"LISTEN, WHAT WAS THAT?" WHISPERED FRANK.—[Page 83.]

FRANK ARMSTRONG
DROP KICKER

BY

MATTHEW M. COLTON

Author of "Frank Armstrong's Vacation," "Frank Armstrong
at Queen's," "Frank Armstrong's Second Term," etc., etc.

With Four Halftone Illustrations by
ARTHUR O. SCOTT

NEW YORK
HURST & COMPANY
PUBLISHERS

Copyright, 1912,
by
HURST & COMPANY

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

Frank Armstrong, Drop Kicker

CHAPTER I. A NEW ENTERPRISE.

On a certain warm afternoon in the early part of July any one passing along the main street of the little summer resort of Seawall might have observed, had he chanced to glance seaward, a trim sloop riding easily at anchor, her milk-white mainsail swaying idly in the scarce-moving breeze. The water was like glass, excepting that here and there it was wrinkled for a moment by a puff of wind which passed instantly, leaving the mirror-like surface as before. Midway of the sloop's cockpit sat the Ancient Mariner himself, nodding. His back was braced against the gunwale and his pipe hung on his chest—a gentle-looking old man with a long, grizzled beard, taking his siesta as even Nature seemed to be taking hers that afternoon. His toil-worn hand hung over the gunwale, and, had one been near enough, the old man might have been heard to snore softly.

A quarter of a mile up the bay there appeared three black specks in the water. They might have been corks merely, but as they came steadily along you could have imagined them to be seals. They came nearer, swimming noiselessly, scarcely making a ripple. Now they were right alongside the sloop. Two of the seals, or whatever the dark forms were, glued themselves close under the sweep of the stern. The third swam cautiously toward the outstretched hand of the Ancient Mariner, and tweaked one of the fingers which hung within reach of any fish that might be bold enough to try a bite at the tempting morsel. Instantly the Ancient was in motion and the "seal" disappeared below the surface in a twinkling.

"Shiver my bloomin' timbers, what was that?" yelled the Mariner as he jumped to his feet. "Some ding-busted dog-fish trying to make a meal?" and he reached for his pike-pole to do execution to the attacking dog-fish.

At this burst from the Ancient there came from under the stern an answering burst of laughter. Another and still another joyful chuckle followed, and in an instant there bobbed up three heads to the astonished gaze of the occupant of the boat.

"You young rapscallions, so it wasn't a dog-fish after all," said the Ancient. And then, rubbing his eyes, he looked again. "Bust my bulkhead, if it isn't little Frank Armstrong!"

"Surest thing you know, Captain Silas," shouted Frank, treading water and keeping his hands going at the same time with a fin-like motion that held him out of the water to his shoulders. "Come on out, Jimmy; come out, Lewis; no use hiding now."

"Well, I swan!" was all Captain Silas could say, for it was indeed the old captain himself. "What are you doin' away out here in the bay? You're worse nor a parcel of fish."

"Oh, Captain," cried Jimmy Turner, shooting out from the boat on his back and splashing water in Lewis Carroll's face, "we expected to have a lot of fun, but this galoot of a Lewis had to snigger out loud, and that spoiled everything."

"You sniggered yourself," retorted Lewis.

"We couldn't help it," said Frank. "Did it scare you much, Captain?"

"Well, I reckon it wouldn't have scared me so much if I hadn't been dreaming I was hauling in a big sword-fish, and just as I was going to grab him with my gaff, up he jumps and grabs my hand. I give such a jump that I near fell out the other side o' the boat."

The boys laughed again and splashed water.

"Come on into the boat," said the captain, grinning at the joke that had been played on him. "Come on in and let's see how you look," and he held out a gnarled hand to Frank, who seized it and was soon over the side. Jimmy followed easily, but it took two of them to get Lewis aboard, who, in spite of all his athletic endeavors, continued to grow more like an ordinary washtub every day. But finally, after much tugging, they landed Lewis safely. The three swimmers sat and dripped water over Captain Silas' seats.

"Must have come into a fortune, Captain," exclaimed Frank, looking over the trim boat and aloft at the white sail, which was now swinging a little more widely with the land breeze.

"Oh, no," was the reply. "Couldn't make much outen my old fishing job, so I took my little nest-egg outen the bank and put it in this here boat."

"Going pirating?" inquired Jimmy.

"Not 'xactly that, kinder social piratin' maybe. I carry the city swells that want to go fer a sail. It pays better nor lobsters."

"Just a different kind of lobster, eh?" broke in Lewis.

"I take parties out for sails at twenty-five cents the head," continued the captain, not noticing the interruption by Lewis, "but it's been bad business these last two or three days, not a breeze big enuff to blow a han'kerchief. So I was havin' a snooze when you fellers give me such a start," and the old man grinned pleasantly. "But it's breezin' up a bit now and maybe we can have a sail before the sun goes down. Want to come?"

"You bet we do!" was the simultaneous response of the three, who had scattered themselves comfortably around on the little deck forward with their faces up to the blue sky.

"Hadn't you better go and git some clothes on your backs? You'll freeze to death in them there skinny little bathing suits of yours."

"Oh, no, we'll be as warm as toast. See, our suits are nearly dry. We've put in most of the time these last two weeks in these rigs and we're used to it," said Frank.

The breeze was picking up every minute, and the captain, casting an eye to the pier end without seeing any prospective passengers, and apparently nothing loth to have back with him again the three spirited youngsters, began to pull up his anchor and make ready. In this the boys helped, and soon the sloop was heading off down the bay careening to the freshening breeze.

"Gee whiz!" sighed Jimmy, prone on his back and stretched out like a star-fish, arms and legs extended, "but this beats school all hollow."

"And what ye been doin' at school? Learnin' your lessons, I s'pose?" said the captain, who had heard the remark. "S'pose your heads are just crammed full of knowledge, eh?"

"Not exactly that," replied Frank, grinning. "There are a lot of blank spaces in my cranium that haven't been touched yet. But Lewis is fearfully educated."

"Yes," added Jimmy jokingly, "he's what they call a high-stand man."

"Wouldn't think it," said the old man, scrutinizing Lewis closely. "I'd say he was a wide-stand man," still looking Lewis over critically. Frank and Jimmy laughed heartily at this, and the captain joined in when it was explained to him that this particular kind of stand had nothing to do with the physique.

"I say, Captain," said Frank, coming down from the deck to where Captain Brown sat at the tiller, "can't we do something to help you run the ship?"

"She don't need no running mor'n she's doin' now. All you got to do is just keep 'er steddy, same's I'm doin' now. You're not big enuff to steer. I'm 'fraid she'd wallop ye all about in a heavy sea."

"Oh, I don't mean sailing her; I'm not much on that. But couldn't we help with the passengers? Couldn't we put up the gangplank or put it down or whatever you do with it?" continued Frank. "We are three husky fellows, and we want to do something to keep in training."

"Trainin', what fer?" said the old man.

"Oh, just training for football. We want to be ready for the fall and have our muscles hard and our wind good."

"Yes," broke in Lewis, "we are going to be on the football team this fall up at Queen's School. Frank is going to be drop kicker, and I——"

"Oh, ho," laughed Jimmy from his place up in the bow-sprit, where he had just stretched himself full length, face downward, with his legs coiled about the timber to keep himself from rolling into the sea, "did you hear Lewis say 'we'? Lewis has to keep in condition, so please, Captain, give him some heavy work to do; let him spank the spinnaker and reef the anchor and splice the jib-boom."

"I could do any of them," said Lewis, throwing out his chest; and the captain chuckled.

"I tell you," he said, "we can let Lewis dust the mains'l; that would give him good exercise. But leavin' jokin' behind, ef ye want somethin' to do, why don't you get a motor boat and take out people for little runs among the islands here, same as I do? Lots o' people want to go quicker nor I can go, but I wouldn't touch one of the pesky things."

"By jiminy!" exclaimed Frank, "that's an idea!"

"Yes, and where's your motor boat coming from?" said Jimmy. "Motor boats cost something, and I don't see any good, kind gentleman coming around handing us one."

"We might hire one," said Lewis, "and pay the rent from our profits. If we had luck we might be able to buy her by fall."

"Yes, and a house and lot and two yachts," said Jimmy, who was skeptical about the plan.

"Guess I know where you boys might pick up one cheap," broke in the captain, as he dexterously swung the boat over on the starboard tack and headed her up the bay. "Old man Simpkins has a motor boat he hasn't used for mor'n a year. It's layin' hitched up to his wharf down Turner's Point way."

"Oh, I know who he is," said Frank. "Lives in that big house by the pine grove a little way this side of the Point."

"That's the feller," said the captain. "Has a little girl, all kinder crippled up with some disease or other. Comes down to sail with me two or three times a week. Had a son at college who died of fever or something. It was his boat. That's the reason the boat's never used, I guess; old gentleman don't care for it no more."

"Great whippoorwills, but there's our chance!" said Frank. "Jimmy, get over your pessimism and think up some scheme for renting that boat. Why, man," as Jimmy just grinned, "there's millions in it. We'll organize a company."

"I'll be with you on condition that you'll let me steer it," said Jimmy. "You can be captain if you want to."

"All right, my son, you may, and I'll take care of the motor," said Frank. "That's a job for the best man."

"And what am I to be?" said Lewis. "Can't I be skipper, or something like that?"

"You'll be the ballast," said Jimmy, grinning from his perch on the bow-sprit. He had turned over on his back now and was balancing precariously, one toe hooked in a coil of rope at the foot of the mast being his only anchorage from a bath in the cool green sea racing along a couple of feet below him.

"We are talking as if we had the boat in commission already. But 'nothing venture, nothing have,' as the old saying goes. I'm going down to-morrow to see Mr. Simpkins and try my powers of persuasion on him."

"Beware of the dog," warned Jimmy.

"Dog or no dog, I'm going to try."

"What's this navigation company going to be called?" inquired Lewis.

"The name will be the 'Queen's Ferry,'" said Frank.

"Sounds like an old English romance, but it's good," commented Jimmy; "the Queen's Ferry, Armstrong, Captain, Carroll, first mate——"

"I don't want to be first mate," corrected Lewis. "I want to be a skipper."

"Well, if you want to have such a lively name go ahead and take it. If skipper means anything speedy, you've got the most terrifically misplaced confidence in yourself I ever saw,—but if you must, you must, so you are to be the skipper."

"And James Turner will be first mate and helmsman," said Frank.

"Aye, aye, sir," came the response.

"Now, that being done, we've got to have an agent to drum up our business, to see that the great and waiting public may know that at last in Seawall there is a proper conveyance; a guide and courier, a kind of advertising man who will present our magnificent possibilities in transportation."

The three boys looked at each other.

"The Codfish!" they shouted in chorus.

"The Codfish is the man. And he's coming to visit me in a week," added Frank.

"Too long to wait," said Jimmy, shaking his head. "We are losing profits every minute. Let's telegraph him to come now. 'Do it now'—or before—is my motto."

"Good!" said Frank; "we'll telegraph to-night and offer him the job. Let's see, this is Thursday; we ought to begin our trips Monday. Yes, Monday's the best day to begin anything on. We might get started on Saturday if the Codfish comes right away."

"Did you kids ever hear tell of countin' chickens before they was hatched?" broke in the voice of Captain Silas. "You haint got the boat yit," and the old man chuckled. "But that's the way youth do run on. And then how about drivin' poor old Captain Silas Brown out of bisness with one o' them fast motor boats?"

"Oh, Captain, do you think it would hurt your trade? We wouldn't do it for the world. We'll give it up. I didn't think of that," cried the generous boys in a breath.

"Go along with you, 'twon't hurt me. I was only jokin'. There'll be more than we all can do and I'm a thinkin' you'll get tired of it pretty quick. I'll help you all I can to git hold of the old boat, but don't ever ask me to go to sea in one o' the consarned things. 'Member what happened to your old boat last year?"

The boys looked at each other.

"You bet we do!" they exclaimed in a breath.

"But there are to be no matches aboard any boats I command in the future," cried Frank.

"Well, here we are back again," said the captain, as he brought the Seagull, for such was her name, up into the wind. "I'll take you off in my dinghy in a minnit."

"Thank you, Captain, for a fine sail and a brilliant idea, and we won't bother you to take us off; we have our fins," said Frank. "See you later," and one after the other the boys popped into the water like so many porpoises, and, led by Frank, swimming a graceful and easy overhand, they went ploughing up the beach in the direction of the Armstrong cottage.

"Water rats, nuthin' but derned water rats," said the old man, as his kindly eye followed the three swimmers pulling rapidly away towards the shore.

CHAPTER II. FAILURE AND A PROVIDENTIAL RESCUE.

"Dad," said Frank that night at the supper table, "we boys are going into the transportation business. Got any objection?"

"Into the what?" said Mr. Armstrong, pausing in the act of filling his healthy son's plate for the second time.

"Transportation, if you please, sir," said Frank, grinning and reaching for the full dish. "It's like this: Old Captain Silas says there are lots of people about here who want to take little cruises around the islands these fine days. That's condition No. 1."

"Condition No. 1," repeated his father, smiling. "Go on."

"And condition No. 2 is, three strong, husky, able-bodied seamen, Jimmy Turner, Lewis, and your dutiful son, who want to make some money and keep ourselves busy at the same time."

"What about Old Captain Silas himself?" inquired Mrs. Armstrong. "Can't he take care of all the excursionists himself? Or does he want to take you boys into partnership?"

"No, mother, this is going to be a rapid passenger service," and in a few words he outlined the plan put into his head that afternoon by the old captain's remark. "The only things we need now are a ship and a manager."

"Not much, is it?" said Mr. Armstrong, laughing. "Perhaps Colonel Powers would let you have his yacht."

"Oh, dad, I'm not joking. We are in a fair way to have both. At least we know where there's a motor boat, and the Codfish was born to be a manager of the outfit. It is providential. We'll get him here ahead of time."

"Where's your motor boat?" inquired Mrs. Armstrong, smiling indulgently at her son's eagerness.

"It is anchored down the shore a ways, belongs to Mr. Simpkins, and we're going to tackle him to-morrow. I think I can show him," added Frank, cocking his head on one side, wisely, "that there would be good money in it for him to rent it. We can charge twenty-five cents a head for all passengers. Let's see," counting on his fingers, "we ought to be able to carry half a dozen besides our crew if the boat's any size,—that'd be a dollar and a half for a trip of an hour. And we can make four or five trips a day, sure. That'd be seven dollars and fifty cents a day, and, six days a week, that'd be about forty-five dollars," triumphantly. "Running expenses ought not to be more than fifteen dollars, and that would leave thirty dollars to divvy up between the four of us." Frank's ambitions were running away with him. "And besides that, we'd have a better time than doing nothing. Can't we do it, dad?"

