were portrayed.

It was rather an exciting time, the passengers dropping overboard from
the sinking schooner, and being rescued in boats. Russ, on board the
_Ajax_, which was again put into the sea, worked the camera. The _Mary
Ellen_ made a more realistic wreck than had been hoped for. Former
Captain Brisco and Hen Lacomb, alone, refused to take any part in the
drama.

At last the final film was run off, the last rescue was made by the
motor craft and small boats, and all, passengers and crew, from the
sinking schooner, were taken aboard the _Sirius_.

"There she goes!" said Alice softly, as, with a final lurch, and a
blowing up of her decks, from the compressed air under them, the old
craft, bow first went beneath the waves. Russ took the final pictures.

"Game to the last!" said Captain Jepson. "She went down bow on, to show
she wasn't afraid of Davy Jones! That's the last of her, and the last of
Brisco's schemes to get her for his own use."

"Tell me about that now," suggested Mr. Pertell. "I have time to listen
now, for we aren't trying to save a sinking ship."

They were all now safely aboard the steamer, which had resumed her
course. The moving pictures had all been taken, save some that needed a
shore background, and these could be done later.

"Did Brisco really plot to get the _Mary Ellen_?" asked the manager.

"He did," said Jack Jepson. "I'll tell you the whole story." And he did.
Briefly it was this:

On his first trip to the schooner, Jack had recognized Brisco as an
unscrupulous man who had been engaged in several shady ship
transactions. But Brisco denied his identity, and Jack pretended to have
been mistaken, in order to throw him off his guard. Brisco was also,
Jack said, one of the mutineers of the _Halcyon_, but the plotter
denied this, and Jack admitted he may have been mistaken.

Then came the advent of Hen Lacomb, whom Jepson recognized as a fellow
plotter with Brisco. The evil men knew him, too, after a bit, but they
counted on the charge of mutiny hanging over him to make him keep quiet,
and not reveal their plot.

Brisco and Lacomb plotted to get the schooner for themselves. They were
not really going to endanger the lives of the passengers or crew, but
their game was to only pretend to sink the ship, and to raise such an
alarm that she would be hastily abandoned. Then they would come back to
her later, salvage her, and use her for their own ends.

Jack Jepson had overheard this