ked Vi.

"Oh, that's too old," Russ declared. "We can play that at any time.
Let's go and listen to the wireless spark. When we get to that
plantation where we are going maybe I can set up a wireless mast and we
will send messages."

"To Grandma Bell? And to Aunt Jo?" asked Vi.

"Oh!" cried Laddie, "let's send one to Cowboy Jack. I know he'd be glad
to hear from us."

So Russ turned the interest of his brothers and sisters away from the
castaway play. All but Rose. She wondered just what it was that was
troubling Russ and what the lifeboat had to do with it.

But there were so many new things to be interested in aboard the
steamship that even Rose forgot to be puzzled after a while. Their
friend, the quartermaster, took them all over the ship. They saw the
engines working, and peered down into the stoke hole which was very hot
and where the firemen worked in their undershirts and trousers and a
great clanging of shovels and furnace doors was going on.

"I guess the steampipes always hum on this boat," remarked Laddie. "It
is not like it was at Aunt Jo's before that Sam boy came to make the
furnace go."

Whether the steampipes hummed or not, the children found that it was
quite balmy on the boat. Although a strong breeze almost always blew, it
was a warm one. They had long since entered into the Gulf Stream and the
warm current seemed to warm the air more and more as the _Kammerboy_
sailed southward.

It was only two hours after passing the schooner that was in distress
when they "spoke," as the quartermaster called it, the revenue cutter
which had been sent to help the disabled vessel, steaming swiftly toward
the point of the compass where the schooner was wallowing. Mr. Sparks,
as the wireless operator was called, had exchanged messages with the
Government vessel and he told the little Bunkers that the lumber
schooner would be towed into Hampton Roads, from which the cutter had
come.

All this time Russ Bunker stayed away from the covered boat on the
hurricane deck. Daddy Bunker, as well as Rose, began to wonder at the
boy's odd behavior. When dinner time came, Mr. Bunker watched his oldest
son sharply.

"Can I go out on deck again for a while?" asked Russ politely, as he
moved back his chair at the end of the meal.

"I don't see why you can't. And Rose too," said their mother. "It is not
yet dark. But you other children must come with me."

They had all played so hard that it was no cross for the littl