m toward that searchlight, won't you? I tell you, I
am positive it is the boat of our friends."

"Well, I'll put you where you want to be, of course," agreed the
boatbuilder, though he spoke with some reluctance, for he realized
that some great mystery underlay this whole affair.

"Come up, Benson, and take the wheel," called Mr. Pollard. So Jack
went up and out on the deck, Eph following him, while Hal went to the
engine room to watch more of Grant Andrews' work there. Jack threw on
the speed wheel, then steered north, while Eph threw the searchlight
skyward in the path of the approaching vessel.

Within fifteen minutes the two craft were in sight of each other.
Five minutes later they were within hailing distance. The other
craft was a schooner of some eighty or ninety tons, and was using
an auxiliary gasoline engine.

It was Jack who sounded a signal on the auto whistle for the other
craft to lay to. Then Benson steered in closer, the two who had been
rescued standing not far from him on the platform deck. The older
man still clutched his satchel.

"Submarine, ahoy!" came a hail from the schooner's deck. "Is that
you, Mr. Miller?"

"Ye-es," hesitatingly admitted the older man, at which Jacob Farnum
smiled grimly, though he said nothing. "Put off a boat and send it
alongside, will you?"

In a trice a boat was lowered from the schooner. Manned by two sailors
and steered by a deck officer, the boat came alongside the sloping hull
of the torpedo boat.

"You weren't expected in such a craft as this, Mr. Miller," called the
deck officer in the stern of the small boat, touching his cap.

"Never mind any conversation, my man," broke in young Miller, testily.
"Lay right alongside, and help get my father into your boat."

Hal and Eph helped in piloting Mr. Miller over the side and getting him
into the boat alongside. Immediately afterwards the younger man jumped
into the small boat.

"Oh, you're going with your father, are you?" hailed Mr. Farnum.

"Yes," replied the son, coolly, though with another scowl. "A thousand
thanks for your kindness to us. Good-bye!"

The small boat put off, making rapidly for the schooner.

"Well, full speed ahead for Dunhaven," muttered Jacob Farnum. "But
that's the queerest crowd I ever ran into. It's uncanny, all the way
through. Somehow, I can't shake off the impression that I've been
engaged in some stealthy or nasty work."

The run back to port was without inc