"Well, I don't see any very strong objections," returned Mr. Armstrong, smiling at his wife across the table, "but if you are figuring on that boat of Mr. Simpkins' I wouldn't build my scheme too high, for it might tumble. Mr. Simpkins wouldn't probably be interested in dividends, for he has a pile of money, and, besides that, he is a pretty crusty old gentleman."

"Crusty or no crusty, we are going down to see him in the morning, provided you and mother don't say no." It was finally agreed in the family that there would be no objection.

"They will soon get tired of it, mother," said Mr. Armstrong, "and it's dollars to pins that Mr. Simpkins will set the dog on them instead of handing over his motor boat, even though he doesn't use it himself."

"And only one thing more," cried Frank, in great glee that his parents threw no obstacle in the way of the Queen's Ferry Company. "The Codfish is coming down to make us a visit next week. Can't we have him down right away? We need his head in this big venture."

"Glad to have him come along. We would like to see this wonderful roommate of yours, wouldn't we, mother?" said Mr. Armstrong.

"Whoop!" shouted Frank, "then we'll telegraph. I'm off to meet the other officers of the company."

The result of the conference between the captain, the helmsman, and the skipper was that this telegram was dispatched to the Codfish:

"Big transportation company formed. You are elected manager. No work, big profits. Come on next train.

"(Signed) Frank, Lewis, Jimmy."

About the middle of the next forenoon the boys met at the Armstrong household and girt up their loins, or, in other words, nerved themselves for the negotiations with Mr. Simpkins.

"You do the talking, Frank," said Jimmy. "You have the gift of gab. I'll guard the way and Lewis can protect us from the dog."

"Protect nothing," said Lewis. "I'm too important a member of this company to fatten any bulldogs in this neighborhood."

"If any one is to be sacrificed on this expedition, it might as well be you," retorted Jimmy. "Skippers are always the first to be sacrificed."

Bantering each other, the three boys made their way down the shore walk, and boldly ascended the path to the big yellow house where Mr. Simpkins lived in solitary grandeur. They might have retreated before this point had not they strengthened their drooping spirits with a hurried inspection of the motor boat moored to the little pier. A long, racy-looking boat it was, lying close on the water and with every evidence of speed. The lines swept back from the bow in a graceful curve to a rather full beam at midships, and then swung in slightly as they approached the stern, ending abruptly in a square hull. The motor was covered by a rubber tarpaulin, and so they were not able to tell much about it. A generous bulk testified, however, to ample power to drive the craft at high speed. A kind of canvas awning partially protected the interior woodwork of the boat, but in spite of this the craft had a forlorn appearance.

"She's a little the worse for weather, but she's a beauty in spite of it," exclaimed Frank, as he looked her over. "She has The Foam knocked galley-west," he added.

"That's a fact," was Jimmy's only comment. He thought of the poor old Foam lying at the bottom out in the bay there.

"Well, here goes," said Frank, and he led the way up the wide and imposing steps of the Simpkins homestead. "Here's where the Queen's Ferry Transportation Company sees the light or is buried thirty fathoms under. 'Screw up your courage to the sticking point,' as Hamlet said, and follow me." The big door opened to their ring and they stepped within in a huddled group.

Ten minutes later three dejected youths might have been seen making their way slowly towards Seawall. Disappointment was written deeply on each countenance. "He's what I call an old skinflint," said Jimmy savagely. "Didn't want the boat, wouldn't sell it, or lend it, or rent it," and he kicked an inoffensive shell out of the track.

"A regular dog-in-the-manger," commented Lewis.

"Well, that's settled, anyway," said Frank, taking a long breath. "We've no ship, and of course we can't sail without a ship."

In their disappointment the boys hunted up Captain Silas Brown, who was hoisting his mainsail to the breeze and preparing for the prospective trippers. The old man listened to their story.

"I'll tell you what I'll do," he said. "I need some one to help me out fer a day or two with this old craft. I've got a touch of the rheumatiz, and I'm not so smart as I might be."

Together they talked it all over and decided that that very afternoon the boys were to ship as able-bodied seamen. This somewhat cheered the officers of the defunct Queen's Ferry Company.

Suddenly Frank sprang up. "Great Scott, fellows, we forgot to telegraph the Codfish! No use of him coming now. Let's wire him the disaster. We don't want to get him here under false pretenses."

The three boys hurried off to the telegraph office. Arrived there, they called for a blank and Frank was just getting the sad information down in the form of a telegram, when the clerk behind the counter said: "You're the fellows who sent a message to G. W. Gleason at Yarmouth this morning?"

"Yes."

"Well, here's an answer. It has just come in, pretty quick work that."

Frank tore the end off the yellow envelope, for it was addressed to him, and read:

"Don't care for the salary, too much money already, but the job with no work appeals to me. I'll be at Seawall to-morrow night at six o'clock if the train stays on the track.

"(Signed) The Codfish."

"Well, here's a pickle! But never mind, I know mother and father won't mind," said Frank. "So let him come." The Codfish was a great favorite with the three, in spite of his sharp tongue and rather unusual ways. They were not sorry that he was coming.

That afternoon our trio reported to Captain Silas Brown just as he was making up his party of voyagers at the end of Seawall pier. It turned out to be a gallant sailing day. A steady wind blew from the southwest, making the Seagull dance merrily alongside the float to which the captain had drawn her to take on his passengers, of whom there were an unusually large number, attracted probably by the fair prospects for the afternoon. They were mostly women and children, and the three new assistants made themselves very useful at lending a hand as the passengers stepped into the rocking sloop. Soon all were aboard and the mooring ropes were cast off. The sloop moved swiftly away down the bay under the guidance of Captain Silas on what proved to be an eventful voyage. The day was a glorious one, and the wind strong enough to heel the Seagull over till her bright green underbody showed well above the water on the windward side. Every now and then a stronger puff of wind laid the Seagull so far over that her lee side was buried under the foaming water. But the passengers had confidence in the steady hand of Captain Silas, and chatted merrily, for the cockpit was protected from wave tops by a high wooden edge, and there was apparently no danger. The occasional dash of spray which came aboard was just enough to add zest to the outing, and the passengers enjoyed the lively dance of the sloop over the rolling water.

FRANK TURNED JUST IN TIME TO SEE A FLASH OF WHITE DISAPPEARING BENEATH THE SURFACE.—[Page 27.]

All of a sudden, when rounding the point off High Island, there came a violent blast of wind which plucked the hat from the head of a little girl who had sat all the while very quietly with her maid on the leeward side of the sloop. She jumped to her feet, made a desperate grab for the flying head-covering, lost her balance, and pitched head first into the water. She was lost to sight in an instant, a big wave breaking over her head as she went down.

At the scream of the maid, Frank, who had been standing on the little deck forward with one arm around the mast, turned just in time to see a flash of white disappearing beneath the surface.

"She is drowned! She is drowned!" screamed the maid, jumping to her feet and wringing her hands wildly. "Oh, she's drowned!" The other women in the boat began to scream and point to the place where the little girl had gone down.

With Frank, to think was to act. Without waiting to throw off any clothes, he made a flying leap for the spot where he had last seen the white dress; but so great had been the momentum of the boat, that when he struck the water he was some yards away from the spot. Hampered as he was with his clothes and hindered by the breaking waves, he swam desperately, using his most powerful strokes. Before he could cover the distance he saw a white sleeve and the top of a head appear above the surface for an instant and disappear immediately. Half a dozen strokes carried him to the place, but the drowning girl had gone down for the second time.

For a few moments only, Frank paddled around waiting for the child to come to the surface. He had heard that a drowning person comes to the surface three times. "I won't risk it," he said to himself. "She may never come up again, and the water must be deep here." He stopped swimming, turned his back to the waves, took a deep breath, and dived straight for the bottom.

How cold and strange it felt, and how quiet after the tumult he had left above him! The impulse of his dive soon ended, and yet there was no bottom, so he began to swim straight downward. His eyes were open and he could see quite plainly within a radius of ten feet. Straining his eyes, he looked into the gloomy depths as he swam. What was that gleam of white far below him? It must be the girl's dress. How his head cracked with the pressure of the water, but on he went downward, ever downward. He was below the clear light, but the thought that he was nearing the drowning child gave him the power of a grown man. He swam on almost blindly, and with the strength of despair, because he knew it was the only chance to save a life. In the blackness of the depths he lost the gleam of white, then recovered it, lost it again, and after two or three strokes touched something which felt like seaweed. His hand closed instinctively, although he could see nothing now, and he realized with a great feeling of joy that it was the child's hair which had floated upward. He wound his hand securely in it, and struck madly for the surface with splitting head and bursting lungs.

It could only have been a few seconds, but to Frank it seemed an eternity before his head bobbed into the clear sunlight and he was able to take a great gulping breath. He felt as weak as a baby, but he had strength enough to pull his burden to the surface and turn on his back.

"Good boy," said a voice behind him. "Let me take her. Look out for yourself." Frank turned his head and saw Jimmy at his elbow. He resigned the little girl, who showed no signs of life, to his friend, and lay panting on the surface, the water breaking over him every now and then. He had barely strength left to work his hands fin-like to keep afloat, while Captain Silas maneuvered the sloop back to the spot where the two boys were struggling in the water. Soon life buoys were thrown out to them, and a minute later the sloop, with her head to the wind and her mainsail snapping and cracking, lay close alongside.

In a jiffy the unconscious girl, Frank, and Jimmy were pulled aboard the boat, where Frank lay gasping like a fish out of water. Well acquainted with and skilled in the methods of resuscitation, the old captain worked over the little girl, who lay as limp as a rag on the deck while the maid wept hysterically and several of the other women cried in sympathy.

"Ding bust it," cried the old man at last, "what ye crying about? She's not drownded, I tell ye. She's coming to." And the captain was right. First there was a little quiver of the eyelids, then a faint sigh from her lips, and finally a soft moan.

"Thank God!" said the captain. "The pore little girl will be all right in a few minutes. But I say, it was a narrow squeak. Frank Armstrong, you deserve the Carnegie medal for that same trick."

Frank was on his feet again, and, although white and a little sick, he was able to help Jimmy with the tiller, while the captain kept up his ministrations to the little girl, who opened her eyes at last and looked about her.

"You'll be sound as a dollar in half an hour," said the captain, as he finally turned her over to the maid, who had by this time quieted down. Captain Silas went aft and took the tiller from the boys.

"That was a good turn you did for old man Simpkins," he observed. "That's his little girl you saved from a watery death. Guess he'll feel different about that motor boat now," and the old captain smiled grimly.

Before the Seagull reached the dock the participators in what had nearly been a tragedy were rapidly recovering. Frank was still wobbly on his legs, but quickly recovered his spirits. "Thank you, old man," he said to Jimmy as they disembarked. "If it hadn't been for you, both of us would have gone down. I didn't have the strength to keep even myself up and I wouldn't have let her go down alone." The two friends gave a silent pressure of the hand.

"It was nothing," said Jimmy. "I went after you as quickly as I could. It seemed to me you were down fully five minutes, and I had about given you up when your head bobbed through the surface."

"Seemed to me I was down about an hour, and I guess I must have been fifteen or twenty feet under when I got her. But it's all over now, and I'm glad."

The gallant rescue was the talk of Seawall that night. Captain Silas sat at the end of the pier with a group around him, and Frank's daring deed lost nothing by the captain's telling. But Frank was silent on the matter himself and denied that he had done anything to talk about. From him, his father and mother could only get the bare facts that he had jumped overboard and pulled in a little girl who had had the bad luck to fall into the water.

CHAPTER III. QUEEN'S TRANSPORTATION COMPANY.

The six o'clock train the next night brought with it the Codfish in all his glory. He was radiant in a natty gray flannel suit, and sported a lavender tie and socks to match, with a dash of the same color in his hat band.

"Welcome to our city, Codfish!" shouted Frank, who with Jimmy and Lewis had been at the station long before the train from the north was due.

"Gentlemen," returned that individual as he descended mincingly from the parlor car, while a porter dragged two great suit-cases stuffed to bursting after him, "I am charmed with this reception. But where's the band?"

"The only one I see," said Jimmy laughingly, "is the one on your hat, and it sounds like a flock of trombones. Don't you know you are liable to shock these sedate villagers with that raiment of yours? You might be arrested as a disturber of the peace."

"You see in me not a shocker," replied the visitor, "but the great animator. Business will pick up as soon as I am well established in your rural midst. Children cry for me and all that sort of thing. But what's this job you have for me?"

"Oh, I'm sorry to say it's all off. We were about to telegraph you again to stay where you were, when we had your message saying you were coming."

"All right, I'll take the next train back."

"You'll take nothing back for about three weeks. We'll tell you what we had up our sleeve. Here, Jones"—to the village expressman—"take these miniature trunks down to my father's house," said Frank. "We'll walk, if you feel able to take so much exercise, Mr. Gleason."

"Not used to it, of course, but I'll make an exception this time. Now, fire away on this scheme of yours."

As they trudged along, Frank, aided by Jimmy and occasionally by Lewis, told of the conception and the smash of the scheme. "But never mind," he added, "we can find enough to do. We'll teach you to swim like a fish——"

"No, you won't. I'm not a fish in spite of my name. I will fight before I'll swim, and goodness knows I'd hate to fight, for it's most exhausting."

The boys all laughed at the whimsical Codfish, for they all knew that he wasn't half so backward in athletic things as he tried to persuade them that he was.

"Hello," said Frank, giving a whistle of surprise as he approached the house. "We have company. By crickets, it is—it is Mr. Simpkins! Now, I wonder if his little girl hasn't got over her ducking yet."

"Principal people of the village here undoubtedly to welcome me," said the Codfish. "'Spose I'll have to make a speech and all that sort of thing. Beastly bore; you shouldn't have let them know I was coming."

By this time Frank had mounted the steps of the house. "This is my son Frank, Mr. Simpkins," said Mr. Armstrong.

Frank came forward and received a hearty handclasp from Mr. Simpkins. "My boy," said the latter, "when you were at my house this morning, I little thought that I'd have to thank you for saving my daughter's life. I do thank you from the bottom of my heart, and I want to ask your pardon for my seeming bluntness this morning."

"Oh, that was all right, sir. I happened to be handy to-day and helped to pull the little girl out of the water. That was all. And as for the motor boat, it was a matter of business and we couldn't come to terms. No one's fault."

Mr. Simpkins smiled at the businesslike youngster who talked so clearly to the point. "Well, I appreciate your quality more now than I did this morning, and I've come up not only to thank you, but to tell you that the motor boat you want is yours."

"Oh, I couldn't think of taking it! I did nothing to earn it," said Frank, much embarrassed by the kindly tone and offer.

