they were approaching. The sailors fretted as the great ships crept along, seeming barely to move. On each side extended the glittering, barren desert. Occasionally a cavalcade of camel men passed. That was about all that relieved the monotony. But just the same, Ned was impressed. All about them lay a wonderful region famed in song and story.

“Herc, do you know that the Holy Land lies almost within reach of the guns of this ship?” asked Ned, as the two lads leaned over the side of the shaded forecastle drinking in a slight [247] breeze which had sprung up at sun-down. But even the wind was more like the blast from an oven door than a cooling zephyr, after its passage over the blazing sands of the desert.

“I’ve been told to go there so often that if it’s handy I’d like to make the trip,” grinned Herc.

“There is a line there that connects with Cairo. From the latter city we can go to visit the great Pyramids. Several of the men are going. I have talked to them about it. I guess shore leave will be extended to-morrow, and we may get as many as three days off, as the ships are going to coal.”

“That’s a good time to get away from them,” said Herc; “it is like living in a black snow storm.”

“Yonder is Suez, lads, over the port bow,” said a master’s-mate who was passing.

The boys scampered over and beheld a picture that they never forgot. Against the blazing red and gold of the evening sky, the dome and minarets of the ancient city stood out blackly like fret-work cut out of ebony. The mellow sound of bells and gongs calling to evening prayer could be heard and combined to make the picture a memorable one.

The ships came to anchor as dusk fell, and lights began to twinkle ashore. Strange-looking pirogues and other native boats began to dart about among the steel leviathans like so many fire-flies. Sounds of drums and weird Oriental music floated off the shore to the ships. Now and then would be heard the wailing cry of some worshiper high in a minaret. This mingled with laughter and tinkling sounds of stringed instruments in the boats that glided about in the harbor, their occupants intent on seeing the wonderful fighting ships of the great Western nation.

The bugles that commanded “Hammocks up!” disturbed the peaceful scene rudely.

“Oh, bother the bugle, I could stand here all night. It beats Coney Island.”

“Is that the best comparison you can find? Come on. We must be out early to-morrow and get ashore in the first boats.”

Reluctantly both boys turned away, as did hundreds of their ship-mates. Before long there was silence in the ship and aboard all the other grim fighting-craft. Then, like a benison, the sweet, low notes of “taps” echoed mournfully through the anchored fleet.

All lights but anchor lights disappeared instantly. Darkness enshrouded the sleeping fleet. Only on deck the regular footsteps of the sentries and the cry of the watch as the bell struck the hours, broke the silence that brooded above the desert and the desert sea.

CHAPTER XXV.
JACK ASHORE.

The Jackies from the fleet, mounted on donkeys on which they were seeing the sights, had the bazaar in Cairo in an uproar. Natives in long robes and red fez caps were darting about trying to bring order out of chaos. Donkeys were braying, Jackies shouting with laughter, and American tourists cheering, as they saw Uncle Sam’s fighting men coming into town from the ornate railroad station which looked more like a mosque than a depot.

In and out among the joyous tars darted beggars of all hues, black, yellow and white. Nubians, [251] Arabs, Hindoos, even Chinamen were in the throng, and they all rattled and banged on brass dishes yelling for alms. Through the street occasionally an auto would come whirring along, carrying perhaps a veiled woman or a swarthy Egyptian, or now and then a British officer in full rig.

At such times the flying squadron of donkeys scattered in every direction amidst the whoops and yells of their excited riders.

From the gutters mongrel curs snapped at the boys’ heels, and the uproar, din and sun were enough to upset the strongest nerves.

“These people must all be crazy,” exclaimed Herc to Ned as they maneuvered their donkeys in and out among the throng with more skill than most of the sailors showed. The boys had been brought up on a farm and knew something of riding.

“Hookey! You’re right there. Beggars and sand are about all I’ve seen in Egypt so far. I wonder the beggars haven’t bankrupted the rest of the populace.”

“Yes, yes, that’s what you are,” Herc assured him, “a black sheep, all right enough.”

The suggestion was greeted with cheers. The Jackies began to urge their donkeys into line.

Men from other ships cried for their favorites, but in the end Ned was forced to the front of the parade. One of the sailors began pounding on a big brass bowl that he had bought in the [253] bazaar. The cavalcade began to move off with a perfect army of beggars and donkey drivers following behind.

“Sing us ‘The Kearsage and the Alabama,’ Harness Cask!” hailed somebody, addressing the old sailor from the Manhattan whom we have encountered before.

“Chorus!” shouted Herc, and they swung into [254] it with a vim that made the walls of the houses on each side of the street vibrate.

Old Harness Cask had about forty verses for his favorite song, and the procession marched about the town till they were all finished. Then the return to the bazaar began. For some reason, as they entered its precincts Herc’s donkey was seized with a sudden fit of balking. It braced all four legs together and refused to move. Herc prodded and kicked, but all in vain.

“Twist his tail!” shouted a sailor, and half a dozen hands proceeded to do so.

Biff! Like a flash, out shot the long-eared creature’s hind legs, sending the tail-twisting tars [255] down in a heap. Lashing out right and left, the animal darted off.

“Whoa! Whoa!” shouted Herc, who had been taken all by surprise at the unexpected success of the experiment.

“Wow! I’m falling off!” he yelled the next instant. He fell forward and managed to clutch the donkey by the neck and one ear. This terrified the animal even more. Plunging and bucking like a fishing cobble in a storm he rushed about the bazaar, eluding all efforts to capture him.

Ned tumbled off his donkey and tried to grab Herc’s beast. But he was shaking so with laughter at the other’s plight that he made a botch of it and landed in a heap, narrowly missed by the donkey’s threshing heels.

Suddenly the donkey altered his tactics. As [256] swiftly as a rocket he sped for a large open store in which brassware of all descriptions and also Oriental confectionery were displayed for sale.

But he might as well have tried to stay the stars in their courses. With a wild bray the donkey dashed in a bee-line for the store.

