away, "speaking
of Black and White, I've got an idea. I'll bet that fellow Black threw
that seven-inch tompion overboard. I'll bet also that he's the black
scoundrel who plugged your ear with a marline spike."

Dan made no reply, but walked thoughtfully away.

CHAPTER XVII

AT TORPEDO TARGET PRACTICE

"Hello, Dan."

Sam Hickey peered over the edge of his hammock in the early morning.

"What is it?" answered Davis sleepily.

"I wonder whether we have missed reveille."

"What's that?" Dan sat up very suddenly.

"I thought that would fetch you awake in a hurry," chuckled the
red-headed boy, snuggling down under his bedclothes, one eye peering
over at his companion.

"That's mean of you, to wake me up so early in the morning," grumbled
Dan. "I was having such a fine sleep, too. I was dreaming----"

"I was dreaming. I'll bet I had a better dream than you did. I
dreamed I was the captain of the 'Long Island,' with four gold stripes
around my sleeve. Then I woke up. That was too fine a dream to sleep
over very long at a time."

"Pipe down the guff," growled several voices from the depths of other
hammocks. "What do you think this is--a pink tea?"

"No; it's a deck picnic," answered Sam, as the bugle blew the reveille,
summoning all hands from their hammocks. The men in the corridor with
the Battleship Boys scrambled down from their hammocks in no enviable
frame of mind, for Hickey had spoiled at least five minutes of their
sleep, which was of no small consequence at that hour of the morning.
Sam seized his clothes and ran for the shower bath, anxious to get his
bath over before the men of his division got there. They were not in a
pleasant frame of mind, and the boy considered it prudent to keep clear
of them until they "got their eyes open," as he expressed it to himself.

The early morning work was finished up and then came breakfast. By
this time the battleship was swinging along past Fire Island light.
The sea was fairly calm and the sun was shining brightly.

"I wonder what we are going to do up here?" questioned a jackie, as
they were at their breakfast.

"Up here? Where are we headed for!" demanded Sam. "Looks to me as if
we were going to butt into a sand bank, the way the ship was headed
when I came below."

"I think we are going into Fort Pond Bay," answered someone.

"Never heard of the place. Is it a pond?" asked Hickey innocently.

"Hear the landlubber talk. Yes, red-h