"Now I insist," said the visitor. "The boat is doing me no good whatsoever, and you might as well have it. It belonged to a son of mine who is gone, and I haven't had the heart to let it be used or even to sell it. In view of the obligation you have placed me under, my boy, I can square things with you partially, at least, by giving you the boat. It has not been used much and I'm sure it is in good condition. If it is not in good condition, I'll put it that way, so you can begin your transportation, as you call it, at once."

"I'm awfully much obliged," said Frank, "but it's too much of a gift for what I did. Won't you let us buy it from you?" There was a sound of muffled protest from the boys at the other end of the veranda where they had withdrawn, although still within earshot of the conversation that was going on.

"The boy is right, Mr. Simpkins, it is too much of a gift," said Mr. Armstrong. "I think his argument is good."

"Well, then," said Mr. Simpkins, turning again to Frank, "make me an offer. I'm willing to sell to you and in some way discharge some of my debt. You are willing to buy, I think you said this morning."

"Yes, sir, but I'm afraid it would cost too much for us."

"I don't know," said the old gentleman; "the boat's not doing me any good. Let's see; I'd sell her for a hundred dollars and put her in running shape. How's that? And you can pay me half of that amount at the end of this summer and the other half a year later. Will you take her?"

There was a murmur of approval at the other end of the veranda, and Frank, as soon as he could find his voice, exclaimed: "You bet we'll take her! I mean—thank you, sir; we will take her on those conditions." Mr. Simpkins smiled slyly at Mr. Armstrong, who, being later appealed to by his son, readily gave his consent to the deal, adding, "And I'll back Frank and his chums in this venture."

"I can already see that I'm dealing with a young man who will make good his word," said Mr. Simpkins. "And now I must be going. I'll have a man look over the boat to-morrow morning, and if everything is all right with the engine you can take possession at once. I'll have my man show you how to run her, but I imagine it won't take you long to learn. Good night, all."

You can readily imagine the jubilee that took place when Mr. Simpkins was out of hearing. The four boys grabbed each other and danced a wild Highland fling. Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong looked on laughing as the boys thumped each other on the back and shouted.

"Boys, boys, you won't leave a board in the veranda, and the neighbors will think you've taken leave of your senses," admonished Mrs. Armstrong. "And, anyway, it's time for supper, and Mr. Gleason must be hungry after his long ride."

"Dear old mum, you would dance, too, wouldn't you, if you had just bought a ship for a song, same as we have? Here, salute the captain of the new Transportation Company!" His mother slipped her arm over her son's shoulder and kissed him gravely on the cheek: "Thus I salute Captain Armstrong."

"That's the best salute ever, mother. Better than twenty-one guns in the navy."

"And where do we come in, in these salutes," said the Codfish. "Aren't we important members of the company?"

"I could kiss you all, to-day," said the motherly woman; "I'm so happy for your sakes. But there goes the bell. We'll have something more substantial than salutes."

There was great planning at that supper of passenger carrying, swimming, racing and the like, things that all energetic boys on a summer vacation would enjoy.

"If David were only here our party would be complete," said Jimmy.

"And where is he?" inquired Gleason.

"We hope he'll be in Seawall next month. He is in Europe now," returned Frank; "and we will keep our purchase a secret from him at present. When he gets back we will suddenly burst on his vision in all our glory."

"Good old David," said Jimmy; "won't he be glad? We can take him along as member of the crew. He'd make a ripping coxswain."

"I don't know what a coxswain has to do, but he'd be all right for any job," said Lewis.

"And with all this crew you propose," said Mr. Armstrong, "where are you going to put your passengers?"

"Oh, don't worry about that, Dad; she's a big boat. Wait till you see her. Are you willing to advance us running expenses for gasoline and oil till we get our first money on fares?"

"Provided it isn't more than a hundred dollars a day," returned his father, laughing.

The next morning was spent down at the Simpkins wharf with the mechanic. There was little to do. The motor was one of the best types, but while it had been idle it had acquired some rust. The pistons stuck hard in the cylinders for a time, but they were soon freed and the engine turned over as smoothly as the day it left the shop. When the batteries were renewed, the carburetor adjusted and the gas and oil tanks filled, the mechanic gave the fly wheel a sharp turn. Instantly there was an explosion; another and another followed, and as the motor picked up speed under the careful manipulation of the mechanic, the explosions from the exhaust settled down into a steady purr.

"That's a peach of an engine," said Frank to the mechanic. "How much speed do you think the boat has?"

"Dunno," replied the mechanic; "mebby twenty miles, mebby more. Don't think there's many around here that'll get away from her very much. Now we're ready to see how she goes."

The ropes which fastened the motor boat to the pier were thrown off and slowly the craft was backed from her berth.

"Take the wheel," said the mechanic, indicating Frank, "and I'll look after the motor. We'll see what she can do."

Frank sprang to the wheel and after a little maneuvering headed her down the bay. "She steers like a bicycle," he cried. "Gee whiz, isn't it great?"

As the speed increased, the boat lifted her nose clear out of the water under the push from the powerful motor, and a white-capped wave rolled away from either side. They passed several sailing boats that seemed almost motionless by contrast. Frank ranged up alongside another motor boat bound in the same direction and soon left it in the distance. Then, after a long, sweeping turn, he headed back to the wharf, where Mr. Simpkins stood.

"She's all right, I see," said that gentleman, "and evidently hasn't lost her speed."

"I should say she hadn't," said Frank. "We went like an express train. Are you sure you still want to hold to your bargain, Mr. Simpkins?"

"Oh, yes; I'm glad my old boat has fallen into such appreciative hands. Maybe I'll take a ride with you, when you have begun your ferry service. She isn't as handsome as she was before the weather got at her sides, but a lick of paint here and there will repair all the damage."

"If our profits are big enough, we can lay her up this winter and give her a new dress," suggested Jimmy; "but there's no time now."

"If you are satisfied that you can run her," continued Mr. Simpkins, "and she is ready, there's no reason you can't take her now. What do you say?"

"Say? Why, we say yes, if you don't mind. We can be getting used to her before we begin to make business runs. How about it, mates?" said Frank, turning to his crew.

Of course the crew were of one mind. The mechanic was landed on the pier, and under the hands of her new crew, the Black Duck, for that was the name of the craft, shot once more into the sparkling waters of the bay. This time Jimmy was at the wheel and Frank manipulated the motor.

Halfway to the Seawall pier the boys met the Seagull, with a party aboard. Jimmy swung in close and the crew of the motor boat gave such a yell as startled the old salt at the tiller of the Seagull.

"Well, I'll be swizzled," they heard him say as they flashed by, and turning, with his arm on the tiller, he waved a friendly hand as they dashed on.

Before the day was over the boys had familiarized themselves thoroughly with their new possession, and the farther they went the more wonderful did they consider their luck in having such a craft.

The next morning the town of Seawall was startled in its morning walk by notices posted conspicuously as follows:

QUEEN'S TRANSPORTATION COMPANY.

A marvellous opportunity
to see the magnificent scenery
of Seawall Bay by motor boat.
Roomy accommodations.
Courteous attendants.
Every convenience.
For the small sum
of 25 cents.
Start made from Seawall Pier every hour.
First trip 10 a. m. to-day.
Per order

BOARD OF DIRECTORS.

The notice was prepared by the ready pen of the Codfish, and it was given an added interest by a slap-dash drawing of a motor boat coasting down the side of a big wave, while little fishes and big fishes stood on their tails in astonishment. Of course, every one who read went down to the pier at the hour named, and the young navigators started out on their first trip with every seat taken. During the trip the Codfish acted as a kind of guide to the party and pointed out the "magnificent scenery," adding many fictitious details as the Black Duck plowed along. The passengers, when landed at the starting point after an hour's trip, voted it the best ride they had ever taken and made way for a new boatload.

It was a day of rushing business for the new company, and the profits before nightfall came to something over ten dollars.

CHAPTER IV. BURTON'S ARRIVAL.

This first day of business was the index of many days to come, and the money rolled in rapidly. "A little while more, fellows, and we will own half of her," said the captain, as they laid up to the pier one fine day waiting for passengers.

"Which half, Captain," inquired the Codfish; "bow or stern?"

"Never mind which," returned Frank. "You keep on with your superb management and we will have a property here worth while. Here comes another load for us. There's about two dollars in this for us. Hustle up, my hearties, and be ready to lend a hand, Fatty." This to Lewis, who never disturbed himself unless under orders. Lewis crawled laboriously over the gunwale onto the float.

"Well, well, well," said a young man of the party who had just come upon the float. "If my eyes do not deceive me, the captain of that ocean-going motor boat is none other than my old friend, Frank Armstrong!"

Frank, who had been fussing with the motor, raised his head. "Mr. Burton!" he exclaimed. "Glad to see you! I didn't know you were around here."

"I can say the same to you. How long have you been a navigator?" he added, as the party of young folks climbed aboard. "And there's Jimmy and your little fat friend. My, this is quite a reunion. Arrived only a day or two ago."

The boys grinned their pleasure at the meeting.

"Do any swimming now?" said Burton as the boat got under way.

"Oh, yes, we take the mornings for that. We do a little in athletics up at Queen's School and we're kept in training, especially for football."

"Oh, yes, you are a Freshman up there."

"No, we are in our second year," said Jimmy proudly.

"I beg your pardon," said Burton, laughing; "it is hard to be taken for a Freshman when you've got away beyond that unhappy period. Now, it is fortunate, Frank, you've kept up your swimming, because I want you to come down to Turner's Point next week and show some of those fellows how we used to swim down in Florida. Can you come?"

"Can't leave my transportation job very well," replied Frank.

"Oh, hang your transportation job! There will be no one to transport that day. Every one will be down to the carnival. You know what a crowd we had last year, and it's going to be a bigger affair than ever. There'll be lots of people to come down from Seawall. Why don't you run a special excursion, swim in the meet and take your crowd back home in the evening? There you are, business and pleasure combined."

"Sounds good to me," said Frank. "How about it for you, Jimmy, and you, Codfish and Lewis?"

"Oh, come along," said Burton. "I'll put you down, Frank, in the hundred-yard race or anything you want to go in for. They've made me master of ceremonies again. And you will be interested to know that your old rival, Peters, is back at the Point and swimming better than ever. He's been practicing, he told me, hoping for the chance to get back at you. Don't you want to take another fall out of him?"

Frank's eyes brightened. "I wouldn't mind," he added slowly. "I'm stronger than I was a year ago, but I don't know that I've improved the stroke you taught me."

"I'm sure it's all right," said the buoyant Burton. "I'll come up to-morrow morning and see what you've been doing in the way of speed, and after looking you and Jimmy over I can tell the distance you can swim best. Is it a go?"

"It's a go for me," said Frank.

"Me, too," said Jimmy.

"Ditto," said Lewis.

"And how about Mr. Gleason?" said Burton.

"The Codfish, in spite of his name, hates the water except in the bathtub," said Jimmy. "But he'd be a fine scorer, eh, Codfish?"

"Anything the captain says is good enough for me," said the Codfish. "He's the boss. I'm on a salary and under orders."

"Well, you can be an ornament to the stake boat, or the float, or anywhere you want to be. It's settled that you are to come?" said Burton.

The boys nodded. Burton went back to his party and the boys gave their attention wholly to navigation to the end of the trip.

"Don't forget, now; I'm going to be up your way in the morning. Be all ready in your suits," Burton called back over his shoulder, as with his friends he left the Seawall pier.

Next morning the boys met early at the old swimming place and were splashing about trying various strokes, when Burton's black head showed in the water a quarter of a mile off shore.

"By the great horn spoon," said Jimmy, "there he is, swimming up, and it's nearly a mile from the Point."

"He must be a wonder," said the Codfish; "I wouldn't take all that exercise if you were to give me the Black Duck and all her feathers. But there's no accounting for tastes. I'm overcome thinking how much energy he is wasting." The Codfish was perched on a dry bit of rock. His raiment was as immaculate as ever, but the tone of it was pink this morning.

"Hello, boys," shouted Burton as he approached. "Ready, I see. Now," as he pulled himself up on the rocks, "I want to see what you've accomplished since I saw you. In with you, Frank."

Frank plunged into the water and swam a little distance, using the crawl stroke to the best of his ability, while Burton observed him closely.

"'Tisn't quite right. Look," and the coach dived off the rock and shot over to Frank. "You ought to bring your hand clear out of the water. Don't reach too far and don't let it go too deep; just like a paddle, you remember. Your leg kick is good. Get your arms right and there will be nothing to it."

Frank tried to follow the instructions as well as he could, and his efforts pleased his instructor, who shouted from his perch on the rock to which he had returned: "Fine, fine, that's the way; now only one breath to half a dozen strokes; you waste too much time breathing."

"Same as me," commented the Codfish from his perch.

Frank finished his lesson, and Jimmy and Lewis were sent in for some instruction. Burton began to call for the crawl stroke, but both boys confessed they had never been able to learn it very well. They disliked burying their faces in the water, and so got along much better with the old overhand and breast strokes.

Burton tried to show them just how it was done, and was in the water and out of it half a dozen times coaching, but neither of the swimmers caught the idea.

"Well, never mind, let it go to-day and swim me a hundred yards, the three of you. Frank, you take the crawl, and let the other two use what they want to. Get ready, go!"

The boys splashed into the water each in his different way, Frank easy and graceful, Jimmy determined but rather clumsy, and Lewis like a walrus.

"See how Frank pulls away from them," said Burton, now left alone with the Codfish. "That boy is a wonder in the water. Why, they're not any match for him at all, and only last year both of them could beat him. That's what comes of sticking to a thing. Frank was determined to learn that stroke and he got it. The others thought there was nothing in it and didn't try hard."

The swimmers reached the other side of the little rocky inlet and were heading back towards the starting point, with Frank well in the lead, but he slowed up and finished easily, while the others pulled themselves up on the rocks almost exhausted.

"We're no match for Frank at all," said Jimmy, puffing. "He has a motor attached to him somewhere."

"It is the motor of perseverance, my son," said Burton. "You would do better in a long race, I think. Did you ever swim an eighth of a mile—the 220 yards?"

"Yes, but not in a race," answered Jimmy.

"You'll be as good as any of the rest of them at the distance, so I'll put you down for the 220 race. And Lewis, we'll put him in for the plunge."

"What's that?" said Lewis.

"Just like this," and suiting the action to the word Burton sprang from his rock, put his hands before him as he flew through the air, struck the water cleanly as a knife, and after disappearing a moment from view came to the top floating. His body traveled rapidly forward in a straight line, arms and legs held rigidly extended and the face buried. Fifty feet from the rock, when his momentum had about ended, he turned over on his back and raced back to the starting point. "That's the way you do it," he said, as he climbed up, shaking the water out of his hair. "Let's see you try it, Lewis."