The shouts of the tars behind the donkey made him go faster. From the store the proprietor, an enormously fat Egyptian, with a water-bowl pipe in his hand, came rushing out. He spread his arms and tried to stay the onrush of the donkey, to whose neck and ear Herc was still clinging.

Crash! the donkey collided with him like a battering ram. With a wild yell he fell over in the street, his pipe flying several feet and landing on old Harness Cask’s head.

Next came the turn of a water carrier who went down in the midst of a flood of his own wares, to the accompaniment of crashing jars. Never had there been such a time in that market-place. Then came the climax.

With an uproar like the falling down stairs of a hundred cookstoves, accompanied by their respective pots and pans, the donkey with Herc still valiantly clinging to it, plunged clean into the midst of the metalware shop. Brass kettles, vases, knick-knacks of a thousand kinds flew in every direction. Big pots of Oriental confectionery showered about Herc and the donkey, and to cap the climax down toppled a big jar of a sort of honey preserve, drenching Herc from head to foot with sticky sweetness.

Outside the store the Jackies howled with delight. Suddenly, however, through the mob came charging a squad of black police.

CHAPTER XXVI.
OFF FOR THE PYRAMIDS.

Out from the wreck Herc was hauled much the worse for wear, while another section of the police captured the donkey. Ned was angry. He stepped up to Herc and pointed an accusing finger at the red-headed youth.

“Wasn’t that the store owned by the man you said had cheated you on some post cards?”

“I reckon so,” rejoined Herc indifferently, trying to get the sticky confection with which he had been deluged out of his hair and off his uniform.

“Well, it’s up to you to do something. Look what disaster you have caused! Why, an eight-inch [259] shell couldn’t have provoked worse damage.”

“Oh, what do I care! I’d like to see a few shells coming into this bazaar and cleaning out some of the thieves that infest it.”

“That is no way to talk. See, here comes the owner of the place now. He looks mad. Maybe he’ll have you arrested.”

“What do you want me to do?” he inquired, rubbing his bruises. “I’ve a good mind to sue him for having his shop in the way of my donkey.”

The woe-begone store-keeper began muttering and wailing in Egyptian. Ned turned to the other sailors.

A shout of assent went up. The blue-jackets’ pockets were bulging with pay and many of them had good-sized deposits in the ships’ savings banks on board.

Ned snatched off his cap and received Meadows’ contribution. Then he shoved the cap under Herc’s nose. The red-headed youth looked at it as he might have looked at some strange animal.

“I won’t give him a cent,” he growled, the thought of his mad dash into the brass ware shop rankling in him. A dangerous gleam shone in Ned’s eyes, which Herc duly observed.

Herc hastened to relieve himself of a one dollar bill from a roll that was of generous girth. Quickly the other sailors gave their mites, and before long a good sum was turned over to the bazaarman, who was profuse in his expressions of thanks. But the sight of so much money had made the eyes of the bazaar beggars glitter greedily. They crowded hungrily about the sailors.

“You’ll get a black stick if you don’t get out of here in jig time,” roared Herc, who was aching to avenge his wrongs on somebody.

But the insolent fellows only pressed closer. They thrust filthy hands up under the blue-jackets’ very noses. One even began plucking at Ned’s pockets. This was too much.

He flung himself upon his donkey. The others, even including Herc, who had acquired a stray animal, followed suit. With a shout that re-echoed through the streets the Jackies charged pell-mell down on the mendicants, who scattered in every direction. The Nubian police made no effort to interfere but appeared rather to enjoy the spectacle.

“Come on, boys; supper and then a show of some kind, and then we’ll pipe down hammocks,” said Ned, when the mob had been dispersed. “We’ve got to be up early to-morrow to go aboard the great Pyramids.”

“Hurray for the Pyramids!” shouted a sailor, and the cheers were given with a vim. The lads were in a mood to cheer any and everything. Jack ashore is surely the quintessence of exuberant spirits. That night, at one of the best hotels in the city, the boys enjoyed the, to them, novel experience of sleeping in a bed. But their slumbers were not peaceful. They missed the roll and heave of the ship and they longed for their hammocks. None of them was sorry when it was time to get up and breakfast and then hurry to the station, from which a wheezy train was to convey them out into the desert toward the tombs of the Pharaohs.

They found the station full of bright-eyed young salts all eager for whatever the day might bring forth. The train was ready, and after a number of false starts and more excitement among the native officials than attends the sailing of a giant liner, it began to puff its way out over the glaring sands. At the Gizeh station, some [263] ten miles out of Cairo, they were told that the train went no farther.

“Herc, if you do anything like that again, you’ll be left behind,” spoke Ned, and the blue-jackets roared their endorsement of this dictum.

“Come ahead, then,” cried Ned, and led by the Dreadnought Boys the happy party set out from the station. A short distance outside they saw the “desert cruisers.” They lay with their legs folded under them and their upper lips sneeringly [264] curled. About them flitted the burnoosed owners of the beasts, fierce-looking Bedouins, although the only robbery they commit in these days is the fleecing of tourists.

“Wow! Look at the switch-backs!” cried Herc. “They’ve got double turrets.”

The camels scrambled to their feet. There was a chorus of dismay from the sailors.

“Only got twenty. Party take the others. Some of you can go on by special train, if you like.”

A great number of the blue-jackets preferred to go by train and only fifteen wished for camels. Among these latter were Ned and Herc.

“All ready,” said Ned, and then in obedience to sharp-barked commands from their owners, the ships of the desert folded their legs and sank majestically down on the sands.

“All aboard,” cried Ned; “one at a time. Take it easy. That’s it. Herc, you——”

But Herc had already mounted. He grabbed from the camel driver his short goad and jabbed it into his camel. The creature shot up as if it had been on springs and raced off across the desert at its top speed.

“Wow! Help! Ned! I’m sliding off!” Herc’s voice was carried back to them.

The red-headed boy was seen to careen over in his seat and make a frantic effort to grasp the camel’s rear hump.

