submarines ever invented, and do so with impunity! I
don't care what happens, I'll fool them if I can."

With this resolve firmly embedded in his mind, Rob crept closer to the
window. By skillful maneuvering he was at last almost under the
casement. In this position every word uttered within the hut was clear
to him.

He heard Berghoff chuckling gleefully over the manner in which the
night's work had been carried out.

"Undt not a vun of dose Boy Scouts knew anting aboudt idt," he
exclaimed.

"No," rejoined one of his companions, a swarthy man with a pallid face
on which there stood out a bristly beard; "those kids were out of the
game so far as we were concerned. That Barton is a slick one, all
right."

"Well, he's getting well paid for the job," struck in the third man, who
was short and stocky, with a crop of rough, reddish hair and a
protruding chin that gave him a "bull doggy" aspect.

"Of course, he gedts vell paid," rejoined Berghoff; "dis job is vorth de
naval supremacy of the worldt to der country vot I represent."

"As if we didn't know that as well as you," rejoined the red-haired man.
"It was lucky we worked in the same machine shop in Bridgeport with
Barton and knew he was a man who could be bought."

"Yes, there isn't much that he wouldn't do for money," chimed in the
pallid-faced man.

"Vell, ledt us see if dese plans are all righdt, or if ve must get some
more of dem," remarked Berghoff.

From his manner of examining the intricate prints and plans, Rob knew
that the man, as were most probably his two companions, was an engineer
of no mean ability. With a small pocket scale he went over every scrap
of paper and then fell to examining the models. From his expression, Rob
judged that Barton had served the rascal well. Berghoff declared the
plans and the models all that would be required to produce a
_Peacemaker_ almost the exact duplicate of Mr. Barr's diving-boat.

"Well, when do we make our getaway?" queried the red-haired man when the
examination was concluded.

"To-morrow ve go," declared Berghoff. "In New York I catch der steamer
for Europe undt you two scatter verefer you like."

Rob felt his face flush with indignation, and at the same time he
experienced a sort of hopeless feeling of indecision. The plans and the
models lay there, almost within his reach, but so far as the possibility
of recovering them was concerned, they might as well have been in China.

"If only all the boys we