"It's easy," said Lewis, and took the dive. He landed flat as a pancake, nearly knocking all the breath out of his body, stretched out his arms and legs, as he had seen Burton do, but didn't move five feet from the point where he struck the water. After lying on his face and imagining himself traveling forward, he looked up, disgusted, to note what little progress he had made, only to see his companions howling with laughter.

"Isn't so easy as it looks, is it?" said Burton. "But keep at it." He illustrated again, and Lewis, after one or two attempts, readily caught the idea. As there was no work to the job of plunging, he took a fancy to it, and before the morning's coaching was over was doing pretty well.

"There," said Burton finally, jumping up, "that's all the time I can give you this morning. All of you work every morning, but don't do too much. You have a week before the meet comes off. See you later."

"Can't we come a little way with you?" said Frank.

"Sure, glad to have you," and Frank and Jimmy took the water with Burton. They headed out clear of the rocks and turned down the shore at a distance of perhaps a hundred yards from land. Lewis and the Codfish walked leisurely down the sand, watching the three heads as they bobbed along in the waves.

"You ought to take every chance you can get," said Burton, as the three swam easily side by side, "to swim longer distances. There's no telling how handy it might come in, supposing you were pitched off a boat some day. The way to do, is to take it easy like we are now and use all your strokes. When you get tired with one, take another. That change rests you almost as much as stopping. Use one arm over first, and then another," illustrating as he went along, "and if you get very tired, turn over on your back and float a while with your hands well over your head like this." Again he illustrated.

The three swam on for two or three hundred yards, the boys drinking in the instruction of the expert and trying to put into practice all that he was telling them. Little did they think that they would need all and more than they were able to show in the way of strength and endurance in a short time.

"Well, good-by, boys; I've got to make time now," shouted Burton. "Maybe I'll see you before the meet, but if I don't, remember it is Thursday week at four o'clock. Be sure to come," and he was gone in a cloud of spray kicked up by his arms and legs as he started on his long swim down the shore.

"Good-by," echoed both boys, and with quickened pace they drew toward the shore and soon joined Lewis and the Codfish.

CHAPTER V. THE WATER CARNIVAL.

Business still held good, and less than two weeks after the Queen's Ferry began its traffic there was money enough in the treasury to pay all running expenses and leave enough for the first installment of fifty dollars for Mr. Simpkins.

"It isn't due until the end of the summer," said Frank, "but we might as well pay it, and there's five dollars over for Captain Silas. That's for the idea."

"And please, sir, where does the crew come in?" inquired the Codfish.

The boys were all seated on the veranda of the Armstrong home. After dinner, with paper and pencil they had gone over their daily earnings, with the result that the decision to pay up had been made. All voted unanimously.

"Oh, you will get your reward by and by. Isn't it enough to have such company as ours without pay?" queried Lewis.

"Say, Codfish," said Jimmy, "that poster of yours was a dandy." He referred to the one that the Codfish had spent the greater part of the day before preparing, and it was the announcement of the special excursion to Turner's Point on Thursday. The Codfish had put his best efforts on the work, and, like the others that had preceded it, it was embellished with drawings illustrating the coming carnival.

"Codfish is a genius and no mistake," laughed Frank. "This outfit wouldn't be anywhere without him, and when the season is over we will vote him double pay."

"I was brought here under false pretenses," said that individual in what he tried to make an aggrieved tone. "Your telegram said: 'No work, big pay,' and since I arrived I've done nothing but work and haven't seen a red cent."

"Just a telegraph operator's mistake, I guess," said Frank. "Perhaps we wired you 'Big work, no pay'—wasn't that it, Jimmy?"

"Sure it was—something like that. But the Codfish enjoys working for love. He has too much money already; he said so himself."

"What time does your excursion start to-morrow?" inquired Mrs. Armstrong.

"Three o'clock, sharp," was Frank's answer. "We take a holiday to-morrow so as to be ready for the big meet."

"Do you suppose you could take mother and me along if we pay regular fare?" inquired Mr. Armstrong, stepping up behind them.

"Pay nothing," said Jimmy and the boys in a breath. "We'll take you as a super-cargo."

"I'm afraid of your speedy boat," said Mrs. Armstrong. "John, we will ride down on the trolley car."

"Do come with us, mum; we will take care of you, and it will be more fun than a trolley. It's nearly a mile down there, and besides you will have a great place to watch from the boat. Come along," Frank pleaded.

The result was that Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong agreed to go down to the Point in the Black Duck. That night all turned in early, but Frank's slumbers were broken by dreams of the black head of a swimmer that he could not quite overtake bobbing along in front of him. The head looked singularly like that of his old rival Peters.

At three o'clock next day Frank had the great honor of assisting his mother and father to their places in the Black Duck. Captain Silas had already started off with his boat loaded to the gunwale with people from Seawall whose destination was the water carnival at Turner's Point, and, thanks to the wonderful and enticing posters that the Codfish had prepared, there were twice as many people on the dock to go down in the motor boat as could be accommodated.

"Show your business instincts, Frank; give up the swim this afternoon and make a double trip to the Point. I hate to see the Queen's Ferry lose so many good dollars. Peters will lick you, anyway," said the Codfish.

"He will, like a duck," retorted Jimmy, who for once thought that the Codfish was in earnest.

"No," said Frank, "this is a holiday. We made our first payment this morning and there are other days to work in. This is an outing."

When the Black Duck arrived at Turner's Point the whole place was alive with color and movement. Scores of rowboats were drawn up alongside the hundred-yard course that had been laid out by Burton, between two floats. Sailboats with their mainsails down and jibs stowed, lay at anchor a little farther away. Crowds of the people of the Point were on the water front and all was expectancy. Frank edged his boat in toward the public float and discharged his passengers.

"Mother, there are so many boats here that I think you and father better come and sit in the stand, where you can have a better view. We will make fast the Black Duck here."

"It would be better," said Mr. Armstrong. So the party threaded their way to the stand, which was built on the long pier, and took places there.

"Now, since you are all comfy," said Frank, "I'll be off and see when my race comes. I may not be back again. Don't get excited and fall off, mother," he warned. And he darted away. "Good luck to you, son," his father called after him. He turned and waved his hand, and hurried along to the dressing room.

Like all water carnivals, the first events were of minor character. A sack race in which the swimmers were encased in a bag up to the waist caused endless mirth as, hampered by the bag which did not allow them the use of their legs, they floundered along, struggling and splashing. Then came an obstacle race in which the swimmers had to climb over obstacles placed in the course. Some did not try to climb, but dived underneath, and were declared out of the race for fouling. Others attempted to climb and fell back into the water with a splash.

Then came the first real trial of skill, the preliminaries of the hundred-yard race. There were so many entries that three heats had to be run off, four in a heat, the first two to qualify. Peters was drawn for the first trial, Frank noticed. He watched his rival keenly as the first four took the water, and saw with a little sinking of the heart that the tall, slender Peters was far and away better than his competitors. He swam a powerful trudgeon stroke, which carried him rapidly and easily. Peters did not spurt. He did not have to, but finished easily in the lead of his nearest competitor by ten feet; and, instead of getting upon the float at the far end of the course, just to show that he was not exhausted he swung around and came back at even a faster clip than he had held in the race. As he pulled himself up on the float, he gave Frank a glance from under his heavy brows, but did not show that he recognized him.

"That's the lad for my money," observed a bystander. "Did you see how easy he won that trial?"

"He's the best here, I guess," said a companion. "There's a fellow here called Armstrong, but I don't think he has any business with Peters. That fellow's a cracker-jack," and they both gazed after the lad with admiration. Frank heard, but said nothing. His friends were with him, Jimmy in a natty bathing suit, Lewis still in his regular street clothes, for the plunge did not come till later, and the Codfish in immaculate flannels with flowing blue tie and socks to match.

In a minute the next four were sent off in a nip-and-tuck race, at the end of which the announcer bawled out:

"Second trial goes to Hatch, with Burley second!" Hatch also swam back to the float, as had Peters, and was helped out by the latter, who complimented him on his winning the trial. Frank noticed that the two swimmers, as they walked to the dressing room, cast a glance in his direction. They were speaking in low tones.

"They're great pals, those two," said one of the nearby spectators.

"And they're hatching up something for you, Frank," said Jimmy in a whisper. "I don't like the looks of either of them."

"Guess not," returned Frank. "Here we go," he added as the third trial was called.

"Take it easy," admonished Burton, as Frank balanced on the edge of the float and waited for the signal to go.

"Bang!" went the pistol. Frank was rather slow in getting off, while his three competitors were almost ahead of the pistol. One of them did indeed beat the pistol, but as he dropped back before the first fifty yards had been covered, no attention was paid to the incident by the referee. Swimming easily, Frank was within touching distance of the leading man twenty-five yards from the finish line. But he did not exert himself very much. He let the leader work hard, being satisfied with second place, which was just as good as first, for both first and second qualified to enter the finals.

When it was announced that Bates had won the heat with Armstrong second, there was a great commotion among the members of the Armstrong family on the stand. "Oh, dear, wasn't it too bad that Frank couldn't win?" said Mrs. Armstrong, disappointment on every line of her face.

Her husband chuckled. "Don't be worried, Sarah, that's only a preliminary. Second place gives him a chance to swim in the final trial." Mrs. Armstrong was comforted. "He was saving himself, I think," said the father.

Frank swam the few yards to the shore and walked slowly down the beach. He was met by Codfish and Lewis, who excitedly inquired why he didn't take first place. Frank only smiled. "What did you want me to do," he said; "tire myself out?"

"He did exactly right," said the astute Codfish. "His real race is coming with Peters a little later."

Meantime the exhibition of high diving had begun from a tower built on the outer edge of the pier, with platforms jutting out every ten feet up to the height of forty-five feet, the lowest one being five feet above the water. From these varying platforms an expert gave a series of dazzling evolutions—somersaults, back dives, swan dives, and finally a double somersault from the very top platform, which made the ladies scream with apprehension. But the diver struck the water like an arrow and bobbed up instantly, waving a joyful hand to the crowd.

As soon as the diving was over the 220 race was called, with six entries, among them Jimmy. At the outset he lagged behind and seemed to be hopelessly out of the race, but, urged on by the cries of his Seawall friends, he got his second wind when half the distance was over and began to pull up on the leaders. One by one he overtook and passed them until only one was left ahead of him. For the last twenty yards it was a scramble between these two, but Jimmy's hand shot out and touched the float a fraction of a second ahead.

During the excitement that followed on the float, a boat was rowed rapidly over from the side of the course, containing among others a stout lady, who wore an enormous picture hat. Even at a distance it could be seen that she was rather clumsy looking. Her hands were covered by coarse cotton gloves and her face was concealed by a white veil. Evidently it was the intention of the rowers to land her on the swimmers' float. In a moment the rowboat drew alongside the float.

Every one was watching the strange maneuvers of the boat and laughing at its queer occupant as it drew up to the float. There was much wondering as to what the lady could want. As the boat touched the edge of the float she stood up awkwardly and put one foot on the float, pushing with the other one in the boat to help herself up. Of course, you all know what happened. The boat, instead of giving her the support she desired, shot away with her vigorous push. The queer woman lost her balance, toppled over backward, fell with a resounding crash into the water and sank, cotton gloves and all.

Immediately there was a cry from the spectators, and Lewis, who happened to be standing nearest, without thought of his clothes, went over after her like a hero. Almost immediately he appeared clutching something desperately. It was the skirt of the drowning woman. How he pulled to save her from a watery grave! But he pulled too savagely, for the skirt was left in his hands, and the woman sank like a stone. Then the feather on that gorgeous picture hat came into view. Lewis grabbed at the hat. That, too, came away in his hand, and he threw it on the float, debating with himself whether or not he would go to the bottom after her, as Frank had dived a few days before for the drowning girl. He thought it strange that no one of all those swimmers came to help him, but he had been trying so desperately to do his duty that he had not looked up. A roar of laughter now caused him to look, and to his amazement every one on the float was convulsed, holding their sides and swaying back and forth.

Just then, right alongside him, bobbed up the round and smiling face of Bunny Taylor, the fattest boy of the Point. A bedraggled wig of long hair floated out behind him and one cotton-gloved hand grabbed the side of the float. Then the truth dawned on Lewis. He had been the victim of a hoax. It wasn't a woman at all who had fallen overboard. He climbed out of the water and dashed for the dressing room while the crowd laughed and shouted.

"Poor old Lewis," said Frank, chasing after him. "It was too bad you were so near. That is one of the regular tricks at a water carnival. Some one made up as a woman falls overboard, and sometimes an innocent and unsuspecting bystander, not on the inside, jumps in and rescues the drowning 'lady.' It's hard luck that it was you."

Lewis was almost in tears. "I certainly must have looked like a goat, jumping in after that galoot."

"You were a hero," said the Codfish, who had followed, "a real out-and-out first-class hero. If she hadn't been the most elusive woman in the world, you would have saved her for sure. But it's always safer to grab them by the neck than by the skirt; always remember that, Lewis."

"Oh, shut up," said Lewis, still ruffled. "I only wish it had been you, you walking advertisement for a gents' furnishing store!"

"I tell you what you can do to even up with this crowd—go out and win the plunge," said Frank, comforting him. "You can do it, and then they won't have the laugh on you. Hurry up, there's the first call for the event."

Lewis got out of his wet street clothes, put on his water costume and walked rather sheepishly out on the float. There he was greeted with such a storm of cheers and hand-clapping that he forgot his chagrin and fell into a better humor—so good a humor, indeed, that he went determinedly at the work in hand and won the event by a clean five feet from the best plunger that Turner's Point could offer.

"Bully boy," said Burton, as Lewis passed him on the float, headed for the dressing room. "You turned the tables on them." Whereat Lewis grinned more broadly than ever.

CHAPTER VI. AN OLD RIVAL'S STRATAGEM.

The great event of the day, the finals of the hundred yards' swim, was reserved for the last. All the other events were over and every one was looking eagerly forward to the trial of speed between Frank Armstrong and Peters, for every one who had watched the early heats in this event knew that it lay between these two for first place. It was Seawall against the Point, or even more than that, for Peters was one of the best swimmers at the school he attended in New York City. It was then Seawall against the country! No wonder excitement ran high.

"All ready for the finals in the hundred yards' swim," shouted the referee through his megaphone. Out of their dressing rooms ran the six swimmers and lined up on the edge of the float. There was much craning of necks in the stand and everywhere to get a good look at the contestants.

"My money on Peters," said the individual who had proclaimed himself earlier in the day. "He'll show your Seawall champion the way."

"He'll show him the way to lose, maybe," said the Codfish. "They can't beat that boy Armstrong." Every one was taking sides as to the outcome, while the referee was stationing the six young athletes on the float edge. Little time was lost in preliminaries.