But Herc, after a futile effort to retain his seat, slid gracefully to the desert, alighting in a [266] cloud of dust. The camel trotted back to the herd, leaving Herc to plod back over the hot sands amid a running fire of raillery from his ship-mates. But he took it all in good part, and soon they were off in earnest on their way to the Pyramids.

CHAPTER XXVII.
LOST IN THE KINGS’ TOMBS.

“Now for the Tombs, fellows,” cried Ned, after the party had gazed at the Sphinx, climbed the great Pyramid and enjoyed the fine view of the desert and the verdant Nile valley.

“The tombs! What’s the use of seeing a lot of moldy old tombs?” protested some of the sailors.

“Oh, all right. But Herc and I want to pay our respects to a few mummies before we leave Egypt,” responded Ned. “You fellows wait for us.”

“Where’s that guide? Oh, here he is. Now then, ‘Lead on, McDuff,’” cried Ned, and the two boys followed the guide up to a height of fifty [268] feet or more above the desert. Then they paused at a black hole.

“It looks like the subway. First time I ever heard of burying kings in the subway.”

Into the dark recesses of the tombs they plunged after the guide. It was almost insufferably hot and smelled musty and mouldy. In places the ceiling was low and they had to crawl on their hands and knees on the dusty floor.

“My uniform will be a fine sight when we get out of here,” grumbled Herc. “Just after I had all that sticky stuff cleaned off it, too!”

“Never mind. That dust will brush off,” declared Ned, and they went forward once more.

“Many. Lot of things not known about [269] Tombs. Nobody know everything about them.”

They finally came to a high-domed chamber. The walls were covered with queer hieroglyphics and writings. The guide explained that this was the King’s chamber. He showed them some stone coffins in which lay the mummified forms of dead and gone rulers. Ned was much impressed, but Herc, as usual, did not take the situation seriously.

“Maybe they are just a lot of fakes,” he remarked. But presently he tugged Ned’s sleeve.

“Look back there yourself. There, among the shadows. Don’t you see anything?”

“Don’t you think it might be the spooks of [270] some of those old kings snooping about to find out what we want in here?”

“Oh, ho! That’s it, eh? What do you know about that? Let’s turn the tables on them.”

“Good, we’ll slip away from the guide and hide off in that corridor there. When they come along we’ll give them a scare they won’t forget in a hurry.”

The guide was in another part of the Tomb chamber and the boys made a noiseless exit in the direction Ned had indicated. They crept into the shadows, chuckling in low tones over the scare they were going to give their fun-loving ship-mates. At last it grew quite dark. The boys decided to halt. Before long they heard something to confirm their theory. Whisperings began to draw near to them.

The boys made their way back along the passage. Suddenly Ned gave an amazed and rather alarmed exclamation.

“He’s vamoosed. Maybe he thought we’d gone out of our own accord. Say, Ned, I kind of wish we’d stayed with him.”

“So do I now. Well, we’ve got to make the best of it. Light up your candle, Herc, and then we’ll holler as loud as we can. If that does no good, we’ll have to try to get out of this place by ourselves.”

The boys began shouting at the top of their voices. But hollow echoes coming weirdly back from the stone walls of the burial chamber were the only response to their shouts. Suddenly Herc grabbed Ned’s arm.

“I’m glad you did. It’s some of our boys, for sure. Hullo, fellows!” hailed Ned. But no answer was vouchsafed. Ned began not to like the look of things a little bit.

For a long time the boys tried to find their way out of the Pyramid, but without success. Finally they came to a halt and exchanged dismayed glances.

“We might as well face the truth,” said Ned in sober tones; “we’re lost.”

“That’s right,” agreed Herc in melancholy fashion. “I wish we’d stayed outside.”

“Maybe we can get back to the burial chamber,” [273] suggested Ned, after a while. The boys were then standing in a passageway into which they had blundered in the hope that it might lead to daylight.

“I doubt it. I’ve not the remotest idea of where it is, and this Pyramid is simply honeycombed with passages.”

“The guide said nobody knew all about it. Maybe we are in one of those passages that haven’t been explored yet.”

“Back there in the darkness. There it is again,” said Herc, whispering himself.

“I hear it, too, now. What on earth is it? I wish we had some weapon. It may be thieves.”

“Look!” cried Herc suddenly. “It is thieves! I saw two men just for an instant.”

“Two of those beggars that we charged in Cairo last night. They slunk off when they saw I’d spotted them.”

In his agitation, Herc had allowed the candle that he was carrying to slip from his fingers. The boys were plunged in total darkness. To make matters worse, they couldn’t, although they groped in every direction, recover the candle.

The light flared up and the boys looked down for the candle. But at the same instant something totally unexpected happened. They felt themselves seized from behind in such a manner that they were powerless to resist. Then they were rushed rapidly along by their captors.

That sentence was never finished. The earth appeared to drop from under Herc’s feet and he felt himself plunging into unknown, unlit space. Suddenly he struck something and knew that he was sliding at express speed down an almost perpendicular wall of rock as smooth as glass.

“Wow! I’m going fully sixty miles an hour! Where will all this end?” exclaimed the boy.

Hardly had the words left his lips when he landed with a crash at the foot of the slope and lay still. He didn’t dare to move for some minutes, thinking that he must be seriously injured.

The next minute he gave a jump. Almost in his ear he heard his comrade’s reply.

“O. K., although I don’t see how we escaped injury. Gracious, that was a ride!”

“Yes, a kind of chute the chutes that I don’t [276] care to tackle again. Those rascals must have followed us out to the Pyramids to get revenge. I recognized one of them as the fellow I cracked in the eye. I reckon they ran us into one of those holes that the guide warned us about, and had hard work to save themselves!”

“Yes, and that’s some question, too. Wait; I’ll strike a match and maybe we can get some bearings.”

The match flared up and showed them that they were in a chamber not unlike the great burial Tomb, but smaller. Dust lay thick, and showed that it was many years since human footsteps had trodden its floor.

“This is nice,” snorted Herc. “We might stay here as long as those mummies have, and never be found.”

