nly a few hours before?

"Rather be at this end than the other, wouldn't you?" questioned Sam
Hickey, with a grin.

"Yes; now that I have had time to think the matter over, I believe I
prefer this end," laughed Dan. "It was not so bad, though. You see, I
never had been under fire before, and I was interested. It was a new
experience."

"One that few of us have had," spoke up the gun captain.

"I know I should have run away if I had been there," decided Sam, with
a thoughtful shake of the head.

"Where would you have run to?" demanded Dan, at which there was a laugh
all around.

Sam was sitting on the deck of the turret, industriously at work
polishing the brass tompion with which the end of the gun is plugged to
keep out the sea water.

Finishing his task, he turned up the tompion and sat down on it, as
with chin in hands he listened to the conversation.

"Makes a good seat, eh?" he grinned, as he saw the eyes of the gun
captain upon him.

"You will not think so if you damage the tompion. Get off from it. Do
you know what those things are worth?"

"'Bout a dollar and a half," answered Sam rather contemptuously. "I
could buy enough to fit the ship with on a month's pay."

"You could, eh?"

"Yes."

"You will have a chance to buy one if you are not careful. Those
tompions cost twenty-five dollars apiece, and I ought to know, for I
dropped one overboard once and it was checked up against me."

Sam uttered a low whistle of surprise, then very gingerly carried the
brass plug outside and inserted it in the muzzle of the big gun. As he
did so Sam half turned his head, finding himself looking into the eyes
of a dark-faced fellow, who was lounging against the rail.

"Hello, Blackie," greeted the red-haired boy.

The dark-faced boy scowled. He was one of two Hawaiians who had joined
the ship about the same time that the Battleship Boys had come aboard.
One of the Hawaiians was very dark and the other almost white, so the
jackies named them Black and White, these names being easier of
pronunciation than were the real names of the men.

As it chanced, both Black and White had been shifted from the
seven-inch gun crew to make room for Dan and Sam, while the Pacific
Islanders were set to scrubbing decks and doing general work about the
ship.

The men did not dare rebel, but they had been ugly ever since the
change had been made, and Sam's grin did not tend to make Black any the
less ugly.

"I said '