He gave the wheel a hard turn to bring the nose of the submarine about.

"There's your gleeful friend, Eph Somers," announced Commander Ennerling,
pointing ahead as the "Pollard" came about.

A bare eighth of a mile away, directly in the track of the gunboat, sat
Eph on his door. Those in the tower could not quite make him out in the
night, but they could see the circles described by the lighted lantern
that Eph was swinging.

CHAPTER XVIII

EPH ENJOYS BEING RESCUED

In going that last eighth of a mile the gunboat's speed was gradually
slowed.

It was a pretty piece of ship-handling. The "_Massapequa_" lost headway
gradually a hundred feet from where Eph sat solemnly blinking back at
the sailors' faces along the forward starboard rail.

An officer's uniform showed at the edge of the bridge, as he called:

"Ahoy, there!"

"Ahoy, yourself," answered Eph. "And another one for courtesy."

"Don't get funny, boy!" admonished the officer on the bridge. "What's
the matter with you?"

"Nothing," Somers replied. "But; say! Can you spare a cushion."

"How did you come to be there, boy?"

"Floated," admitted Eph, truthfully.

"How did you ever get six miles off the coast on that float you're on?"

"Can't remember," replied Eph, dubiously.

"How long have you been out here on the water?"

"Ever since February, 1976," Eph Somers asserted, solemnly.

"Crazy!" muttered the officer to himself. "We'll have to get him aboard
and turn him over to the officers at the next port. I'll try him on one
more question."

Raising his voice, he called:

"What's your business? Do you follow the sea?"

"Say, you haven't caught me leading it anywhere, have you?" inquired Eph,
wonderingly.

"If we throw you a rope, will you try to catch it?"

"Yep, or a beefsteak, either," Somers declared, promptly.

"Send the boy a rope," directed the officer on the bridge. "Be careful
not to sweep him off the float. The lad doesn't seem over-bright."

Though this remark was not intended for his ears, Eph caught it
nevertheless.

"Not bright, am I?" muttered Eph, to himself. "Gracious, what a lot
of company I have in the world, then!"

Through the air the rope, deftly thrown, came swirling. Eph caught his
end of the line in a manner to make the officer say to himself:

"That boy has followed the sea. He knows as much about life on salt
water as I do."

Very deliberately Eph bent over, fastening his end of the l