“It looks that way,” said Ned in a musing voice, as if he were thinking of something else. Suddenly he gave a whoop.

“Why, those fellows couldn’t have come into the Pyramid the same way we did. Our boys would have seen them and recognized their ugly mugs, especially that one with the black eye. They must have come in some other way. Maybe we can find that way.”

Striking matches sparingly, the boys set off. Soon they found themselves in another passage. On and on they went till their feet ached. They began to think that they never would get out of the place. Suddenly, just as Herc struck one of the few remaining matches, Ned leaned over with a sharp exclamation. He picked up something. It was a small, cheap ornament of Egyptian manufacture. But it was precious to him, for it [278] showed that the passage they were traversing was a traveled one. Herc received the news with shining eyes.

“Good; never say die. We’ll be out of here in two shakes of a duck’s tail. See if we’re not.”

They negotiated a sharp turn and then, to their astonishment, found that they were confronting a door of wood. From within came voices filtering out through a chink, for the door was not fully closed.

As it swung back, the boys got the surprise of their lives. Within was a chamber illumined by a smoky lamp and containing a divan and a few bits of Oriental furniture. On the divan were seated two men whom they recognized at once as the rascally beggars who had followed them to the Pyramids and trailed them in the dark.

Both men leaped to their feet as the boys confronted them. They dashed for two revolvers that lay in a niche in the wall.

CHAPTER XXVIII.
HOMEWARD BOUND.

“Don’t worry about me,” bawled out Herc as the boys leaped forward to intercept the two beggars. They reached the revolvers just one jump ahead of the two rascals, and the next instant the Egyptians found themselves gazing into the barrels of two wicked looking pistols.

“Be good,” grinned Herc. “I’m very nervous, and if you make trouble my finger might crook by accident on purpose.”

“Then lead us out of here at once, or——” he flourished the pistol he held menacingly.

The man grunted and said something to his [280] companion, who shrugged his shoulders. Then each with a Dreadnought Boy pressing a pistol to his back, the two sullen beggars marched off down a passage which they said would lead to the desert. They told the truth. Before long the lads and their guides emerged at the foot of the Pyramid and were met by a glare of dazzling sunlight.

“So am I. It is coming suddenly into the bright sunlight out of that dark hole.”

The boys blinked and winked, but everything was black for a time. Then when they opened their eyes they got a surprise. Taking advantage of their temporary blindness, the two beggars had slipped off.

“Well, let them go,” said Ned. “We haven’t got time to prosecute them anyhow. Let’s join our ship-mates.”

“Certainly, I shall do that. I believe those fellows must have made a practice of tracking and robbing people in the Pyramid. They would have robbed us if they hadn’t pushed us into that hole by mistake, I think.”

And Ned was right. The two Dreadnought Boys had discovered what had long puzzled the authorities; namely, the hiding place of the rascals who tracked travelers whom they thought had money and robbed them in the Pyramid. The lair that they had made for themselves was destroyed and ultimately many of them were captured and imprisoned.

The boys rejoined their ship-mates and a wonderful tale they had to tell. It appeared that the guide, when he missed them, concluded that they had started back for the entrance of the Pyramid and set out after them, just as they had supposed was the case.

That night they returned to the ship, although their leave had not yet expired. Like many of [282] their ship-mates they had seen quite enough of Egypt and were impatient to get to sea again. Two days later the canal was traversed and the battle fleet entered the Mediterranean, en route for Gibraltar.

The first sight of the famous rock made the boys enthusiastic. It looked just like it did in the pictures, and they thrilled as they gazed at the wonderful fortifications, although naval experts have doubted if, for all their formidable appearance, the guns of Gibraltar could stop a hostile fleet of modern ships from entering the Mediterranean.

Ned and Herc got leave to go ashore that afternoon and left in one of the first liberty boats. They found much that was strange and interesting in the historic rock, which is galleried and tunneled like an ant’s nest. Red-coated British soldiers were strutting about everywhere, for the place is kept heavily garrisoned.

They soon tired of the town, though, and after [283] purchasing and posting numerous post-cards to their friends at home, they roamed off up a steeply winding road. As they rose higher they had a fine view of the fleet lying at anchor and of the distant coast of Africa. Behind them, connected with the rock by a narrow strip of sandy land, was Spain.

They passed several sentries, all of whom gave them a friendly nod. All at once they came to an iron gate, which was locked.

“There’s no sign on it,” rejoined Herc. “I don’t see why we can’t go right on.”

“If we climb it,—yes. But we might get into trouble. I hear that there are parts of this rock where no foreigner is allowed.”

“Well, this can’t be one of them or there’d be a sentry here. Look, there’s another gate down there. Let’s try that one. I’d like to get right to the top of the rock by the signal-tower.”

It was open and the boys passed through. The path wound steeply upward. They rounded a shoulder of rock and a magnificent view burst upon them. They were still admiring it when a heavy hand was laid on Ned’s shoulder. Simultaneously somebody tapped Herc in a similar manner.

The next minute he was destined to be more astonished. He wheeled indignantly and saw a file of scarlet-coated soldiers behind them in charge of a sergeant. The sergeant motioned to the two Dreadnought Boys.

“Through a gate. It was unlocked and no sentry on duty, so we thought it was all right.”

“The sentries were being changed and for the minute there was not one there. That does not excuse you.”

“That makes it all the worse. We don’t like Yankees prowling around here.”

“Pooh! I could blow your old rock out of the water with one of our guns!” sputtered Herc, very red in the face.

“Where are you taking us?” asked Ned, as the file moved off, marching on each side of the boys.

The officer of the day proved to be a snappy man with a huge moustache and a monocle. He wasted no time over ordering the boys confined. To their protests he paid not the slightest heed. He refused even to communicate with the ship.

“I must lay the matter before the higher authorities,” [286] he said. “It looks to me as if you have committed a grave offense. You must be locked up pending further developments.”

“Ah! So you have been in trouble before? Dangerous characters, eh?” said the officer triumphantly.

“What do you mean?” exclaimed Ned indignantly. “We are American sailors. You can speedily find out all about us by communicating with our ship.”

