y
honest, and his patriotism was so obvious and so sincere.

"You're all right, Whitey," they would say.

Then, suddenly, that thing happened which shocked and startled them with
all the force of a torpedo from a U-boat, and left them gasping.

It happened that same night, and little did Tom Slade dream, as he went
along the deck in the darkening twilight, carrying the captain's empty
supper dishes down to the galley, of the dreadful thing which he would
face before that last night in the danger zone was over.

He washed his hands, combed his hair, put on his dark coat, and went up
on deck for an hour or two which he could call his own. In the
companionway he passed his friend, the deck steward, talking with a
couple of soldiers, and as he squeezed past them he paused a moment to
listen.

It was evidently another slice of the same gossip with which he had
regaled Tom earlier in the day and he was imparting it with a great air
of confidence to the interested soldiers.

"Don't say I told you, but they had two of them in the quartermaster's
room, buzzing them. It's more'n rule breaking, _I_ think."

"German agents, you mean?"

The deck steward shrugged his shoulders in that mysterious way, as if he
could not take the responsibility of answering that question.

"But they haven't got anything on 'em," he added. "The glass ports were
locked--they couldn't have thrown anything out. So there you are. The
captain thinks it was phosphorus and maybe he's right. It's a kind of a
light you sometimes see in the ocean."

"Huh," said one of the soldiers.

"It's fooled others before. So I guess there won't be any more about it.
Keep your mouths shut."

Tom passed them and went out upon the deck. He did not venture near the
forbidden spot astern, but leaned against the rail amidships. He knew he
had the right to spend his time off on deck and he liked to be alone.
Now and then he glimpsed a little streak of gray as some apprehensive
person in a life belt disappeared in a companionway, driven in by the
cold and the rough sea.

Presently, he was quite alone and he fell to thinking about home, as he
usually did when he was alone at night. He thought of his friend Roy
Blakeley and of the happy summers spent at Temple Camp; of the stalking
and tracking, and campfire yarns, and how they used to jolly him, just
as these soldiers jollied him, and call him "Sherlock Nobody Holmes"
just because he was interested in deduction and ha