ame a feverish break-in from land, and another hand was playing in
the great game of life and death, fame and dishonor, riches and
intrigue. All was being unfolded by means of the unseen, far-reaching
wireless telegraph.

As Joe listened, wrote, and occasionally broke in to send a few words,
the dew of cold perspiration stood out on his brow. His fingers
trembled. With a great effort of the will this motor boat boy steadied
his nerves and muscles in order to see through to the end this
mysterious thing coming out of space.

While this was going on, Joe Dawson did not call out to either of his
comrades. With an instinct that worked as fast as the wireless
messages themselves, young Dawson chose to put off calling the other
motor boat boys until he had the whole startling tale to tell
them--until he had in complete form the coming orders that would send
all three of them and the "Restless" on a tireless sea-chase.

While this flood of dots and dashes is coming in from seaward, and
from landward, it is well that the reader be put in possession of some
information that will make clearer to him the nature of the dramatic
events that followed this sudden in-pouring of wireless messages to
the little "CBA" bungalow station on this island off the North
Carolina coast.

Readers of the preceding volume of this series, "THE MOTOR BOAT CLUB
OFF LONG ISLAND," will at once recall that story, throbbing with the
interest of human life--will remember how faithfully and wisely Tom
Halstead, Joe Dawson and Hank Butts, all members of the Motor Boat
Club, served that leader in Wall Street finance, Francis Delavan, and
the latter's nervous, wavering friend, Eben Moddridge. To such former
readers the tale is familiar of how the Motor Boat Club boys aided
materially in frustrating a great conspiracy in finance, aimed against
their employer. Saved from ruin by the grit, keenness and loyalty of
these three members of the Motor Boat Club, Messrs. Delavan and
Moddridge had handsomely rewarded the boys for their signal services.

As Hank Butts preferred, for family reasons, to spend his summers, and
much of his other time, on Long Island, he had been presented with a
thirty-foot launch, a shore lot at East Hampton, and a "shack" and
pier. Tom Halstead and Joe Dawson, fast friends and both from the same
little Kennebec River village, preferring always the broad ocean, had
been made the owners of the "Soudan," a fine, sea-going, fifty-five
foot