No reply was vouchsafed and the boys were marched off to the guardhouse and placed in a cell. That they could see the ships made the situation all the more annoying. Suddenly Ned had an idea.

“No. You know that big souvenir picture handkerchief I got down below in the town?”

“So much the better. I mean to ‘wig-wag’ the fleet with it and tell them the fix we are in.”

“Say, Ned,” cried Herc enthusiastically, “you ought to be a judge or a lawyer or an inventor or something.”

Ned pulled out his handkerchief and began wig-wagging with it. A sentry on duty in front of the cells, which were open-fronted to admit cool air, looked at him in surprise, but said nothing.

About that time the officer of the deck on the Manhattan happened to have his official spy-glass leveled at the rock. He saw the signal that Ned was so frantically waving and summoned a signalman.

“Signalman! Somebody is wig-wagging us from the rock. Take the glasses and see what they want.”

It was not long before Ned had conveyed by his ingenious plan a clear idea of their predicament to those on the flag-ship. Captain Dunham was informed of the matter.

“Yes, sir; but it was not their fault. The British are very touchy about their rock and suspect everybody of being spies. I guess that’s how it happened.”

“No doubt you are right,” said the captain, when he had heard further details.

The captain went to the Governor-General, before whom he laid the case. The Governor-General happened to be a good-natured man and when Captain Dunham had told him of one or two of the boys’ pranks, he ordered their release forthwith.

“But, in order to uphold discipline, I must ask you not to allow them ashore again during the fleet’s stay here,” he said. “If they came on the rock again it would look as if the officer who caused their arrest was being flouted.”

“That seems rather an arbitrary ruling,” remarked Captain Dunham, “but I will see that it is carried out.”

“Thank you. I shall meet you at the official dinner to-night”; and the two dignitaries bowed ceremoniously and parted.

The door was unlocked and Ned and Herc were led out to meet a file of their ship-mates on the broad grin.

“Taylor and Strong,” said the man in charge of the detail, “we are to escort you on board.”

“You couldn’t escort us anywhere we’d rather [290] go,” declared Herc, vehemently. “I’ll be glad when we get our anchors up for the good old U. S. A. I’m sick of foreign countries.”

“You will tell your captain that you are not to come ashore again while your ship is in port,” snapped out the sergeant who had arrested the boys.

“Thanks. We don’t tell our captain what to do. Do you order yours about?” asked Ned sweetly.

“Run along, old boiled lobster,” shot out Herc. “You couldn’t pay me to come ashore on your old rock again.”

Half an hour later the boat containing the patrol drew alongside the port gangway of the Manhattan . Ned and Herc were marched on deck as if they had been prisoners. The master-at-arms met them.

“Wow! We’re in for a dose of the brig,” muttered Herc, “and through no fault of our own.”

Feeling anything but “very well,” the boys marched aft and presently the orderly was announcing them to the captain.

“Come in, my lads,” was what they heard, and in they marched and stood stiffly at attention, after saluting.

“Let me give you lads some good advice,” said the captain kindly. “I’m not rebuking you, but it is best when ashore in foreign countries to be careful of hurting other nations’ feelings or trespassing on places which they regard as sacred and private. I want you to be more careful in the future.”

“I suppose that promise holds good till the next time,” he thought to himself.

“I have been much pleased with the conduct of you lads on this cruise and with you particularly, Strong. Your gunnery at night practice was excellent. You, too, Taylor, have done good work and both your names will be sent in to Washington for promotion.”

“Oh, thank you, sir!” blurted out both boys, scarlet with pleasure and with shining eyes.

“That is all, except something that the consul ashore wanted me to give you, Strong.”

He handed Ned an envelope; and then resuming his “quarter-deck” voice told the boys they could “carry on.”

They saluted and left the sacred precincts of the commander’s cabin. When they got forward, Ned opened the envelope. It contained a pink slip of paper and a note on official stationery.

The note explained that the government had forwarded the check to Gibraltar so that Ned might get it on his arrival there. It was the longstanding federal reward for the capture of Schmidt and the ring of San Francisco tea smugglers.

Two days later anchors were shipped, and the great fleet with booming of guns and blaring of bands got under way. They were homeward bound. From the peak of each leviathan fluttered the long “homeward-bound pennant.” As the shores of Europe sank below the horizon, the Jackies broke into song.

Herc was uproarious over his coming promotion, which was almost certain, as the captain had recommended it. But Ned was serious and [294] thoughtful. In a short time his days as a Jackie would be over forever. He would no more sling his hammock, but sleep in a bunk and mess with the chief petty officers. Another milestone of life had been passed and before him lay the future. It loomed big with opportunity and responsibility. Those who care to follow the careers of the Dreadnought Boys yet further may learn how the lads acquitted themselves in their new positions by reading the next volume of this series.

The lads were on the brink of adventures and thrilling experiences beyond what they had hitherto known. Yet they were ready to meet either fun or peril with the spirit of the true blue-jacket—the spirit that has made our navy the wonderful force that it is. And so here we say, “Good-bye, ship-mates,” and “Pipe down hammocks,” till we meet again in the forthcoming volume:—“ THE DREADNOUGHT BOYS IN HOME WATERS. ”

The Boy Aviators in Nicaragua
Or, Leagued With Insurgents

The launching of this Twentieth Century series marks the inauguration of a new era in boys’ books—the “wonders of modern science” epoch. Frank and Harry Chester, the Boy Aviators , are the heroes of this exciting, red-blooded tale of adventure by air and land in the turbulent Central American republic. The two brothers with their $10,000 prize aeroplane, the Golden Eagle , rescue a chum from death in the clutches of the Nicaraguans, discover a lost treasure valley of the ancient Toltec race, and in so doing almost lose their own lives in the Abyss of the White Serpents, and have many other exciting experiences, including being blown far out to sea in their air-skimmer in a tropical storm. It would be unfair to divulge the part that wireless plays in rescuing them from their predicament. In a brand new field of fiction for boys the Chester brothers and their aeroplane seem destined to fill a top-notch place. These books are technically correct, wholesomely thrilling and geared up to third speed.

