, as you do."

With a thoughtful air Sam Truax drew a small bottle from his pocket,
sprinkling some of the contents over Jack's uniform coat. Immediately
the nauseating smell of liquor rose on the air.

"Now, if someone finds you before you come to, you'll look like a
fellow that has been drinking and fighting," muttered Truax under
his breath. "If you come to and get back to the yard without help,
you'll walk unsteadily and have that smell about your clothes. Usually,
it needs only a breath of suspicion to turn folks against a boy!"

Pausing only long enough to learn that Jack's pulses were beating, and
that the submarine boy was breathing, Truax stole off into the might,
carrying the bag of sand under his over coat. At one point he paused
long enough to empty the sand from the bag over a fence. The bag
itself he afterwards burned in the open fireplace in the room assigned
to him at Holt's Hotel.

For twenty minutes Jack Benson lay as he had been left. Then he began
to stir, and groan. Then he opened his eyes; after a while he managed
to sit up.

"Ugh!" he grunted. "What's the odor? Liquor! How does that happen?
Oh, my head!"

He got slowly to his feet, using the board fence as a means to help
steady himself. Then, though he found himself weak and tormented by the
pain in his head, Benson managed to feel his way along the fence until
he came to the opening made by the loose board. Holding himself here,
he thrust his head beyond.

Now, Hal and Eph, having waited for some time at the shore boat, before
going out on board the "Farnum," had at last made up their minds to go
back and look for their missing leader. They came along just at the
moment that the young captain's head appeared through the opening in
the fence.

"There he is," muttered Hal, stopping short. "Gracious! He acts
queerly. I wonder if anything can have happened to him? Come along,
Eph!"

The two raced across the street.

"Jack, old fellow! What on earth's the matter?" demanded Hal Hastings,
anxiously.

"I wish you could tell me," responded Jack Benson, speaking rather
thickly, for he was still somewhat dazed. "Oh, my head!"

"There has been some queer work here," muttered Hal in Eph's ear. "Don't
torment him with questions. Just help me to get him down to the yard."

While the two submarine boys were guiding their weak, dizzy comrade out
to the sidewalk a man came by with a swinging stride. Then he stopped
short, s