long the border of the woods, watched him with renewed
interest. They even forgot about the wild fowl that were sporting in
flocks out where the waves broke upon a line of rocks, with a subdued
roar.

Carefully did Ned train his powerful field-glasses on a certain part of
the horizon. Looking in that quarter some of the others began to rub
their eyes.

"Seems to me there is something there," remarked Frank, straining his
eyes in the endeavor to make sure.

"It may be a low-lying cloud on the water-line of the horizon," Teddy
added.

"Anyhow, it's too far away for us to tell with the naked eye," Jack
announced; "and so we'll have to depend on Ned to give us the
information."

Just then the leader lowered the glasses.

"Take a look for yourself, Jack," he said; and there was a slight smile
on his face while speaking, that told of a discovery of some sort.

While Jack was fixing the glasses to suit his needs, for everybody's
eyes are not just alike, Jimmy was trying to make use of his doubled-up
hands in order to help his vision.

"'Tis meself that believes it's smoke!" he declared, with animation.

"How about it, Jack?" demanded Teddy.

The one indicated did not keep them in suspense needlessly.

"Yes, Jimmy hit the bull's-eye that time," he remarked.

"Then it _is_ smoke?" queried Frank.

"Not only that, but I can make out what seem to be a number of small
objects that must be vessels of some sort," Jack went on to say.

"The disappearing fleet!" gasped Jimmy.

"Well, they haven't skipped out of sight yet," continued Jack, chuckling
as he handed the glasses over to Frank to have a try.

In turn all of them took a look, and no one found reason to differ from
what Jack had ventured to declare in the beginning. They were, without
question, looking then and there on the clump of boats about which there
had been so much talk made. Of course, at that distance there was no way
of finding out the character of the several boats, or more than guess at
what they were doing, away out from the shore.

"Strikes me that it might be some queer sort of mirage, like that you
sometimes see on the sandy desert." Teddy suggested, after he had gazed
intently at the picture for a full minute through the lenses of the
field-glasses.

"Oh! they have the same sort of deception at sea," declared Jack; "only
sailors call it the _fata morgana_. When you're on the desert, it
generally takes the form of a lovely running stream o