ept for running
the electric power plant as much as was needed, making their own beds
and doing their own cooking.

For what purpose had Powell Seaton wanted them and the "Restless"?
Now, as Dawson's active fingers pushed the pencil through the mazes of
recorded messages, that active-minded young man began to get a
glimpse.

"Sounds like something big, Joe," smiled Captain Tom, his eyes
twinkling under the visor of his uniform cap as he thrust his head in
through the doorway.

"It is," muttered Joe, in a low but tense voice. "Just wait. I've got
one to send."

His fingers moved busily at the key for a little while. Then,
snatching up the sheets of paper on which he had written, Joe Dawson
leaped to his feet in such haste that he sent the chair spinning
across the room.

Such impulsiveness in Dawson was so utterly unusual that Captain Tom
Halstead gasped.

"Come on!" called Joe, darting to the door. "Down to the boat!"

"Where----?" began Tom Halstead, but he got only as far as that word,
for Joe shot back:

"To sea!"

"How----" again essayed Halstead.

"At full speed--the fastest we can travel!" called back Joe, who was
leaping down the porch steps.

"Any time to lock up?" demanded Tom, half-laughingly.

"Yes--but hustle! I'll get the motor started and be waiting."

Hank Butts was leaning indolently against one of the porch posts.

"Look at old Joe sailing before a fair wind," he laughed, admiringly.

"Turn to, Hank! Help lock the windows and the doors--full speed
ahead!" directed Captain Tom, with vigor. "Joe Dawson never goes off
at racing speed like that unless he has his orders and knows what he's
doing."

"I thought you were the captain," grinned Hank, as he sprang to obey.

"So I am," Halstead shot at the other boy. "But, just as it happens,
Joe has the sailing orders--and he can be trusted with 'em.
Now--everything is tight and the keys in my pocket. For the dock, on
the run!"

Chug-chug! Joe had surely been moving, for, by the time the other boys
reached the dock, Dawson had the hatchway of the motor room open and
the twin motors had begun to move. The young engineer, an oil-can in
hand, was watching the revolutions of the two handsome machines.

"Stand by the stern-line to throw off, Hank," called Captain Tom, as
he raced out onto the dock and made a plunge for the bow hawser. With
this in hand he sprang aboard.

"How soon, Joe?" called the young skipper, throwing the canvas cover
f