hundred pounds of
that dread high explosive, guncotton.

It was in the month of February, and the day, at this seacoast point, was
cold and blustery, when two boys of seventeen, each in natty blue
uniforms and caps resembling those worn by naval officers, crossed the
yard toward the shed. Over their uniforms both boys wore heavy, padded
blue ulsters, also of naval pattern.

"Danger?" laughed young Captain Jack Benson, stopping before the door
and fumbling for the key. "Well, I should say so!"

"Something like two tons and a half of guncotton in this old shed,"
smiled Hal Hastings. "That's not mentioning some other high
explosives."

"It's this gun-cotton that begins to make our calling in life look like a
really dangerous one," muttered Jack, as he produced the key and fitted
it into the lock.

"Once upon a time," murmured Hal, "we thought there was sufficient
danger, just in going out on the ocean in a submarine torpedo craft, and
diving below the surface."

"Yet we found that submarine travel wasn't really dangerous," pursued
Captain Jack. "Really, riding around in a submarine craft seems as safe,
and twice as pleasant, as cruising in any other kind of yacht."

"After we've gotten more used to having hundreds of pounds of gun-cotton
on board," smiled Hal, "I don't suppose we'll ever think of the danger in
that stuff, either."

Jack unlocked the door, swinging it open. Then both young men passed
inside the red shed.

It needed hardly more than a glance, from an observing person, to make
certain that neither boy was likely to be much bothered by any ordinary
form of danger.

For a number of months, now, Jack Benson and Hal Hastings had lived all
but continually aboard submarine torpedo boats. They had operated such
craft, when awake, and had dreamed of doing it when asleep. Being youths
of intense natures, and unusually quick to learn, they had long before
qualified as experts in handling submarine craft.

They had yet, however, one thing to learn practically. It needs the
deadly torpedo, fired below the water, and traveling under the surface,
to make the torpedo boat the greatest of all dangers that menace the
haughty battleship of a modern navy.

Now, at last, Captain Jack Benson, together with his engineer, Hal
Hastings, and Eph Somers, another young member of the crew, were about
to have their first practical drill with the actual torpedo. An officer
of the United States Navy, especially det