fifty boys gave him the
heartiest kind of a cheer.

"That's some nerve he showed," declared Arthur Warren, "but then, he
always did have nerve, Jack did. If he didn't he wouldn't have done the
things he has."

"H'm! anybody could do that," said Herring with a snarl. "The yacht was
close to him all the time. You fellows are all the time cracking up Jack
Sheldon, but I don't see that he is any great shakes."

"No, you wouldn't," said Billy Manners, with an emphasis on the pronoun,
"but decent fellows can see it. Would you have gone over after young
Smith?"

"There wasn't any need to do it," growled Herring. "If I'd seen him first
I'd have done it."

"You saw it as soon as any one except Jack himself, and you were nearer
the deck," said Percival, who came up in time to hear what Herring had
said. "I heard you say that Jack pushed the boy overboard so as to get the
name of rescuing him. You know that this is a lie, because Jack was on the
bridge at that time, and could not have done it. Jack and I both saw young
Jesse W. go overboard. Jack feared he might, and had started to go to the
deck when the thing happened."

Herring did not care to get into a quarrel with Percival, who was much
stronger and better built than himself, and he, therefore, went away
muttering something which the boys could not make out.

"He is always saying something nasty against Jack," declared Arthur. "He
hates Jack because Jack is smarter, and a general favorite. I wish he had
stayed on shore, but as Mr. Smith invited the whole Academy he could not
very well be left behind."

"He ought to be marooned on some solitary, uninhabited island, and left
there to hate himself," chuckled Billy Manners.

"They don't do those things nowadays, Billy," said Percival. "You have
been reading the lives of the pirates, and are full of that sort of
romantic stuff."

"Maybe I am," chuckled Billy good naturedly, "but here come Jack and young
Jesse W., looking as fine as fiddles, and not a bit worse for their baths.
Whoop it up for them, boys!"

Every boy in sight responded to the summons, and gave both boys the
heartiest cheers, both Jack and his young companion being favorites.

CHAPTER III

THE UNEXPECTED HAPPENS

Neither Jack nor young Smith felt any the worse for his tumble into the
warm waters of the Caribbean, and after they had changed their clothes
they went on deck to assure their schoolmates that they were all right,
and suffering