merson came along. He let them pass, then
followed slyly, in accordance with Broughton Emerson's directions of
that afternoon.

"Now, what on earth does this all mean?" wondered Jacob Farnum, unable,
despite his curiosity, to regard this expedition without a feeling of
considerable disgust with himself. "Confound it, it's unmanly, this
spying on someone else! It makes me feel like a rubber-soled detective,
a thug or a labor picket trying to 'warn' a workman with a lead-stuffed
club! Yet Emerson is a gentleman, or I've been fooled. It must be all
right, I suppose."

The night was dark, and the moon not yet quite due to rise. When it
did come up above the horizon it was certain to be more or less obscured
by the clouds hanging there.

While Messrs. Melville and Emerson stepped off along the road, Jacob
Farnum was forced to keep behind bushes and other natural objects of
cover, which increased the boatbuilder's uneasy feeling that he was,
doing something well nigh dishonorable.

At last, however, the two capitalists stepped off the road, concealing
themselves in a clump of bushes as though by previous understanding.

"It looks like a prearranged meeting of some sort," reflected the
boatbuilder, after having crept close enough to be able to see and to
overhear.

Five minutes went by. Then Don Melville, narrowly escaping running into
Mr. Farnum, appeared suddenly before his father and Mr. Emerson.

"It's almost the time, now," laughed Don, speaking in a low voice, as
he held his watch close to his eyes. "I'll slip right down into the
road, in plain sight, where you can see what happens."

Back of all the rest, in the bushes, Jacob Farnum muttered, disgustedly,
to himself:

"I like it little enough to find George Melville this. I like it still
less, now that I find Don having a finger in the pie of mystery."

Smoke wafted back from a cigarette that Don was smoking. A few minutes
thus passed, when there came the sound of a low whistle. Tossing away
the stub of his cigarette, Don answered with another whistle.

Broughton Emerson straightened up instantly, being well enough hidden
for that, and so did Jacob Farnum, whose presence, of course, was
unsuspected by either of the Melvilles.

Then out from the cover of the woods stepped a boy of sixteen, in a
uniform like that worn by the submarine boys.

"Have you got the plans?" asked Don, in a low voice that was yet distinct
to all the listeners.

"Yes,"