y!"

Ten minutes later a shore boat landed the entire party from the submarine
craft.

"Going with the rest of us, Truax?" inquired Jack, pleasantly.

"No; I'm going to find a boarding-house. That will be cheaper than
the hotel."

So the other four kept straight on to the Maryland House, giving very
little more thought to the sulky one.

It was not until after supper that Eph turned the talk back to Sam
Truax.

"I don't like the fellow, at all," declared young Somers. "He always
wants to be left alone in the engine room, for one thing."

"And I've made it my business, regular," added Williamson; the machinist,
"to see that he doesn't have his wish."

"He's always sulky, and kicking about everything," added Eph. "I may
be wrong, but can't get it out of my head that the fellow came aboard
on purpose to be a trouble-maker."

"Why, what object could he have in that?" asked Captain Jack.

"Blessed if I know," replied Eph. "But that's the way I size the
fellow up. Now, take that time you were knocked senseless, back in
Dunhaven. Who could have done that? The more I think about Sam Truax,
the more I suspect him as the fellow who stretched you out."

"Again, what object could he have?" inquired Benson.

"Blessed if I know. What object could anyone have in such a trick
against you? It was a state prison job, if the fellow had been caught
at the time."

"Well, there's one thing Truax was innocent of, anyway," laughed Captain
Jack. "He didn't have any hand in the way I was tricked and robbed by
the mulatto."

"Blamed if I'm so sure he didn't have a hand in that, too," contended
Eph Somers, stubbornly.

"Yet Mr. Pollard recommended him," urged Jack.

"Yes, and a fine fellow Dave Pollard is--true as steel," put in Hal
Hastings, quietly. "Yet you know what a dreamer he is. Always has
his head in the air and his thoughts among the stars. He'd as like
as not take a fellow like Truax on the fellow's own say-so, and never
think of looking him up."

"Oh, we've no reason to think Truax isn't honest enough," contended
Jack Benson. "He's certainly a fine workman. As to his being sulky,
you know well enough that's a common fault among men who spend their
lives listening to the noise of great engines. A man who can't make
himself heard over the noise of a big engine hasn't much encouragement
to talk. Now, a man who can't find much chance to talk becomes sulky
a good many times out of ten."

"We'll have