of it,
too! If we can hold on at this gait we'll soon reach a port in England,
where we can transship the Grey Eagle and get home."

"I only hope the real 'U-13' doesn't come along and demand that package
from us!" laughed Harry. "They might take a notion to send us to the
bottom if we don't deliver it on demand!"

"Let us hope they're busy on the west coast of England by this time!"
suggested Jack. "I don't want any more 'U-13' in mine!"

"Vhat's dot about der 'U-13'?" inquired von Kluck, coming up to the
little group. "Is id der 'U-13' dot you're skipping?"

In a few words Ned related the important details of their experience with
the 'U-13' package and with Mackinder.

"And so," the boy concluded, "we were just hoping that the real 'U-13'
wouldn't show up and claim the package that we haven't got!"

"No danger!" reassured von Kluck. "Dis vindt keeps dose fellers under
vasser deep! Dey like rough vedder not at all!"

"Hurrah!" joyfully cried Jimmie. "Blow, winds; blow hard!" the lad
continued, stretching his hands to windward in an appealing attitude.
"Blow hard enough to keep the submarines submarooned!"

A laugh went round as the boys listened to Jimmie's coined word. They
were all heartily in sympathy with the expressed wish that the wind would
blow hard enough to keep the submarines from the surface.

"But, den," continued von Kluck, with a frown that wrinkled his heavy
brows, "dot's not all. Dere's mines floatin' round der Nord Sea dot dem
verdom Deutsches blanted. Maybe vhe hit one of dem und if vhe do--"

Here the captain shrugged his shoulders, spreading his hands palm upward
and extending them with a final toss aloft to indicate the hopelessness
of a situation such as he intimated might befall them.

"Can't we dodge a mine?" queried Jimmie.

"Sure, if vhe can see id!" declared von Kluck.

"That's the trouble," explained Ned. "These mines float deep and before a
ship can know of its danger--Bang!"

"Well, Ned," announced Jimmie with a grin, as he wrinkled his freckled
nose, "I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll bet you my old hat that if we do
hit a mine and get blown up I go higher than you do!"

"All right," agreed Ned, laughing in spite of the seriousness of the
situation. "We'll ask von Kluck to be the judge."

"Von Kluck don't seem to be very much worried over the prospect of
hitting a mine!" declared Jimmie. "I guess we're all right!"

"Und now," announced the captain, "come to der cabin