ead, it's a pond; a
sloppy-weather pond with the current so swift at times that if you were
to go swimming in it, you'd want your port and starboard anchors out
all the time."

"What are we going to do in the pond?"

"The Old Man hasn't taken me into his confidence yet," scoffed a
sailor. "I am expecting to hear from him most any time now."

"Ordering you to appear at mast court, eh?" questioned Sam maliciously.

"That'll be about all for you, red-head."

"Better look out or Dynamite will be mixing it up with you," warned
another. "Won't you, Dynamite?" nodding at Dan.

"I think I have had all the mixing-up that I want," answered Davis,
with a short laugh. "If you don't believe it, just look at this
bandage on my head."

"Yes, Dynamite's a sore head," suggested a shipmate. "I'd be willing
to trade heads with you, if what's in yours could go with it."

At this there was a laugh all around the table. Dan blushed. He did
not like these broad compliments. But, to Dan Davis' credit, be it
said that, instead of making him conceited, they served quite the
opposite purpose. They made him the more determined to merit the good
things that were said of him.

"Torpedo practice to-day," announced a sailor, coming in at that
juncture from his watch on deck.

"What range?" asked some one.

"I hear it is a four-thousand-yard range."

"That will give us all a chance to go out for a row."

"For what?" questioned Sam.

"For the exercise, red-head. We jackies never have anything to do, you
know, so they have to send us out for a row, now and then."

"We don't have to row in a common whaleboat or a cutter. We've got
something better in which to row," retorted Hickey.

"Got something better?"

"Yes."

"Maybe you're going to run the captain's motor boat."

"No; not yet. Maybe we'll be doing that later. Just now we're going
to content ourselves with the gig."

"The gig!"

"Sure thing."

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about the racing gig. Didn't you know Dan and myself were
members of the racing crew now?"

"No; I didn't know anything of the sort. You kids on the crew? That's
a joke. If we fellows who have been in the service a year or two get
on the crew we think we're lucky."

"Is that right, Davis?" spoke up one of the men further down the table.

"Partly, Bob. We have been chosen for a tryout. We may make such a
miserable failure of it that they will put us out of the boat a