leet.

"That's no fisherman!" muttered Somers, watching, his hands thrust deep
in his pockets.

Presently the sloop's hull was lost to Eph's sight beyond the gunboat.
Then the boy heard a voice from the "Hudson's" deck roar out:

"Look alive, you lubber! Do you want to foul our anchor chain?"

"No, sir," came from the sloop's deck. "We'll clear you all right."

"See that you do, then!"

Then the sloop's hull came into view again, as the craft headed out
toward the open water beyond.

"That's the kind of a craft Jack would give a heap to be on," thought
Eph. "Queer that he should spend all his time on gasoline peanut
roasters when he's so fond of whistling for a breeze behind canvas."

As the sloop neared the mouth of the little bay, and her lines became
rather indistinct in the darkness, Eph Somers turned to resume his
pacing of the deck.

"Hullo," muttered the submarine boy, two or three minutes later. "Here's
the shore boat coming on its regular trip. I wonder if Jack and Hal
are in it? It's about time for them to be coming on board."

But the shore boat, instead of coming out to the submarine, lay in at
the side gangway of the gunboat opposite, and Eph discovered that his
two comrades were not in the boat.

"I say," hailed Eph, "have you seen Mr. Benson and Mr. Hastings on
shore!"

"No, sir," replied the petty officer in charge. Then one of the sailors
in the boat spoke in an undertone.

"This man says, sir," continued the petty officer, "that he saw your
friends, sir, going aboard a white knockabout sloop."

"He did, eh?" demanded the astonished Eph. "How long ago was that?"

"Only a few minutes ago, sir," replied the sailor.

"You're sure you saw Mr. Benson and Mr. Hastings?"

"Yes, sir."

"That's queer," reflected Eph. "It wouldn't be like them to go sailing
at this time of the night, and without notifying me, either. But, then,
I didn't see anything of 'em aboard that sloop, either."

Eph was silent for a few moments, thinking. Then, suddenly, he leaped
up in the air, coming down flat-footed.

"Crackey!" ejaculated Eph Somers.

For a moment or two his face was a study in bewilderment.

"Mighty strange things have been happening all through this cruise,"
Eph muttered, half aloud. "Especially happening to Jack! Now, the
two of them go aboard that sloop, and immediately after the boat puts
out to sea in the dead of night. What if Jack and Hal have been
shanghaied on that inf