"Are you ready?" queried the high-pitched voice of the referee.

"Get set!"

"Crack!" went the pistol, and as if shot from a cannon the six hit the water together. Peters with a longer spring immediately shot out in front of the bunch, his arms flying like flails and his long legs beating the water rhythmically.

"Hurrah, see Peters go! He'll win easily," cried the friends of the New Yorker.

"Wait a minute; the race is just beginning," said another. "Wait till Armstrong strikes his gait. There, see him go up!"

Frank was indeed gaining. In none of his races was he ever able to get under way fast at first, but he could always quicken up when he had been going for a few seconds. This was what happened now. Slowly but surely he drew up on Peters and Bates, the friend of Peters, who had won the heat from Frank. At the half distance, he had shaken off three competitors and was closing on the fourth. Slowly he gained, when suddenly Bates, just ahead of him, swerved from his course. Frank looked up just in time to prevent running into him, but he was obliged to change his direction a trifle in order to pass. The swerve lost him ground, for Peters at this moment seemed to put on a fresh burst of speed.

Over the last twenty yards the race was a terrific one, the partisans of both sides yelling like mad for their favorites. On the boys came like whirlwinds. The water churned up into spray as they smashed through it. Thirty feet from the float Frank took his last look and his last gulp of air for that race, then, burying his head, he put every pound of strength he had left into driving himself forward. He was now so close to Peters that he could feel the eddy of water from his hand as it swept backward. Ten feet from the float, he fairly threw himself out of the water. He was alongside the leader now, and next thing he knew he crashed full tilt into the float. He raised his head to hear the shout:

"Peters wins! Peters wins!"

It was true Frank had touched only a fraction of a second too late. It was Peter's race. Frank dropped off the float and swam back slowly, all but exhausted.

Jimmy was at the starting float, and as he lent the tired racer a hand to mount to the planks, his face was white with rage.

"Wasn't good enough, was I?" gasped Frank.

"Good enough!" yelled Jimmy; "of course you were. That chump who was swimming behind Peters got in your way. I saw him cut across and block you."

"I don't think so," said Frank; "he was all in and didn't do it on purpose."

"I know better than that, and I'd swear it was a put-up job. You can beat Peters any day from ten yards to a million miles," said the indignant Jimmy. "I kicked to the referee about it, but he wouldn't allow a foul because Bates didn't touch you. Did he?"

"No," said Frank; "I had to shift a little for him and it put me out a bit. I don't think it made any difference in the race. Peters was too fast for me."

"Get out," said Jimmy, still hot and angry; "you know he isn't. I'd bet my boots you could beat him any day, and if I were you, I'd challenge him for a race with no one around to get in your way."

"I've had enough for to-day," said Frank. "We ought to get dressed and headed for home as soon as we can. There are some black clouds coming up over there in the west."

It was as Frank said. The day had been a warm one and thunder heads were now showing in the west. Down toward the horizon the clouds were piled thick and black, and every now and then the denser masses were edged by a little ribbon of fire. The lightning was beginning to play. The top of the pile was still white, for the lowering sun was shining full upon it; but soon this white top, climbing rapidly, shut off the sun.

The wind had just begun to pick up in puffs and eddies and the sailboats were scudding about like anxious swallows, when Mr. Armstrong hurried up to the dressing room where Frank was getting into his clothes. "Mother and I have a chance to go back on the trolley. Hurry up, son," he said. "It looks so bad over there to the west," jerking his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the towering thunder-heads, "that I think you had better wait till the storm is over. Mother is nervous about your going to Seawall in the Black Duck."

"Oh, I guess we could get home all right," said Frank. "It isn't going to be very heavy, is it?"

For answer there came a blinding flash, and almost on its heels a roar of thunder that made the bathing houses dance on their foundations. The wind was running before the storm with almost hurricane force, lashing the sea into whitecaps.

"Gee whiz!" exclaimed Jimmy, "that must have hit somewhere nearby. See the old Black Duck jumping."

The Black Duck was indeed jumping, even though she was bound securely and lay partly in the lee of the dock. The wind and the rain came together, scattering the stragglers on the walks to places of shelter. In a few minutes the sea was beaten white and high waves sprang up like magic, their tops white-capped by the fierce drive of the gale.

"It is so heavy it can't last," said the Codfish, gingerly side-stepping a rivulet of water that broke through the shelter of the boys. "Just like a chap who goes too hard at the first of his race—can't stick it out," he added sagely.

But this particular storm did stick it out for some time. After an hour, however, the wind dropped almost as suddenly as it had sprung up, the thunder muttered itself out, and the sea began to go down. Lacking the pressure of the gale behind it, the whitecaps soon disappeared, but in their place ran a long swell, down which the little sailboats at anchor coasted and rose again to the next, like some kind of a seabird.

"We will have a tippy time of it going home," observed the Codfish, as in the last few sprinkling drops the boys sought the wharf.

"Yes, and we aren't going to have much company, I guess," said Frank.

"Their pedal extremities have congealed, evidently," observed the Codfish. "Here comes your father to say, 'No, thank you, Frank, we will go up on the trolley to-night; we don't care for coasting.'" The boys laughed. For that was just about what Mr. Armstrong had come to repeat. "And I guess the others of your excursion are going back the same way," he added. "I saw the Slocums light out for Seawall in an automobile five minutes ago."

"I'll wait a little while," said Frank, "for my party, and then if they don't come I'll dig out for home, too."

"I wouldn't wait too long," was his father's parting observation as he turned to go. "Mother says she wishes you would leave the boat down here to-night and come for it in the morning. How about it?"

"Oh, there's no danger. We'll be home in a jiffy. The tide is low and I'll have to go outside of Pumpkin Island to avoid the reef. Don't worry about us. The four of us could take her to New York to-night. Couldn't we, Jimmy?"

"Sure thing," said that individual, who rather enjoyed the prospects of the trip up. Lewis and the Codfish were not so hopeful, but they said they would stand by the ship. Mr. Armstrong turned again and left the boys with a last warning word.

"Where did the Human Fish, Peters, go to?" inquired the Codfish, as Jimmy fussed with the motor and Frank sponged off the seats. Very little water had entered the boat, most of it having been shed by the very efficient awning which covered her from bow to stern.

"Don't know," said Frank. "I wasn't interested in him after I saw that he hit the float first."

"Oh," said Lewis, "I saw him jump into his motor boat with that chap who got in your way, just as soon as the race was over, and light out. Guess they were trying to get down to the Peters' dock before the storm came on so hard."

"He had good nerve, starting then," said Jimmy.

"Or bad judgment," said the Codfish. "Sometimes the one looks like the other."

"Here, stop getting sarcastic and help with these ropes," growled Frank. "They are all in hard knots. What Indian tied them like this?"

Soon they freed themselves and the motor, under slow speed, began to revolve. They backed slowly out from the dock. Nothing was left of the gay scene of an hour or two before.

"Funny what a little water will do," observed the Codfish, turning to look at the deserted stand, pier and floats.

"Yes, and it's funny what a little wind will do to water," commented Frank as the Black Duck got under way. He was driving her over the waves at a little angle and she pitched and rolled tremendously.

The Codfish didn't like it at all, and Lewis, after five minutes of this kind of going, began to look white in the failing light.

Frank headed his craft well out beyond the Pumpkin to avoid the treacherous rock teeth that showed white in a long broken line. He had a great respect for their destroying abilities. The tide, too, was on the turn, and he dreaded getting caught in the suck of it. Many boats had met disaster there. So he headed her straight out into the bay, so straight indeed that the Codfish finally cried out:

"Where in thunder are you heading for—France, or is it Spain?"

"Don't be impatient," said the captain, "we'll turn in a minute."

He had hardly spoken the words when the motor began to miss fire. Instead of the steady hum of the exhaust, it was now an irregular chattering. The boat checked materially as the pistons choked in the dead cylinders. Frank threw on more gas and for a minute or two the engine picked up and resumed its regularity. Then it missed, sputtered, choked, gave one or two expiring explosions and died completely.

"Well, this is a nice mess you've got us into, isn't it?" whimpered Lewis. There was a note of grave anxiety in his voice. "I didn't want to come, but I thought you knew all about your old boat."

"What's the matter, Old Mother Goose?" cried the Codfish whimsically. "We're not dead yet. Keep your lip stiff. Frank will have it fixed in a minute."

Frank was working over the batteries with a face on which worriment showed in spite of himself. He gave the battery box a shake, tightened up the connections and cranked the motor. There were half a dozen explosions and silence fell again, broken only by the lapping of the running tide against the Black Duck's sides. Hastily he disconnected the wires and tried for a spark on the individual batteries. Then he connected the batteries in series, and tried again. There was a faint flash, very different from the long, hot spark from full batteries.

Frank dropped the terminals and looked up into the faces of the three boys, who were intently watching him.

"What's the matter?" inquired Jimmy. "Batteries?"

"Just that and nothing else. There isn't enough juice in the whole lot of them to light a grain of powder."

"Nice pickle we're in," grumbled Lewis. "Isn't it up to the captain to have his batteries all right?"

"Oh, shut up," commanded Jimmy. "It isn't Frank's fault that the old batteries are in trouble."

"No," said Frank; "I renewed them, you remember, only day before yesterday—six brand new ones, at twenty-five cents per. The rain must have got in somehow and short-circuited them. The shaking by the motor gave them life enough to carry us out here and then they died. See, there isn't a bit left." He tried again, rubbing the ends of the terminals together, but for all the result in the way of ignition they might as well have been made of wood.

"Well, never mind," said Jimmy, "we're drifting the right way. Look at us go! That's Seawall over there, and while we are going sideways, like a crab, we may fetch up all right."

"Sure thing," said Frank, "we are going sideways and fast, too. The tide here runs like a mill-race, but night is coming faster than we are going, and it's going to be as black as your shoes in ten minutes."

"That's an encouraging sign," said the Codfish, "for my shoes are yellow, and I don't mind yellow nights in the least." The Codfish was always cheerful under difficulties.

Not so Lewis. He grumbled and growled and blamed everybody for the plight in which they found themselves. "If I don't turn up by dark, mother will have a fit," he added.

"Well, I guess all our mothers will have fits," observed Frank quietly, "but that isn't going to help us out of this trouble."

"Do you know how the drift of this tide goes?" inquired the Codfish. "It might sweep us in shore far enough so that one of you fish-men could jump overboard and swim ashore for help."

"Yes, that's a good scheme. Owing to the curve of the Seawall shore we are now about a mile out. The current splits on Flat Rock, which ought to be showing pretty soon if we have light enough. If we have luck to swing over to the shore side of the rock we will drift pretty close, but if we go on the outside of it we are likely to go on up the coast or out to sea."

"Fine mess we're in," growled Lewis, who grew more nervous as the night drew down over the waters.

"Oh, say something new," snapped the Codfish sharply. "We've heard that for a long time. Can't you think up an original remark?" Lewis glowered in silence, muttering to himself. Jimmy sat down on the bottom of the boat and began to tinker with the batteries, while Frank and the Codfish stood up and peered into the gathering darkness.

"Listen, what was that?" whispered Frank. "Didn't you hear some one calling?"

The four huddled together close. Jimmy left his tinkering and Lewis forgot his hard luck for the moment.

CHAPTER VII. COALS OF FIRE.

The four boys stood in the waist of the boat straining their ears for a repetition of the sound that had floated out over the black waters.

"There it is again," whispered Frank. "It seems to be dead ahead." Again they held their breaths and listened.

"Help, help," came a faint voice. There was no mistaking it this time.

"Some one in trouble, and worse off than we are," said the Codfish.

"There it is, louder."

"Hello! Hello! Help! Help!" came floating to their ears.

"Some one drowning out there," said Lewis, shivering.

Again rose the cry, this time shriller and stronger.

"I believe it is some one on Flat Rock," said Frank. "I can't see, but the rock ought to be just ahead of us. What can any one be doing there? Flat Rock is all under water at high tide. That would be a bad fix, for certain sure."

"Let's give a call," added Frank. The boys, uniting their voices, shouted: "What's the matter? Who is it?"

Quite near now came the hail: "We are wrecked on a big rock here. Come and help us. The tide's coming up and we'll be washed off. Please hurry!" The voice dwindled off into nothing as if the speaker was in deadly fear and had no breath to state his troubles further.

"Jiminy crickets!" said Jimmy. "We are not in much of a way to help any one, but we've got to do something for that fellow. Give me the painter. I can see the outline of the rock. Let me take the rope and I'll jump overboard and tow her. You handle the rudder, Frank."

Frank was about to object to this arrangement, preferring to take the cold bath himself, when Jimmy grabbed the rope's end and dived overboard. He struck out for the rock, which was outlined by a line of white where the running tide fringed its edge.

The boys on the boat watched anxiously as he ploughed along. It was a small pull at best that he could give the Black Duck, but as both were going with the current, the pull that he did give was sufficient to guide the craft in the direction of the dark mass just ahead.

"Look out, Frank, I'm touching," shouted Jimmy over his shoulder. "Pull your rudder sharp over to starboard."

Frank did as he was bid and the nose of the Black Duck barely grazed a big black boulder just awash.

"There, keep her steady," Jimmy commanded. "Let the tide carry her up and I'll pull her around into this little cove."

"She'll bump, won't she?" queried Frank anxiously.

"No, it looks like deep water there just behind that rock you missed, and the pull of the tide won't bother much. I'll hitch this painter here."

Jimmy finished his work and straightened up, peering into the darkness, from which came a plaintive voice:

"Please hurry up! The tide's coming in and we'll be washed off. Please come quick."

"How many are there of you?" Frank sang out.

"Two of us. We were knocked up here by the thunder storm and the boat is stove in. Hurry, hurry, won't you? The tide is rising."

"Why doesn't he come down to us, whoever he is?" said the Codfish.

"There's a channel of water between this rock we are on," said Jimmy, who was in a little better position to see, "and the place where those fellows are wrecked, and it's running like mad. Can't you hear it boil?"

It was as he said. The rock seemed to be in two sections, separated by a channel perhaps fifty feet wide, which looked black and threatening in the half gloom. Jimmy began climbing over the slippery footing in the direction of the channel.

"Hold on there," shouted Frank, "I'm going with you. You mustn't go there alone."

"Oh, don't leave us here," wailed Lewis.

"What, with me to protect you?" cried the Codfish scornfully.

"Nothing will happen to you, you big baby," said Frank, as he began to strip off his clothes. "I'm not going to let Jimmy tackle that job alone. Wait for me, Jimmy; I'll be with you in a minute." He was stripped in a minute and lowered himself carefully over the side. With the water up to his waist, he found footing on the rock and edged his way carefully out to where Jimmy stood.

