it will be
tough luck if each one can't find some one who has enough food to sell
a little of it."

"How soon are we going to start?" asked Eph, hopefully.

"Well, supper time will be the best time to go through the villages,"
decided the young submarine skipper "If Millard has taken refuge with
anyone who lives in one of these villages, he'll be more likely to show
himself at supper time than at any other."

"It won't take long to look into each of the houses," muttered Hal.
"There aren't many in any one of the villages."

"If we don't espy our man at table," Captain Jack went on, "we'll have
to try other means of finding him out. You two will know what to do
when you're on the ground. If Millard is anywhere in the village that
you go to look through, don't fail to find him--that's all."

Jack chose, for himself, the northernmost village. Hal took the next
one, and Eph the southernmost.

"Now, remember, fellows," breathed Benson, sharply, as they parted,
"the one great thing is not to fail!"

The night was dark and the sky overcast as the submarine boys parted to
go their several ways.

"I think I can understand how Eph feels about his stomach," grimaced
Jack, as he strode along. "I don't believe I'd balk, just now, at the
plainest food ever cooked. Why, I haven't eaten since this morning!"

The evening being rather warm, most of the houses, as Jack neared the
village, proved to have open windows. Lights shone, and the fishermen
and their families could be seen at table.

No one appeared in the street, at first. Jack strolled down the
principal street, looking into each house without much difficulty. Yet
the one face that he sought was not visible.

Down at the further end of the street Benson came upon a
tumble-down-looking grocery store.

"What kind of sandwiches can you put me up?" queried the submarine
boy, casually.

"Stranger, eh?" asked the man behind the counter, staring curiously.

"Yes; haven't you had any other strangers here lately?"

"Not as I knows on," replied the man, a shaggy, unkempt-looking fellow
of forty.

"None here to-day, eh?" asked Jack, taking out a half-dollar and toying
with it on the counter.

"Don't remember anybody very special," replied the storekeeper.

"You haven't answered me about the kinds of sandwiches you can put up,"
Jack reminded him.

"Not very fancy in that line, young feller. Cheese, or sardines;
that's all."

"Give me three of each, then,