le Mexican lurkers on shore.

The five young officers of the two services had seated themselves on top
of the deck-house at the rear of the bridge-deck. Hank Butts sat midway
down on the deck-house, yawning as though he would like to turn in.
After he had got his engine working smoothly Engineer Joe Dawson came up
from the engine room forward, taking his stand beside Skipper Tom
Halstead.

For five minutes Joe was silent, as the boat kept on up the Rio Grande.
He half-turned, once in a while, to cast a covertly-admiring glance at
the young officers seated at their rear. At last Joe whispered
exultantly in his chum's ear:

"Tom, that's a real fighting bunch."

"You've hit the truth at first trial," returned Skipper Tom, in an
undertone, as he kept his glance ahead over the river.

"I'm not much given to exaggeration, am I, Tom?"

"I never knew that you had an acquaintance with exaggeration," Halstead
answered.

"Then perhaps you'll believe me, Tom, when I tell you that I'd follow
those officers over Niagara or into Vesuvius, if they happened to be
bound either way."

"I know you would, Joe," Tom answered, without smiling, for he knew his
chum through and through.

"Tom, those young officers would _assay up a big lot of fight to the
ton_!"

Having thus relieved himself of that strong conviction Joe Dawson seated
himself on the roof of the forward house and did not speak again for
twenty minutes.

By the time that the eight miles upstream had been covered, and Skipper
Tom Halstead had headed the boat down again for its straight
sixteen-mile run, he called down to his chum:

"Joe, will you come up and hold the wheel for me for two or three
minutes?"

"Coming," Dawson sang cheerily.

But Dave Darrin stepped forward with:

"Skipper, can't _I_ hold the wheel for you?"

"Have you ever handled a boat before, sir?" Tom queried, giving this
young man, who was in civilian dress, a keen though good-humored look.

"At least twice," Darrin modestly assured him.

"How big a boat?"

"Up to sixteen thousand tons," Darrin replied, without cracking a smile.

"A wise man is always cautious, Halstead," sang out Lieutenant Prescott
gleefully, "but the man you're talking to is Ensign Darrin of the
United States Navy."

"Take the wheel, Mr. Darrin," replied the youthful skipper, with a grin,
while Joe, halfway up the engine-room steps, took in the scene. "I heard
Mr. Darrin introduced merely as 'mister,'" Halstead e