rough the rapidly gathering crowd. He reached Jack
Benson just as the latter leaped up, laughing.

"Why all this excitement, just because I stubbed my toe against a
dew-drop and fell?" demanded Benson, laughing.

"Weren't you shot?" gasped Hal.

"If I was, I'll make the rascal prove it," asked back Captain Jack.
"But, now you mention it, I think the tree _was_ hit."

Jack turned and looked the tree trunk over at about the height of his
own head from the ground.

"See here," he remarked, laying a finger on a small perforation in the
bark, "I think a bullet, or something of the sort, went in here."

"We'll soon find out then," proposed Hal, whipping out his jack-knife,
opening a blade and beginning to dig. The crowd grew in size. Messrs.
Farnum and Pollard had great difficulty in forcing their way through.

After some time spent in patient work Hal dug out a steel-jacketed
bullet, short and of small calibre.

"You want to find the man with a weapon that bullet fits, and then make
it warm for him," advised one man in the front rank of the crowd.

"Why?" queried Captain Jack, coolly, examining the missile, then dropping
it carelessly into his pocket. "Some fellow fired an accidental shot,
very likely, and is at this moment the most scared man at Spruce Beach.
What's the use of jumping on anyone just because he had a moment of
carelessness?"

"That's right, young level-head!" nodded another man, approvingly.

Messrs. Farnum and Pollard hung back somewhat. They were near enough
to hear and see, and they had their instant suspicions. But the crowd
knew nothing of the spy outrages, and it was not necessary to inform
strangers.

So, within a few minutes the crowd broke up, straying off in quest of
something more interesting. The submarine party kept on up to the hotel
porch.

"That was a revengeful move, pure and simple," declared Jacob Farnum, in
a low voice.

"Of course," assented Jack. "It's going to be something of a task
though, to find out, for certain, just who fired that shot."

Even as the four stood there on the veranda a door opened, and M.
Lemaire, faultlessly attired for an afternoon stroll, stepped out.

"Ah, good afternoon, gentlemen," was his unconcerned greeting, as he
recognized the quartette.

This French spy had evidently dressed himself with a good deal of care.
He carried himself with much precision and lightly twirled a natty cane.

"Pardon me, monsieur," spoke Jack, stepping