The Boy Aviators on Secret Service
Or, Working With Wireless

In this live-wire narrative of peril and adventure, laid in the Everglades of Florida, the spunky Chester Boys and their interesting chums, including Ben Stubbs, the maroon, encounter exciting experiences on Uncle Sam’s service in a novel field. One must read this vivid, enthralling story of incident, hardship and pluck to get an idea of the almost limitless possibilities of the two greatest inventions of modern times—the aeroplane and wireless telegraphy. While gripping and holding the reader’s breathless attention from the opening words to the finish, this swift-moving story is at the same time instructive and uplifting. As those readers who have already made friends with Frank and Harry Chester and their ‘bunch’ know, there are few difficulties, no matter how insurmountable they may seem at first blush, that these up-to-date gritty youths cannot overcome with flying colors. A clean-cut, real boys’ book of high voltage.

The Boy Aviators in Africa
Or, An Aerial Ivory Trail

In this absorbing book we meet, on a Continent made famous by the American explorer Stanley, and ex-President Roosevelt, our old friends, the Chester Boys and their stalwart chums. In Africa—the Dark Continent—the author follows in exciting detail his young heroes, their voyage in the first aeroplane to fly above the mysterious forests and unexplored ranges of the mystic land. In this book, too, for the first time, we entertain Luther Barr, the old New York millionaire, who proved later such an implacable enemy of the boys. The story of his defeated schemes, of the astonishing things the boys discovered in the Mountains of the Moon, of the pathetic fate of George Desmond, the emulator of Stanley, the adventure of the Flying Men and the discovery of the Arabian Ivory cache,—this is not the place to speak. It would be spoiling the zest of an exciting tale to reveal the outcome of all these episodes here. It may be said, however, without “giving away” any of the thrilling chapters of this narrative, that Captain Wilbur Lawton, the author, is in it in his best vein, and from his personal experiences in Africa has been able to supply a striking background for the adventures of his young heroes. As one newspaper says of this book: “Here is adventure in good measure, pressed down and running over.”

The Boy Aviators’ Treasure Quest
Or, The Golden Galleon

Everybody is a boy once more when it comes to the question of hidden treasure. In this book, Captain Lawton has set forth a hunt for gold that is concealed neither under the sea nor beneath the earth, but is well hidden for all that. A garrulous old sailor, who holds the key to the mystery of the Golden Galleon, plays a large part in the development of the plot of this fascinating narrative of treasure hunting in the region of the Gulf Stream and the Sargasso Sea. An aeroplane fitted with efficient pontoons—enabling her to skim the water successfully—has long been a dream of aviators. The Chester Boys seem to have solved the problem. The Sargasso, that strange drifting ocean within an ocean, holding ships of a dozen nations and a score of ages, in its relentless grip, has been the subject of many books of adventure and mystery, but in none has the secret of the ever shifting mass of treacherous currents been penetrated as it has in the BOY AVIATORS’ TREASURE QUEST. Luther Barr, whom it seemed the boys had shaken off, is still on their trail, in this absorbing book and with a dirigible balloon, essays to beat them out in their search for the Golden Galleon. Every boy, every man—and woman and girl—who has ever felt the stirring summons of adventure in their souls, had better get hold of this book. Once obtained, it will be read and re-read till it falls to rags.

The Boy Aviators in Record Flight
Or, The Rival Aeroplane

The Chester Boys in a new field of endeavor—an attempt to capture a newspaper prize for a trans-continental flight. By the time these lines are read, exactly such an offer will have been spread broadcast by one of the foremost newspapers of the country. In the Golden Eagle, the boys, accompanied by a trail-blazing party in an automobile, make the dash. But they are not alone in their aspirations. Their rivals for the rich prize at stake try in every way that they can to circumvent the lads and gain the valuable trophy and monetary award. In this they stop short at nothing, and it takes all the wits and resources of the Boy Aviators to defeat their devices. Among the adventures encountered in their cross-country flight, the boys fall in with a band of rollicking cow-boys—who momentarily threaten serious trouble—are attacked by Indians, strike the most remarkable town of the desert—the “dry” town of “Gow Wells,” encounter a sandstorm which blows them into strange lands far to the south of their course, and meet with several amusing mishaps beside. A thoroughly readable book. The sort to take out behind the barn on the sunny side of the haystack, and, with a pocketful of juicy apples and your heels kicking the air, pass happy hours with Captain Lawton’s young heroes.

The Boy Aviators’ Polar Dash
Or, Facing Death in the Antarctic

If you were to hear that two boys, accompanying a South Polar expedition in charge of the aeronautic department, were to penetrate the Antarctic regions—hitherto only attained by a few daring explorers—you would feel interested, wouldn’t you? Well, in Captain Lawton’s latest book, concerning his Boy Aviators, you can not only read absorbing adventure in the regions south of the eightieth parallel, but absorb much useful information as well. Captain Lawton introduces—besides the original characters of the heroes—a new creation in the person of Professor Simeon Sandburr, a patient seeker for polar insects. The professor’s adventures in his quest are the cause of much merriment, and lead once or twice to serious predicaments. In a volume so packed with incident and peril from cover to cover—relieved with laughable mishaps to the professor—it is difficult to single out any one feature; still, a recent reader of it wrote the publishers an enthusiastic letter the other day, saying: “The episodes above the Great Barrier are thrilling, the attack of the condors in Patagonia made me hold my breath, the—but what’s the use? The Polar Dash, to my mind, is an even more entrancing book than Captain Lawton’s previous efforts, and that’s saying a good deal. The aviation features and their technical correctness are by no means the least attractive features of this up-to-date creditable volume.”

Blest with natural curiosity,—sometimes called the instinct of investigation,—favored with golden opportunity, and gifted with creative ability, the Boy Inventors meet emergencies and contrive mechanical wonders that interest and convince the reader because they always “work” when put to the test.

