descend, then said to Casey: "Fake up a message
claiming to be from some ship with a jumbled name, as you say, and be
ready to send it if he gets our position."

"Then you think well of it?"

"Certainly. Forsythe has brains. The only trouble with him is that he
wants to run things too much."

Casey, a smooth-faced, keen-eyed Irish-American, descended to consult
with his _confrere_, Munson; and Forsythe appeared, swinging a book.
Laying this on the bridge stairs, he passed Jenkins and walked aft.

"Where are you going?" asked the latter.

Forsythe turned, white with rage, and answered slowly and softly:

"Down to the officers' quarters to get a sextant or a quadrant. I found
that book on navigation in the pilot-house, but I need the instrument,
and a nautical almanac. That is as far as my studies have progressed."

"You stay out of the officers' quarters," said Jenkins. "There's a man
there who'll eat you alive if you show yourself. You want a sextant and
nautical almanac. Anything else?"

"That is all."

"I'll get them, and, remember, you and the rest are to stay away from
the after end of the boat."

Forsythe made no answer as Jenkins passed him on the way aft, but
muttered: "Eat me alive? We'll see."

Riley, one of the machinists, appeared from the engine-room hatch and
came forward, halting before Forsythe.

"Say," he grumbled, "what call has that big lobster to bullyrag this
crowd the way he's been doin'? I heard him just now givin' you hell, and
he gave me hell yesterday when I spoke of the short oil."

"Short oil?" queried Forsythe. "Do you mean that----"

"I mean that the oil won't last but a day longer. We've been storming
along at forty knots, and eating up oil. What'll we do?"

"God knows," answered Forsythe, reflectively. "Without oil, we stop--in
mid-ocean. What then?"

"What then?" queried Riley. "Well, before then we must hold up some
craft and get the oil--also grub and water, if I guess right. This bunch
is hard on the commissary."

"Riley," said Forsythe, impressively, "will you stand by me?"

"Yes; if you can bring that big chump to terms."

"All right. Talk to your partners. Something must be done--and he can't
do it. Wait a little."

As though to verify Riley and uphold him in his contention, Daniels, the
cook, came forward from the galley, and said: "Just about one week's
whack o' grub and water left. We'll have to go on an allowance." Then he
passed on, but was called back.