steam yacht was some feet above their heads and how to reach it was
a problem.

"You can take the ropes from the rafts," suggested Dick. "Perhaps we
won't want them any longer."

They took the ropes, tied them together, and Tom threw one end upward.
After several failures he got the rope around the rail and the end
down within reach, and then he went up hand over hand, in true sailor
fashion, for Tom had been a first-class climber from early childhood,
"Always getting into mischief," as his Aunt Martha had been wont to say.

"Don't you fellows want to come up?" asked the fun-loving Rover, as
soon as he was safe.

"Certainly we do," answered Dick. "Go on, Hans and Sam. I can wait
till last."

It was not so easy for Hans to get up and Tom at the top and Dick at
the bottom had to aid him. Then Sam went up like a monkey, and the
eldest Rover followed, and the crates and boxes, with the campstool,
were allowed to drift away.

Once on board the steam yacht the Rovers and Hans looked around with
keen curiosity. Not a soul was on deck, in the upper cabin, or in
the tiny wheelhouse.

"This is enough to give a fellow the creeps!" declared Sam. "I must
say I almost hate to go below."

"Just the way I feel," added Tom. "Perhaps we've run into some great
tragedy."

"Everything on deck is in apple-pie order," was Dick's comment. "It
certainly is a mystery. But I am going below."

"Wait, Dick!" cried Sam. "Would it not be as well to arm yourself?"

"Perhaps," was the reply, and then all of the "boys procured belaying
pins or whatever was handy, with which to ward off a possible attack.

"Maybe they had a lion on board and he ate the whole crew up,"
suggested Tom.

"Say, of der vos a lion--" began Hans, drawing back.

"Oh, Tom is fooling," interrupted Dick. "They don't carry a menagerie
on a vessel like this. Why, this is a gentleman's pleasure yacht."

"Well then, bring on the gentleman," responded the irrepressible Tom.
"I shouldn't like anything better than to be introduced to him."

They had almost passed to the last step of the companionway when Sam
called a sudden halt.

"Boys, perhaps, after all, we had better keep out of that cabin," he
said.

"Why, Sam?"

"This may be a pest ship. The whole crew may have died of yellow
fever, or something like that!"

At this announcement all looked at each other with added alarm showing
in their faces. A pest ship! The idea filled them with horror.

"If it's that