A thought, a belief, an experiment; discouragement, hope, effort and final success—this is the history of many an invention; a history in which excitement, competition, danger, despair and persistence figure. This merely suggests the circumstances which draw the daring Boy Inventors into strange experiences and startling adventures, and which demonstrate the practical use of their vanishing gun.

As in the previous stories of the Boy Inventors, new and interesting triumphs of mechanism are produced which become immediately valuable, and the stage for their proving and testing is again the water. On the surface and below it, the boys have jolly, contagious fun, and the story of their serious, purposeful inventions challenge the reader’s deepest attention.

What it meant to make an enemy of Black Ramon De Barios—that is the problem that Jack Merrill and his friends, including Coyote Pete, face in this exciting tale.

Read of the Haunted Mesa and its mysteries, of the Subterranean River and its strange uses, of the value of gasolene and steam “in running the gauntlet,” and you will feel that not even the ancient splendors of the Old World can furnish a better setting for romantic action than the Border of the New.

As every day is making history—faster, it is said, than ever before—so books that keep pace with the changes are full of rapid action and accurate facts. This book deals with lively times on the Mexican border.

The Border Boys have already had much excitement and adventure in their lives, but all this has served to prepare them for the experiences related in this volume. They are stronger, braver and more resourceful than ever, and the exigencies of their life in connection with the Texas Rangers demand all their trained ability.

How Frank’s summer experience with his boy friends make him into a sturdy young athlete through swimming, boating, and baseball contests, and a tramp through the Everglades, is the subject of this splendid story.

We find among the jolly boys at Queen’s School, Frank, the student-athlete, Jimmy, the baseball enthusiast, and Lewis, the unconsciously-funny youth who furnishes comedy for every page that bears his name. Fall and winter sports between intensely rival school teams are expertly described.

The gymnasium, the track and the field make the background for the stirring events of this volume, in which David, Jimmy, Lewis, the “Wee One” and the “Codfish” figure, while Frank “saves the day.”

With the same persistent determination that won him success in swimming, running and baseball playing, Frank Armstrong acquired the art of “drop kicking,” and the Queen’s football team profits thereby.

Especially interesting and timely is this book which introduces the reader with its heroes, Ned and Herc, to the great ships of modern warfare and to the intimate life and surprising adventures of Uncle Sam’s sailors.

In this story real dangers threaten and the boys’ patriotism is tested in a peculiar international tangle. The scene is laid on the South American coast.

To the inventive genius—trade-school boy or mechanic—this story has special charm, perhaps, but to every reader its mystery and clever action are fascinating.

Among the volunteers accepted for Aero Service are Ned and Herc. Their perilous adventures are not confined to the air, however, although they make daring and notable flights in the name of the Government; nor are they always able to fly beyond the reach of their old “enemies,” who are also airmen.

This is an absorbing story of the continuous adventures of a motor car in the hands of Nat Trevor and his friends. It does seemingly impossible “stunts,” and yet everything happens “in the nick of time.”

Enemies in ambush, the peril of fire, and the guarding of treasure make exciting times for the Motor Rangers—yet there is a strong flavor of fun and freedom, with a typical Western mountaineer for spice.

The strange adventures of the sturdy craft “Nomad” and the stranger experiences of the Rangers themselves with Morello’s schooner and a mysterious derelict form the basis of this well-spun yarn of the sea.

From the “Nomad” to the “Discoverer,” from the sea to the sky, the scene changes in which the Motor Rangers figure. They have experiences “that never were on land or sea,” in heat and cold and storm, over mountain peak and lost city, with savages and reptiles; their ship of the air is attacked by huge birds of the air; they survive explosion and earthquake; they even live to tell the tale!

How the Bungalow Boys received their title and how they retained the right to it in spite of much opposition makes a lively narrative for lively boys.

A real treasure hunt of the most thrilling kind, with a sunken Spanish galleon as its object, makes a subject of intense interest at any time, but add to that a band of desperate men, a dark plot and a devil fish, and you have the combination that brings strange adventures into the lives of the Bungalow Boys.

The clever assistance of a young detective saves the boys from the clutches of Chinese smugglers, of whose nefarious trade they know too much. How the Professor’s invention relieves a critical situation is also an exciting incident of this book.

The Bungalow Boys start out for a quiet cruise on the Great Lakes and a visit to an island. A storm and a band of wreckers interfere with the serenity of their trip, and a submarine adds zest and adventure to it.

Under peculiarly trying circumstances Ben Stone wins his way at Oakdale Academy, and at the same time enlists our sympathy, interest and respect. Through the enmity of Bern Hayden, the loyalty of Roger Eliot and the clever work of the “Sleuth,” Ben is falsely accused, championed and vindicated.

“One thing I will claim, and that is that all Grants fight open and square and there never was a sneak among them.” It was Rodney Grant, of Texas, who made the claim to his friend, Ben Stone, and this story shows how he proved the truth of this statement in the face of apparent evidence to the contrary.

Baseball is the main theme of this interesting narrative, and that means not only clear and clever descriptions of thrilling games, but an intimate acquaintance with the members of the teams who played them. The Oakdale Boys were ambitious and loyal, and some were even disgruntled and jealous, but earnest, persistent work won out.

The typical vacation is the one that means much freedom, little restriction, and immediate contact with “all outdoors.” These conditions prevailed in the summer camp of the Oakdale Boys and made it a scene of lively interest.

The “Sleuth” scents a mystery! He “follows his nose.” The plot thickens! He makes deductions. There are surprises for the reader—and for the “Sleuth,” as well.

A new element creeps into Oakdale with another year’s registration of students. The old and the new standards of conduct in and out of school meet, battle, and cause sweeping changes in the lives of several of the boys.

BOY SCOUT SERIES

BY
LIEUT. HOWARD PAYSON

MODERN BOY SCOUT STORIES FOR BOYS

Cloth Bound, Price 50¢ per volume.

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.

Sold by Booksellers Everywhere.