Meantime the pleading voice on the other side of the channel kept calling for the rescuers to make haste. It was filled with a deadly anxiety, as well it might be, for the tide was pouring in from the sea with full power, gushing and eddying among the nooks and crannies of the big rock which obstructed its path. It sounded strangely like a low hum of voices and had a sinister and threatening tone, like the tone of a mob.

"I don't like the look of this channel a little bit," said Jimmy as he and Frank worked their careful way across the slimy rock, occasionally slipping and grabbing each other for support. Now they reached the edge of the swiftly running channel.

"Nothing to do but try it," said Frank. "If these shipwrecked people can't swim, we will be as badly off as ever. Come on, here goes."

Frank waded out to his waist in the swift current. The water tugged and pulled at him as if bent on destroying him. Suddenly he found himself beyond his depth and began to swim. Jimmy was at his elbow. The water caught them with its full force and whirled them along. But in spite of the current they made progress across it, and puffing and panting they pulled up on a shelving part of the main body of the rock, and staggered to their feet.

The shipwrecked boys, seeing their rescuers at hand, rushed down to them shouting for joy, but the leader of the two staggered back as he came face to face with Frank.

"Frank Armstrong!" he gasped.

"Peters!" cried Frank and Jimmy in a breath. "Great Scott!" said the former, "we didn't know it was you."

"Please don't go away and leave me," whined Peters. "We're in an awful fix."

"We don't intend to go and leave you, but we are in a bad fix ourselves."

"Please take us off here," continued Peters. There were tears in his voice.

"We have a boat," said Jimmy, "on the other side of that channel, but our motor is dead. The only thing we can do is to take you aboard her and wait till morning, or till some search party comes out for us."

At this Peters sank down on the rock and covered his face with his hand. "I can't swim that channel," he cried. "I don't dare try it. It serves me right. I put up a game to beat you this afternoon and was so ashamed of it afterward that I didn't stay a minute, but jumped into my boat and put out for home——"

"And were caught in the storm?" interrupted Frank.

"Yes. The wind kicked up such a sea that I couldn't cross it and had to run ahead of it. I tried to get around in the lee of this rock, but the wind drove me onto a ledge out there and knocked a hole in the bottom of the boat, and she sank."

"And you swam here?"

"Yes, we were barely able to make it. We crawled up here and laid down till the storm went over. We've been here yelling ever since."

"The storm drove every one in, so there wasn't much chance of your being heard. The wind, blowing in the direction it did, carried your voices out to sea. We barely heard you, although we were quite near," said Frank.

"You were awfully good to come to us. I'm sorry I played such a dirty trick on you. Will you forgive me?" and Peters held out his hand.

"That's all right, Peters," said Frank, grasping the outstretched hand. "Forget about it. You could probably have beaten me, anyway."

"No, I couldn't," said the repentant Peters. "I hated you for winning last year and I wanted to make sure you wouldn't this year. Oh, I'm ashamed of myself," and Peters hung his head. "I don't want the prize for that race, and I won't take it."

"Come, never mind, we'll race again some day on even terms," said Frank, "but the main business now is to get over to the other side of this channel and get into the boat. We have no power, but we have a bottom under us, and it won't do us any harm to sleep out for one night, I guess."

"It will be a kind of a lark," said Jimmy, but his voice didn't have much enthusiasm in it.

"The only thing that is bothering me," said Frank, "is what mother and father will think, and your mother and father, and Lewis's. They will be crazy thinking that some trouble has come to us."

"Say," said Peters, who, now that he had confessed his sins, took on a brighter mind, "isn't there something in your boat we might pull out and set afire as a kind of a signal? I've no doubt that there are people watching over there on the shore. Couldn't we try it?"

"That's a good idea, Peters," exclaimed Jimmy. "We could yank out some of the boards from the cabin, put a little gasoline on them and have a bonfire here. That would show them on shore where we are and some one could pick us up in a jiffy."

"Good!" said Frank. "We'll do it. It will save a lot of worry for our people if they know we are not drowned. Let's get back and try it." So saying, he turned and made his way down to the edge of the channel which separated them from the boat. The three boys followed him cautiously. It was almost pitch dark now, and the water looked more forbidding than ever.

"I'll lead off," said Frank, "and you fellows follow me. Keep as close in line as you can and look out for the sunken rocks."

Peters was shivering, partly with the cold and partly with terror. It had been a night of peril for him, and he did not have the animal courage of either Frank or Jimmy, or even of Bates, who had scarcely said a word, but followed sullenly behind.

Frank was in the water to his waist now, but suddenly hailed the boat: "Hey, Codfish!"

"Hello," sang out the Codfish.

"We've found them and we're coming back," yelled Frank at the top of his voice, for the wind was beginning to breeze up with the incoming tide. "Have an eye out for us; we'll be with you in five minutes. Come on," he said, turning to the boys behind him, "it's now or never! This channel is getting wider and there's nothing to be gained by waiting." He took another step and began to swim.

The others followed silently. Soon they were gripped by the current and began their fight to the other side. The current was more savage, if anything, than when Jimmy and Frank had crossed it a few minutes before. Desperately they battled with it for their lives.

"I can't make it," groaned Peters from behind. "I can't make it. Help me!"

"Don't give up," shouted Frank encouragingly. "Keep at it, old fellow," and Frank stopped swimming for a moment till Peters drew alongside him. Elbow to elbow the two boys swam, as they had swum but a few hours before in the race, but now it was a battle for life. Frank's encouraging words buoyed up the New Yorker's drooping spirits.

"Only a few strokes more," he kept repeating. "Stick it out."

Bates swam doggedly behind without a word.

"I'm touching," yelled Jimmy. "I'm touching. We're safe, we're safe!"

The shout put heart into Peters, who drove ahead with all his remaining strength, and soon the four lay panting on a little shelf of rock with more bare rock just in front of them. They were indeed over the worst part of it.

But just as they struggled to safety, there came a tremendous yelling from the direction of the boat.

"Come quick, come quick, we're adrift!" It was the voice of the Codfish. Now Lewis joined in: "Quick, quick, we are adrift!"

Frank and Jimmy sprang to the higher rocks and made for the boat, slipping, stumbling and rolling. They could not in the darkness see where they were going, and in the scramble they bruised their knees and tore their hands. The barnacles cut Frank's bare feet, but he dashed on in the direction of the cries. Jimmy was close on his heels and the others straggled behind, vaguely aware that some new trouble had come to crown their misfortunes of the night.

What they worst feared from the shouts of the boys on the boat was only too true. In some manner the tugging at the boat of wind and tide had loosened the knot Jimmy had put in the painter, and the Black Duck was moving swiftly away from the rock with the two boys aboard, borne on the bosom of the tide. When Frank reached the place where they had left the boat moored, only the dim outline of the Black Duck was visible, and in a moment even that was lost to view. For a few minutes the shouts of the Codfish and Lewis could be heard, but soon those, too, died out, except when brought faintly in the lulls of the rising wind.

"There goes our hope of safety," said Frank. "Now we are in a pretty fix, and no mistake."

CHAPTER VIII. A SWIM FOR LIFE.

"We're in for it now!" said Jimmy in a voice which trembled in spite of himself. And indeed it looked bad for the four boys, trapped on a barren rock soon to be covered by the swiftly rising tide. "It's all my fault," he continued. "I thought I tied her fast. I'm going to be the means of drowning all of us. Oh, dear! Oh, dear!"

Peters was in a state of collapse. He had sunk down on a boulder too indifferent to notice that his feet were in the water. What did it matter now? They had no chance for their lives. "Let's call for help," he cried, as none of the boys had moved, and raising his voice he shrieked: "Help! Help!"

Out there the wind which was blowing in from the sea, bearing with it little wisps of night fog, carried his words away. There was not even a cheering echo. Apparently the others were too much discouraged at the outlook even to cry for help. In the silence that followed each of the boys could hear his heart beat above the lapping of the waters.

Peters turned suddenly and savagely on Frank: "Well, what are you going to do, stand there like a statue and see us all drown? Oh, do something!" he wailed.

Frank was standing as rigidly as a statue, indeed. He was looking out over the dark stretch of tossing water. His face was toward the shore. He had hardly heard Peters' last cry for help, so intently was he gazing and deliberating.

"There's only one way," he said at last, turning to Jimmy.

"And what's that?" was the query.

"Swim it," replied Frank steadily.

Even Jimmy started back appalled, and Peters, who was stepping nervously around, sank again on the rocks, weak at the very suggestion.

"It must be a mile," said Jimmy.

"Yes," said Frank, measuring the distance to the lights, which twinkled along shore like far-off stars, "it is more than that. The bay curves well in off Seawall."

"It is a chance," said Jimmy, "but a slim one."

"Oh, I can't do it," shrieked Peters. "We might as well stay here and drown. It would be better than drowning out there in the dark."

"Some one might pick us up," suggested Jimmy, "or perhaps the Black Duck will be sighted and give the alarm." The offering was not a very hopeful one, and Jimmy's tone was not even as hopeful as the offering.

Frank shook his head. "It's a slim chance, as you said," he replied slowly, "and meantime the water is creeping up here very fast. Look, that big boulder is out of sight now under the tide. No, there's nothing but swim for it."

Peters jumped up in a frenzy. "I tell you I won't do it. I'll stay here and drown. I won't try to swim it. If you had had any sense you would have tied that boat securely. You'll be the cause of my death." Peters was wild with fear.

"Would you have been any better off if we hadn't come?" said Frank, turning sharply on his companion. "Anyway, I didn't mean to ask you to swim ashore," he added in a milder tone; "I meant I would swim it myself."

"And leave us here to drown?" whined Peters.

"No, I'll try it to save you. I'll go for help."

"You mustn't, Frank," exclaimed Jimmy, coming up to him and taking hold of his shoulder. "It would be sure death."

"Well, it's sure death to stay here, isn't it?" said Frank. "The tide is coming in like a racehorse and even as we are talking about it the water is creeping up. I'll go now."

"We'll go together," said Jimmy determinedly. "I will not let you go alone."

"What, and leave us here?" cried Peters.

"For goodness sake, what do you expect? You won't swim and you don't want us to swim. Don't you see, you coward, that it's the only chance we have?" Jimmy was all out of patience with this boy for whose safety they had placed themselves in such a plight. "Keep a stiff upper lip and we'll have some one back here in a jiffy."

Peters seemed not to hear. He sat down again plainly sobbing. "You'll stay with me, Bates," he blurted out. "Don't you leave me."

"I couldn't if I wanted to," said that silent boy. "I couldn't make half the distance. I never swam a mile in my life."

"All right, then," said Jimmy. "You two go onto the highest point of this rock, and every now and then make all the noise you can on the chance that some one might hear you," and he began stripping off what few clothes he had on.

"Hold on," said Frank. "This is my job, Jimmy. There's no use of both of us trying to swim it. You stay here——" He got no further.

"What do you take me for?" burst out Jimmy indignantly. "I'm going with you and that settles it. We might be able to help each other. I can't do anything waiting here, and I might be of some help to you. Let's not spend any more time arguing about it. I'm ready."

He was, as he said, ready. And be it known that Frank, while he was willing to undertake the peril of the trip alone, felt better that his friend and tried companion would be with him through the terrors of the water. He did not argue any more about it, but stretched out his hand in the darkness, and the two boys clasped hands in a long, firm grasp.

"All right, here we go!" said Frank. "Good-by, Peters; keep your courage up and stick to the highest part of the rock."

Peters merely whimpered and Bates said not a word.

It was a strange sight to see there in the gloom, that of our two heroes stripped to the skin, their bodies showing white in contrast to the black rock and the still blacker water. Free of all hampering clothing, they were ready for the trial of strength against the threatening monster—the sea.

Quickly they waded out on the shelving rock, gasping as the cold water struck them with its chill. Another step and they were in deep water and struck out bravely for the far-distant shore.

"Let's keep close together," said Frank, as they were caught by the full force of the tide and whipped away from the rock. "If we get separated we will never get together again."

Jimmy, at this, swam up close to Frank, and elbow to elbow the boys drove ahead. The waves were running high but were not white-capped, which was a most fortunate thing for the swimmers, for the tide and the wind were traveling in the same direction. Side by side they swam, climbing up the long black slopes and slipping down easily into the trough between the waves, but making good progress. Their white arms swung rhythmically above the water.

"It's like coasting," said Jimmy, "only it's more exciting."

"Yes, it's great fun," said Frank, but it was not the heartiest response in the world. "Seems like when we go down in the hollows that we'd never come up again. And it seems as if we were going backwards. Do you feel that way?"

"Yes," said Jimmy; "there's nothing to gauge yourself by, but," casting an eye over his shoulder, "there's nothing to be seen of the island. I guess we are going ahead all right."

Nothing further was said for a time, the boys saving their breath for more important work. With every ounce of strength in their sturdy young bodies they forged ahead, now down "in the hollows," as Frank had called them, with the water towering above them and not a light visible but the light of the stars over their heads; now up on the crest of a wave where for an instant they caught the twinkle of the shore lights and steered for them, heartened by the sight.

"Look, Jimmy," said Frank, "that big light over there to the left must be on Seawall Pier. Take a look at it when you come up on the next wave. Isn't it?" as Jimmy slid up the slope to the top.

"I guess it is," sputtered the latter who, in the endeavor to see, had been met with the slap of a little wavelet which filled his nose and eyes with salt water. "It ought to be about there if our bearings are right."

"Well, we'll make for it," said Frank, "and we must keep to the left all the time, for the pull of the tide will take us away up the coast if we don't look out. What's the matter?"

Frank had heard a splash and a gurgle from Jimmy, and then a succession of rapid strokes on the water. "What's wrong?" he shouted, as he got no answer.

Frank stopped swimming and began to tread water. His heart was in his throat. Something had happened.

"What's the matter?" he cried out again, and his voice rang with a strange appeal over that waste of water.

"Gee whiz!" said Jimmy, "that was awful. It nearly scared me to death."

"What nearly scared you to death?" queried Frank, relieved to hear his companion's natural tone in spite of the shake in it. "Something bite you?"

"No," replied Jimmy, after he recovered his breath, "but I ran my arm right through a big jelly fish that was probably lying just under the surface of the water."

"Horrors!" said Frank, who hated the cold, slimy, slippery things even in daylight. How much worse it would be, he thought, to run into one in the pitch darkness of night!

Jimmy now swam up. "I'm all right again, but for a minute I thought I was going to die. I was swimming the overhand when, as I drove my under-hand ahead, I stuck it right through the body of this nasty, slimy thing. It slipped right up to my shoulder and stuck there. I thought sure something had me by the arm, and I stopped swimming and sank." Jimmy, at the memory of it, raised his arms and smote them upon the water, throwing up a shower of spray. The action relieved his nerves.

