he man, Blake, with pride in his voice.
"Oh, it will be taken note of, don't fear."

"I bet you!" growled the other, in evident admiration. "Undt so she goes
oop, yes? Boom!"

"Sh!" warned the other. "Never mind any talk about it."

But the other was inclined to be voluble. Whistler thought the skipper
of the oil tender, Braun, had been drinking. "And when alcohol is in
the brain wit is very likely to move out," he muttered.

"Grand work!" he ejaculated. "_Ach_, yes! Undt there will be more grand
work when two-fifty is joined by the others."

"Sh!" warned Blake again. "You talk too much, Braun. The wise man keeps
a still tongue."

Ordinarily Whistler Morgan would have found nothing in this overheard
conversation to fan suspicion into a blaze. He quite realized this fact.
But what he had seen at Elmvale, and the presence of Blake on the oil
tender, led in his mind to but one conclusion.

Blake and his companion referred to the former's work in Elmvale. And
what was that work? Not merely the peaceful occupation of chemist in the
laboratory of the munition factory. He was convinced that Blake referred
to something entirely different when he said: "My work is done there."

Nor was Blake merely an inventor, hiding away the actual working model
of an invention until he could secure its patent, for instance. No,
indeed!

Yet Morgan could not imagine what that water wheel was for. To what end
could it have been placed under the rock on the edge of the
overflow-stream from the Elmvale Dam?

Whistler had little to say himself during that meal at Yancey's. He
heard nothing more from the next booth, for Blake seemed to manage the
half drunken skipper of the _Sarah Coville_ with better judgment. By and
by the two men left the restaurant.

"Say! are we going to follow them?" asked the excited Frenchy.

"Aw, you poor fish!" scoffed Torry. "Where'd we follow them to? Back to
that stinking oiler? And how would we follow them to sea? We haven't a
boat."

"That's so," Frenchy admitted, crestfallen.

"No good to try to keep tabs on them," admitted Phil. "I hope Ensign
MacMasters will pick up news of that boat again. Just think of his
chaser coming right in here and not seeing the oiler in the fog. Tough
luck!"

"Say!" queried Ikey, "what did you hear, Whistler?"

"Just about what you did," returned the older lad. "Nothing much."

"What are we going to do?" demanded Torry.

"Pay our bills and go to the train. It is al