Hurst & Co., Publishers New York

BOY SCOUT SERIES

BY
LIEUT. HOWARD PAYSON

MODERN BOY SCOUT STORIES FOR BOYS

Cloth Bound Price, 50¢ per volume.

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.

Sold by Booksellers Everywhere.

Hurst & Co., Publishers New York

Could Jules Verne have dreamed of encircling the globe with a motor cycle for emergencies he would have deemed it an achievement greater than any he describes in his account of the amusing travels of Phileas Fogg. This, however, is the purpose successfully carried out by the Motor Cycle Chums, and the tale of their mishaps, hindrances and delays is one of intense interest, secret amusement, and incidental information to the reader.

The Great Northwest is a section of vast possibilities and in it the Motor Cycle Chums meet adventures even more unusual and exciting than many of their experiences on their tour around the world. There is not a dull page in this lively narrative of clever boys and their attendant “Chinee.”

The gold fever which ran its rapid course through the veins of the historic “forty-niners” recurs at certain intervals, and seizes its victims with almost irresistible power. The search for gold is so fascinating to the seekers that hardship, danger and failure are obstacles that scarcely dampen their ardour. How the Motor Cycle Chums were caught by the lure of the gold and into what difficulties and novel experiences they were led, makes a tale of thrilling interest.

Roy Prescott was fortunate in having a sister so clever and devoted to him and his interests that they could share work and play with mutual pleasure and to mutual advantage. This proved especially true in relation to the manufacture and manipulation of their aeroplane, and Peggy won well deserved fame for her skill and good sense as an aviator. There were many stumbling-blocks in their terrestrial path but they soared above them all to ultimate success.

That there is a peculiar fascination about aviation that wins and holds girl enthusiasts as well as boys is proved by this tale. On golden wings the girl aviators rose for many an exciting flight, and met strange and unexpected experiences.

To most girls a coaching or yachting trip is an adventure. How much more perilous an adventure a “sky cruise” might be is suggested by the title and proved by the story itself.

The delicacy of flight suggested by the word “butterfly,” the mechanical power implied by “motor,” the ability to control assured in the title “aviator,” all combined with the personality and enthusiasm of girls themselves, make this story one for any girl or other reader “to go crazy over.”

Would you like to admit to your circle of friends the most charming of college girls—the typical college girl for whom we are always looking but not always finding; the type that contains so many delightful characteristics, yet without unpleasant perfection in any; the natural, unaffected, sweet-tempered girl, loved because she is lovable? Then seek an introduction to Molly Brown. You will find the baggage-master, the cook, the Professor of English Literature, and the College President in the same company.

What is more delightful than a re-union of college girls after the summer vacation? Certainly nothing that precedes it in their experience—at least, if all class-mates are as happy together as the Wellington girls of this story. Among Molly’s interesting friends of the second year is a young Japanese girl, who ingratiates her “humbly” self into everybody’s affections speedily and permanently.

Financial stumbling blocks are not the only things that hinder the ease and increase the strength of college girls. Their troubles and their triumphs are their own, often peculiar to their environment. How Wellington students meet the experiences outside the class-rooms is worth the doing, the telling and the reading.

Southworth Books

All by E. D. E. N. SOUTHWORTH

A charming novelist, whose writings are brimful of action. Mrs. Southworth is the magnet around which other novelists centre. We publish twenty-seven of her best works. The titles are:

Allworth Abbey.
Beautiful Fiend, A.
Bride’s Fate, The.
Bride of Llewellyn.
Capitola, the Madcap.
Changed Brides.
Cruel as the Grave.
Curse of Clifton, The.
Deserted Wife.
Discarded Daughter.
Hidden Hand.
India.
Ishmael; or, In the Depths.
Lost Heiress, The.
Lost Heir of Linlithgow.
Miriam the Avenger.
Missing Bride, The.
Mother-in-Law, The.
Mystery of a Dark Hollow.
Noble Lord.
Retribution.
Self-Raised; or, From the Depths.
Three Beauties, The.
Tried for Her Life.
Victor’s Triumph.
Vivia.
Widow’s Son.

Price, 50c. per volume, ( COST OF MAILING INCLUDED. )

Our complete catalogue is yours by asking for it.

HURST & CO., Publishers, NEW YORK

A handsome little series of books by that popular writer of books for the little folks— Sophie May . This authoress knows how to please the young people and countless numbers of these stories have been sold. We issue them at a popular price.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DREADNOUGHT BOYS' WORLD CRUISE ***

Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will be renamed.

Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away—you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark license, especially commercial redistribution.

START: FULL LICENSE

PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work (or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project Gutenberg™ License available with this file or online at www.gutenberg.org/license.

Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works

1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™ electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property (trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in your possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project Gutenberg™ electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.

1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg™ electronic works even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project Gutenberg™ electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.

1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the United States and you are located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg™ works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg™ name associated with the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg™ License when you share it without charge with others.

1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project Gutenberg™ work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any country other than the United States.

1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:

1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must appear prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg™ work (any work on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, copied or distributed:

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org . If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg™ trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is posted with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked to the Project Gutenberg™ License for all works posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.

1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg™ License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg™.

1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project Gutenberg™ License.

1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg™ work in a format other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official version posted on the official Project Gutenberg™ website (www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg™ License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.

1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™ works unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works provided that:

• You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the method you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, but he has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in Section 4, “Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.”
• You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™ License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™ works.
• You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of receipt of the work.
• You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works.

1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.

1.F.

1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™ electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.

1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further opportunities to fix the problem.

1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.

1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.

1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any Defect you cause.

Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg™

Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from people in all walks of life.

Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg™’s goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™ collection will remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure and permanent future for Project Gutenberg™ and future generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org.

Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit 501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws.

The Foundation’s business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact

Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation

Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without widespread public support and donations to carry out its mission of increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations ($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt status with the IRS.

The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate .

While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who approach us with offers to donate.

International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.

Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate.

Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg™ electronic works

Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.

Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several printed editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.

Most people start at our website which has the main PG search facility: www.gutenberg.org .

This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™, including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.