"Don't do it again, please," said Frank. "Look ahead there, just to the right of the Pier light! I think that's a light in our window! I wonder if mother set it there for me. We don't seem any nearer, do we?"

"Maybe we're being carried out to sea," said Jimmy, but he was sorry the next minute that he had said it. Frank made no answer. He was thinking of the comfortable sitting room at Seawall, and wondering if his father and mother were hovering anxiously around there, or on the veranda looking seaward. Perhaps they might be even now down at the end of the Pier. Yes, they would be down at the Pier waiting. Or perhaps they were getting searchers to scour the bay for them. But would they find them, or would the sea next morning toss up on the shore two white bodies limp and bedraggled?

"I'm doing the best I can, mother," Frank whispered to himself, as on the wave crest he caught a fleeting glimpse of the lights, and the water in his eyes was not all from the wave top that at that moment went over him. He wondered about the two boys who had been left behind. How far had the water gained on their little island of rock? If he and Jimmy got to land and gave the warning, was there still time to get back and save them from the sea that must be even now creeping up on their feet? He shuddered in spite of himself. It was bad enough to be out here struggling with the sea, but it was something to do. It would be a hundred times worse back there waiting, waiting, watching the tide creep nearer and nearer to the last refuge on the highest point of the rock. He struck out more determinedly with the thought of the lone watchers in his mind. He must save them.

CHAPTER IX. SAVED.

Suddenly from the shore there shot up into the air a long, curving streak of fire. Then came a dull, booming explosion, and the dark sea was lit up for a moment. The darkness which followed seemed even more black than before.

"A rocket!" shouted Frank. "They're giving us a signal."

"Gee," said Jimmy, after a moment, "it feels good to know they're thinking of us, but it doesn't help much."

"There goes another one!" Rocket after rocket now split the air, marking distinctly the place for which they were heading. The boys redoubled their efforts, swimming side by side with a steady over-arm stroke. Something of the horror of the darkness and the mystery of the rolling waters was taken away by the thought that the people on shore knew of their distress and were trying to help. But little could those on shore know how really bad their plight was. The rockets were being sent up as a guide to a disabled boat. They could not know that the long, brilliant sweep of light was being watched by two boys struggling for their very lives on the surface of the water itself.

"We must be halfway there, don't you think?" said Jimmy, in a labored breath.

"We've come a long distance, for the lights look brighter. Can't you see lights moving on the shore?" returned Frank. "Let's stop and look."

The boys stopped, trod water and raised themselves high as they reached the crest of a wave. Frank was right. The lights they saw were the lights of many lanterns, for the whole town of Seawall had turned out. Boats were being manned and people ran hither and thither on the shore peering out to sea.

"Come on now," shouted Frank, who felt heartened by what he had seen, "let's break the record for the rest of the distance," and, putting down his head, he tore ahead, followed by Jimmy more slowly, but just as determined. They had been plugging away for perhaps five minutes when Frank heard a cry behind him. He stopped instantly and listened.

"Jimmy," he called shrilly, "Jimmy!"

There was no answer. Frank, with a sweep of his hand, turned face about and dashed back over the course he had come. A dozen strokes brought him to his companion, whose white face on the surface was his only guide. "What is it, Jimmy, old fellow?" he cried, as he drew alongside.

"Cramp," said Jimmy feebly. "It came suddenly in my side. I couldn't swim and I couldn't take breath enough to yell out. It just doubled me up."

"Here," said Frank, "rest on me and try to straighten out," for Jimmy was still doubled up. Jimmy lay back and rubbed his side vigorously, while Frank slipped an arm under his head and with the other kept afloat. "It was my fault," he said encouragingly, as Jimmy rubbed the kink out of his side. "That rocket made me crazy to get to shore."

"No, it wasn't your fault, at all," replied Jimmy, in a stronger tone. "It was the cold water. I felt it a while back and thought I could fight it off by working hard, but it got me at last, struck suddenly just like a knife. I'm all right now; come on," and, turning over on his face again, he struck out weakly. Frank was at his elbow watching for any weakness, but as Jimmy continued going smoothly he lengthened out his own stroke and soon they were back at the old swing. The halt, however, although only for a few minutes, had lost them ground, for during the time that they were not swimming the tide had carried them steadily ahead—but not shoreward. They were still far from safety.

Now they changed their course a little more to the left so as to cut across the current, and bore steadily for the lights which seemed to increase in size. They wasted no more words except occasionally one would say: "You there?"

The answer would come back from the other: "O. K." or "All right." They had no extra breath to spare. The distance was surely lessening, but so was the strength of these two heroic lads. How heavily swung their arms! Every few minutes they changed the stroke. Sometimes it was one arm over, sometimes the other, and again it was the trudgeon or the breast stroke, whichever offered a little rest. Both were nearly exhausted, but with the courage of despair they swam on, neither admitting to the other that he was almost done for. They did not dare to float, for that meant being carried beyond their haven of safety. If they passed the little indentation where Seawall lay it was good-by to everything, for they would be carried into the wide waters of the outer bay and must miserably perish. This knowledge spun their failing strength out to the last slim thread.

Away ahead the lights danced merrily. It seemed to Frank as if there were millions of them jumping up and down and swinging sideways. How friendly they looked, but how utterly useless to help! How deadly heavy his arm felt! There was no force left in him. How nice it would be to lie still and rest! He stopped swimming and sank. The cold under-current chilled him and awakened him to the fact that he was giving up. "I won't give up! I won't give up!" he said between his clenched teeth, and he struck out stronger than before. Jimmy was splashing feebly behind.

"We're nearly there, old fellow," gasped Jimmy.

"Nearly," returned Frank. "Keep it up. Let's shout." They stopped and shouted, but it was scarcely more than a croak and could not have been heard fifty yards. "Let's swim," said Jimmy, "shouting is no good out here." His voice was scarcely more than a whisper. Again they resumed their weary drive ahead.

Suddenly out of the darkness between them and the shore came a hail:

"Ha-yo, ha-yo, ha-yo!"

Instantly the boys stopped swimming and turned their faces in the direction of the sound.

"Ha-yo, ha-yo, ha-yo!" came the call again, this time nearer. They tried to answer the heartening hail but had not strength enough to send their voices far. They stood in the water close together and with straining eyes tried to pierce the darkness. Then in the momentary lull of rushing waters they heard a drumming.

"A motor boat!" cried Frank joyously. "And I see a light. It's coming this way. Oh, it is going to pass us! Let's yell!"

Together the two raised as loud a shout as they could.

In a moment the drumming stopped.

Again the two lads in the water shouted: "Here! here! here!"

The drumming began and the light at the bow, which showed plainly now, although the boat itself was still hidden, swung and lurched as the motor boat swept around in a curve. With rescue in sight the boys threw their last energy into a fusillade of shouts and soon, "Ha-yo, where are you?" came a hail from the boat.

"Look out, look out, you'll run us down," yelled the boys.

A bell rang; the motor stopped and cut silently through the waves only a few yards away.

"Here, here!" shouted Frank.

"Great Cæsar!" said a voice from the boat, "it is some one in the water. Stop her quick," as the boat was driving past the boys with her momentum. "Back her! Back her!" yelled the voice now in great excitement. "We've found them. They're in the water."

In a less time than it takes to tell it the captain had maneuvered the boat to within reaching distance of the two in the water. Strong hands reached over the sides and quickly pulled them to safety. Neither could stand. They sank down into the bottom of the boat. Frank looked up and saw his father standing over him.

"Back to Flat Rock, quick," gasped Frank. "Quick, there are two boys out there!"

"Why, Flat Rock is under water at this time of the tide," said the man at the helm wheel.

"Not yet. Oh, not yet! We left two boys there, and they will be washed off in a few minutes if you do not hurry."

Instantly the captain ordered full power ahead, and away the boat shot in the direction of the lonely rock. The two lying in the bottom of the boat were made as comfortable as possible, and between them they told the story of what had happened since they put out from Turner's Point on that eventful night.

As the boat neared the rock the men aboard raised a great shout and were surprised to hear a feeble cry from what seemed to be the surface of the water. Maneuvering carefully, guided by the calls from the water, the boat crept nearer and nearer to the sounds. No sign of a rock was visible, but the strong light at the bow showed two lads standing, their hands clasped together, knee-deep in water. They were on the very highest point of the rock. Quickly they were pulled into the boat, chilled almost to death by the long exposure. Like Frank and Jimmy, however, both Peters and Bates were soon wrapped in the coats of the men aboard, and made as warm as possible.

"Now," said Frank, "the only thing to be done is to find the Black Duck."

"We'll land you boys first," said the captain, and he drove his boat for Seawall, while the steady purr of the motor deepened into a roar. The waves shot away from her bows in a shower of foam as she raced ahead.

What a yell went up from the Seawall people as the boat neared the Pier, and the glad news was shouted over the water that the boys were safe and sound! The rescued quartette were quickly put ashore. As they touched the float, queer figures that they were, all bundled up in the coats of the men, shouting was heard from the water. "We've found them!" called a voice.

And even as they waited, in spite of the urgings to hasten to the house and dry clothes, a motor boat slipped into the circle of light thrown by the big lamp on the end of the Pier, and behind it came the Black Duck on the end of a tow line! And in the boat sat Lewis and Codfish quite calm and collected. They had been picked up by one of the searching parties.

You can imagine what a reunion took place that night in the Armstrong house! Even Peters, the cause of some of the trouble, was welcome; but that individual was none too comfortable, and was only too glad when his father's automobile drew up at the door to carry him to his own home. It was a night of jubilation, and the whole of Seawall joined to make a celebration of the wonderful feat of the two swimmers.

CHAPTER X. PROFITS OF QUEEN'S FERRY.

For a week after the wreck on Flat Rock, and the swim and rescue which followed, the Queen's Transportation Company did a rushing business. People came from far and near to take a look at the boys who were the central figures in the adventure, and incidentally they took a trip on the Black Duck itself. The boat was none the worse for its jaunt with a dead engine up the bay on that eventful night, but thereafter Frank carried an extra set of batteries for any similar emergency that might arise.

Peters and his chum, Bates, had the Nautilus—Peters' boat—raised and repaired. The injury done the boat in the storm was not great, as it happened that she had been driven into a bight in the rocks where, after she had sunk, the pounding of the waves did not reach her. Both boys disappeared from Turner's Point. Later it was learned that they had gone to another shore resort, and they were seen no more around the Point that summer. The whole incident was closed when Frank was awarded the medal for the hundred-yard swim, the presentation being made by Burton himself. But it was a long time before the memory of that night swim left Frank and Jimmy. They could laugh about Jimmy's experience with the jelly fish now.

"But it was no laughing matter when it happened," was Jimmy's only comment.

About two weeks after the night in question the boys were seated around the big table in the Armstrong sitting room and Frank was figuring.

"And there's the total for our summer's work," he said, pushing a sheet covered with figures over to his father.

Mr. Armstrong laid aside his magazine, took the sheet and ran his eyes over the figures. "Pretty good," he said, smiling. "This means that you have about paid for your boat."

"That's just about what it does," said Frank proudly. "Look, there are our earnings—$132.00. Gasoline has cost us $17.25, oil $6.20, batteries $4.50, and we gave the old captain $5.00, and that leaves us .95 shy."

"Figures all right, does it?" said his father. "Sure your totals are correct?"

"Sure as shooting," said Jimmy. "We've been over them three times."

"Nothing outstanding, no rides on the Black Duck unpaid for?"

"You bet they're not," said the Codfish. "I saw to it, as manager of this concern, that no one sneaked aboard without first surrendering his cash for our coffers."

"Good, then," chuckled Mr. Armstrong. "I was about to give you a dollar for that trip to Turner's Point, but I'll keep it."

The boys looked at each other. "It's a fact," said Frank. "Dad got past you, Codfish," and they all laughed. "Pay up, Dad, but that was only fifty cents. Our fare was twenty-five cents."

"Well," said Mr. Armstrong, laughing, "I'll pay you twenty-five cents each for mother and me, and fifty cents for the trip we didn't get. Here's your cash," and he laid down a new dollar bill.

"Hurrah!" cried the Codfish, "that balances our account and five cents to the good! This concern stands free of all debts and has five cents in the treasury. Captain Frank Webfoot Armstrong, we salute you," and suiting the action to the word the boys all rose to their feet and bowed gravely to the captain, who acknowledged the salute with a joyful wave of the hand.

"And to-morrow at about nine," said Frank, "we will pay our last installment to Mr. Simpkins and the boat is ours. What say?"

"Agreed," said the others.

"And," added the Codfish, "let's take a vacation. I'm all worked to a frazzle with the responsibility of secretary, treasurer, manager, press agent, artist and general goat of this Transportation Company."

"Poor old Codfish!" said Jimmy. "He speaks well."

"He has the wisdom of a Solomon," cried Frank; "and besides, Jimmy, we ought to get in some work on football before we go back to Queen's. What would you fellows say if we were to tie the Black Duck up to the dock to-morrow and try a little drop kicking?"

"Great," said Jimmy, "but where's the ball?"

"You don't think I'd come down here without one, do you?" said Frank contemptuously. "I brought a nice new one along with me and all we need is a pump to blow it up with."

"Oh, I've got a bike pump," said Lewis.

"Just the thing," remarked Frank. "Shoot up and get it and we will put the ball in condition to-night."

Lewis hurried off as fast as he could go and Frank dragged forth the football. The lacings were eased up, and when Lewis got back a little later with his pump, the four of them set to work to inflate the interior rubber bag. It was quite a job, as any one knows who has tried it, but after much puffing and much struggling with the lacings, and much sage and useless advice from the Codfish, the rubber bag was blown up tight and tied, and the ball was ready for use. And the boys were also about ready for bed.

It was with very deep pride that Frank, escorted by his three companions, rang the doorbell in the Simpkins house the next morning, and laid the last installment, a few minutes later, on the desk of the old gentleman himself, who sat there smiling pleasantly at the boys.

"I admire your pluck, boys," he said. "Here's a receipt in full. Thank you for your promptness. If you do all your work in the world as well as you have begun, you will surely succeed. I am glad to have made your acquaintance and I shall always feel under a great indebtedness to you, Master Armstrong."

When they were outside, Jimmy said:

"And I thought he was an old skinflint the first day we saw him about the motor boat!"

"You can't always tell how sweet an orange is by its skin," remarked the Codfish. "Now look at me——"

"Yes, look at you," said Frank.

"Drown him! drown him!" cried the boys, rushing at the Codfish. They were in high fettle this morning.

With the receipt in full in his pocket, it was with a sense of complete ownership that Frank stepped into the Black Duck and took the wheel.

"I want to thank you, fellows, for helping me," he said, turning to the three. "We are part owners in this old craft."

"Thank nothing," said Jimmy, who was as glad as Frank that the debt had been lifted. "Haven't we had all the good rides? She belongs to you. We are only the able-bodied seamen."

