g to overturn the little craft and plunge them all
into the icy water.

Hal shot just out of the danger zone, though. Then a round little tower
bobbed up out of the water. Immediately afterward the upper third of a
long, cigar-shaped craft came up into view, water rolling from her
dripping sides, which glistened brightly as the sun came out briefly
from behind a fall cloud.

In the conning tower, through the thick plate glass, the three people in
the shore boat made out the carroty-topped head and freckled,
good-humored, honest, homely face of Eph Somers. The boat lay on the
water, under no headway, drifting slightly with the wind-driven ripples.
Then Eph raised the man-hole cover of the top of the conning tower,
thrusting out his head to hail them.

"Hey, you landsmen, do you know a buoy from an umbrella!"

"Do _you_ know the difference between a Sunday-school text and petty
larceny?" retorted Jack Benson, sternly. "What do you mean by taking the
submarine without leave?"

"I've been experimenting--flirting with science," responded Eph,
loftily. "Say, if you landsmen know a buoy from a banana, get down to
the bow moorings of this steel mermaid, and I'll pass you the bow cable.
It's a heap easier to lead this submarine horse out of the stall,
single-handed, than it is to take him back and tie him."

Hal rowed easily to the buoy, while Eph, returning to the steering wheel
and the tower controls, ran the "Farnum," with just bare headway, up to
where he could toss the bow cable to those waiting in the boat. A few
moments later the stern cable, also, was made fast, in such a way as to
allow a moderate swing to the bulky steel craft.

"Now, you can take me ashore, if you feel like it," proposed Eph,
standing on the platform deck.

"Not quite yet," returned Skipper Jack, though the small boat lay
alongside. "We've got some inspecting to do. But how did you get on
board in the first place?"

"Why, the night watchman was in the yard for a few minutes, and I got him
to put me on board. I figured I could hail somebody else when I was
ready to go on shore."

"But what on earth made you do such a thing?" demanded Captain Jack, in
a low tone. "It's really more than you had a right to do, Eph, without
getting Mr. Farnum's permission."

"Why, I've known you to take the 'Pollard' and try something when Mr.
Farnum wasn't about," retorted Somers, looking surprised.

"You never knew me to do it when I could ask pe