"Frank's right," said the Codfish, "we are part owners. I consider that my services entitle me at least to the paint on her."

"And much there is of it," said Frank, laughing. "But no matter what you say, she's as much yours as mine. And now for Seawall and football practice."

"I wasn't much at this game," said Lewis, "but football is where I shine."

"Shine like a bucket of mud," said the Codfish.

Laughing and jollying each other in the highest spirits, they headed the Black Duck for Seawall. She shot ahead through the water like a veritable duck.

"Guess she knows who owns her this morning," observed Jimmy, grinning, as Frank laid her alongside the dock with a nicety of calculation as to speed and distance.

The Black Duck was tied up securely and the boys, after getting the ball, made for the little playground which had been established by some of the public-spirited citizens of Seawall several years before our story opens.

"Where are your goal posts, kids?" inquired the Codfish, as they hurried along. "You can't kick goals without something to kick at, sonny." This was directed at Frank.

"Tut, tut," said that individual, "I've heard of people kicking goals without a ball. But I'm going to see whether I can kick the ball first or not."

"Do you know anything about it?"

"Not a thing. Horton showed me something about it one day last fall, and I've watched him coaching a lot. You just take the ball on a long pass from the center——"

"And I'm the center," broke in Lewis.

"Yes, you're the center, all right," said Frank. "Lewis passes the ball. I catch it——"

"You mean you catch it if you can," interrupted the Codfish.

"Don't interrupt your superior officer, or I'll fire you," said Frank. "As I was saying, I catch the ball, turn it around so that the lacing is up, and then drop it——"

"The way Lewis used to drop it——"

"Not quite, but I drop it end first on the ground, and give it a wallop with my toe as it is rising."

"Sounds very pretty," said the Codfish.

"And what does Jimmy do?"

"Oh, he lies on his stomach when we kick from placement and holds the ball for me."

"No work at all to that. I'd do that much any day," commented the Codfish. "But here we are. Now I'll take this very comfortable rustic chair here in the shade, and see how you put these theories into practice. If I get warm I'll ask some of you to come over here and fan me," and he strolled over and dropped with a sigh of comfort into a park bench. "Now let the fun begin."

The fun began at once. On the first pass, Lewis threw the ball away over Frank's head, and the next time dribbled it along the ground, but after half a dozen tries he finally got it to Frank, who made a fair attempt at a drop kick. It wouldn't have filled Coach Horton with glee, but he managed to boot the ball a little distance.

"Wonderful kick!" shouted the Codfish from his place in the shade of the tree. "Keep it up; you'll win the game in a minute. Wake me up when you do."

Frank paid no attention, but continued to work steadily. Gradually he began to get the right angle on the ball as he dropped it from his hands. The kicks rose higher and truer as he went on. Jimmy watched and criticised his friend, for although Jimmy knew very little about kicking the ball he was a natural football player. He kicked clumsily, but still he knew how it should be done, although he could not do it well himself.

By the end of the practice the boys were covered with perspiration, for the day, although in the latter part of August, was hot in spite of the sea breeze; and like everything that Frank entered into, he had played with a tremendous zeal and concentration. Nothing was half-hearted with him, and when other boys were with him in any of his enterprises, they caught his spirit.

"All over for to-day, boys," cried the Codfish, coming forward, stretching, but assuming the tone of a coach. "That's enough, kids. Report at four to-morrow. Very rotten practice," he added, "at least, as much as I saw of it, for I'm free to confess that the humming of the bees and the song of the football put me to sleep."

Together the four ambled back to the Armstrong cottage, where the three heated boys exchanged their perspiration-soaked clothes for bathing suits, took a dip in the sea and swam a half dozen impromptu races. They raced back and forth like so many dolphins, diving, swimming under water, splashing and shouting, then ran up the beach, rolled in the sand and dashed back into the water. After an hour of this they were ready to don regular clothes again.

The first day of football practice was the index of many others like it. The remaining mornings of vacation were given to the motor boat and the afternoons to drop-kicking practice, swimming and running. As time progressed both Jimmy and Frank gained perceptibly in physical condition and even fat Lewis seemed less flabby. Finally came the day of the Codfish's departure. He had long overstayed his visit as it had been first planned.

"I've got to get back home and lay in a new supply of duds," he said, "but I'll meet you at Queen's before another moon has waxed and waned."

He got a great send-off at the Seawall station as you may well suppose, for in spite of his rather odd ways and sarcastic tongue he was a most likable boy.

"He sees the funny side of everything," said Frank, as the Codfish, waving his handkerchief from the end of the fast-disappearing train, faded from view, "but he is true-blue all the way through."

"Which is a rhyme, Mr. Armstrong," said Jimmy; "and while we are fond of athletes, we can't stand any more poets. We have one here with us, you know—Lewis."

Lewis swelled up at this.

For ten days more the three, now left alone, kept up their daily work. September was ushered in by a few days of quite cold weather, and this gave them the chance to do more rugged football work. Frank and Jimmy practiced falling on the ball, Lewis acting the part of the coach, who rolled the ball in their direction. Then they practiced picking the ball up at full gallop, and after that they worked at grabbing it on the bound.

"Never could see the sense in falling on the ball, anyway," said Frank, after he returned from a race down the field, having snatched a bounding ball and tucked it securely under his arm, "particularly if you have a clear field ahead of you."

"Right-oh," returned Jimmy, "but you've got to be sure the field is clear. The old game used to be 'play it safe,' but in the new one it is all right to take a chance. But make it sure when you go after it."

"All right, Mr. Coach," said Frank. "I'm not such a shark at this game as you, but I'll do my best. My game is baseball. I don't think I'll ever be heavy enough for the gridiron. Do you think I will?"

"Sure thing," said Coach Jimmy Turner. "I bet you'll make the team before you get through Queen's, and all the quicker when they find out that you're a drop kicker."

"I'd like to make it," said Frank wistfully, "but I think I'd better stick to baseball. I know a little about that game."

Finally came the last day on the Black Duck, and they made it a long cruise. They went down as far as the Point, circled Flat Rock, measuring the distance with narrowed eyes that they had covered in the long night swim, and finally, the tide being right, even penetrated up the river as far as Tub Island, and then back through the tumbling water under the railroad bridge.

The next day the Black Duck was laid up for the winter in Berry's boat house, and the boys, after a parting swim and run on the beach, said good-by to Seawall and turned their faces toward Queen's School.

CHAPTER XI. THE HAZERS' WATERLOO.

It was the second day after Queen's opened for the fall term. The students, separated for the summer months, had met like brothers and clasped hands. Everywhere were heard greetings.

"Glad to see you again, old pard. What were you doing all summer?"

That was the favorite form of address, and when a group met they all talked together as fast as their tongues could rattle. The boys had been scattered at mountain, seashore, lake and forest. Some had had the great trip across the ocean to foreign countries. Others had been at their dull little homes on the farms, but they all had something to tell. Some of the faces were missing. A few boys had dropped out. Two had been drowned in a boating accident on one of the mountain lakes; but all of our old friends put in their appearance. There was Wee Willie Patterson, as diminutive as ever; Tommy Brown, long and skinny, but brown as a berry from tramping in the hills; David Powers, fresh from the big ocean liner; and last, but by no means least in this story, Chip Dixon and his own particular crowd.

These first days and nights were not prolific of deep study. Experiences had to be recounted and books were in the background. Our friends changed their headquarters to the more pretentious Honeywell Hall, but fortune did not bring them all in one entry. Jimmy and Lewis had rooms in the third entry on the second floor. Frank, David and the Codfish, were roommates the same as before. It would have been difficult indeed to have separated Frank and David, and under no circumstances would the Codfish have allowed himself to be detached from this company.

Bit by bit David got the whole story of the doings at Seawall during the summer. "I wish I had been with you instead of at the other side of the world," he said. "I was lonesome a good deal of the time, thinking what a ripping time you fellows were having around the old shore."

"And we were lonesome for you, too," said Frank. "We missed you. It would have been complete if you had been an officer in the Queen's Transportation Company. But there's another year coming."

By degrees the boys slipped back into their school work habits. Seawall was forgotten for a time at least. All thought was centered on the great fall sport of football, or at least all thought outside of the classroom and study periods, and I'm afraid some of it even there. Our friends trod the paths of Queen's with a new sense of ownership. Were they not now in their second year and lords of their particular realm—Honeywell Hall? Last year they had been at school only on suffrance of the second class boys—so it had appeared to them—but the year had moved them along to a new and quite wonderful superiority.

"Have you noticed," said the Codfish one night, "what a very small fry this bunch is, that has so recently entered our sacred Halls of Learning?" The speaker put the question to the full court that sat in Frank's room one night after supper.

"You mean the Freshmen, I suppose," said Jimmy.

"You're the rightest chap I know," said the flowery Codfish.

"Yes," said Frank, "they are a year younger than we uns, but I noticed some pretty husky fellows there in the yard to-day."

"Most of them look as if they had just come from mamma's lap just the same, and I think it's a sin for these Second year guys to be hazing the dear little mites," said the Codfish, with a great show of disapprobation.

"Who's hazing them?" inquired Frank.

"Future tense, Webfoot, future tense," cried the Codfish. "I guess they've escaped so far."

"Well, what's all your virtuous indignation about, old chappie?" said Jimmy.

"The stick is in pickle for them, for I overheard a little conversation to-day that made me think as I think."

"You have long ears. Where did you hear it?" queried David.

"Coming around the corner of Warren Hall to-night I interrupted a little conference. Some one said 'cheese it,' and then the bunch began to talk very loud about the prospects for the football team."

"Was that a suspicious circumstance?" asked Jimmy.

"Something in the cut of their jib, as Captain Silas might say, made me think they were not so much interested in the football team at that moment as they pretended to be. My instincts as a detective got the better of my natural modesty—ahem, ahem—and after walking along a little ways, I sneaked back like the thug in the play and dodged behind that little jog in the wall."

"Go on, Sherlock."

"And what happened then?"

"Were they planning to kidnap Old Pop-Eye?"

These questions were fired at the Codfish in rapid succession.

"No, gentlemen of the Court of Inquiry," replied the Codfish, planting his gorgeously attired feet on the table end and leaning back against the window seat, "they were planning an attack on two poor, little mamma boys who have our old rooms at No. 18."

"The brutes!"

"The scoundrels! The worse than kidnappers!" howled Jimmy, making a great ado about it. "And what did you do—walk in and clean out the gang?"

"Do I look like a fellow who would get mixed up in the common bruising business? Look at me and answer me that! No, I leave such brutal tactics to you, Turner and Armstrong, and to such rough fellows as David Powers and Lewis Carroll."

"Hear, hear!" cried the chorus. "Go on, and what happened then?"

"Well, I came up here and now tell my tale to unsympathetic ears. If you had a spark of human kindness in you, one little chunk of the milk of humanity in you, you'd sally forth and save these children from the ruthless grasp of this marauding bunch of baby destroyers. But as you do not seem to be interested, I'll go and tip these innocent lambs off to the fact that they are going to be seared, and bid them dust out."

"Who were the gents you heard plotting, Sherlock?" inquired Frank.

"Oh, I couldn't make them all out," returned the Codfish, "but I'm sure of Bronson and Whitlock and Colson. Two or three of the others had their backs to me. It was too dark to recognize them, and they didn't speak loud enough."

"Three chumps, if ever there were chumps," said Jimmy indignantly. "They ought to be in better business. Wouldn't it be a joke to give them some of their own medicine?"

"There speaks a hero, a real Carnegie medal hero!" cried the Codfish.

"I've an idea," said Frank.

"Hurrah, Frank has an idea!" shouted the Codfish. "Shut the door and bar the windows for fear it escapes," and he ran to close the door and slam down the window. "Out with it, Master Drop Kicker. It can't get away now."

"Sit down, you lunatic," said Frank, laughing at the antics of his roommate. "My idea is just this," and they put their heads together and talked in such low whispers that it was impossible to hear just what plan was being laid. It is sufficient to know that about a quarter of an hour before the time that the Codfish had said the date for the attempted hazing had been set, Jimmy and Frank stole quietly up the well-known stairway to No. 18 Warren Hall. The remainder of the party stayed on the far side of the yard as a kind of reënforcement in case of need.

The two new boys were in the study and were startled at the knock on the door. But they let our friends in, and stood with inquiring attitudes. Apparently they were ignorant of the hazing traditions of Queen's.

"What's your name?" asked Frank, addressing himself to the larger of the two.

"Mine's Hopkins," said the boy addressed.

"And mine's Hewlett," said the other eagerly.

"And where do you both come from?"

"Milton."

"Glad to see you," said Frank, extending a hand first to one and then the other, while Jimmy followed suit. "And that's a reason why we are going to do as we are going to do, eh, Jimmy?" inquired Frank.

"You bet it is. Can't let Milton be thrown down."

"Did you boys ever hear of hazing?" said Frank.

"Oh, yes," said one of the boys, "but they don't do any such things as that at Queen's, do they?" and there was a note of alarm in his voice. "You are not hazers, are you?"

"Well, not if we can help it," said Jimmy. "But it happens that we are going to have a little party in your room to-night. We used to live here ourselves once and we like to come back."

"Yes," said Frank, "we are to have some callers here in a few minutes and we want to give them a warm reception. If you don't mind, we'd like to occupy your bedroom for about five minutes."

The occupants of No. 18 looked puzzled and dazed at the presumption of the intruders, so Frank took them into his confidence, and in a few words told them what was about to take place. "Oh, oh," gasped the new boys, "thank you so much for telling us!"

"No trouble at all," laughed Jimmy; "it's a chance of a lifetime. I've been aching to use my muscles for the last three days."

"Now all you boys have to do is to get into that clothes closet and keep still as mice. Don't even peep, or the cat's out of the bag."

The boys were only too glad to do as they were told and made for the clothes closet with alacrity. They were not the adventurous kind that enjoy roughing it. A chance to escape a mauling was accepted instantaneously.

"Hurry up, Jimmy, it's nearly eight o'clock. The pirates will be here in a minute if they live up to schedule." He had hardly finished speaking when the Chapel clock boomed out the hour of eight.

Both boys dived for the inner room, stripped off their coats, pulled down the blinds and, jumping into the little cot beds, pulled the coverlets up to their chins. They lay there and shook with laughter.

"What if the gang should send up a dozen kidnappers and carry us both out and duck us?" said Frank, in a whisper.

"'Tisn't likely they'll send more than two or three," was Jimmy's answer. "They would be afraid of attracting attention. They'll figure that two's enough for these little candy kids. I don't think——"

What Jimmy didn't think will never be known to history, for he was interrupted by a ringing knock on the study door.

"There they are; cover up," whispered Frank. "Keep the coverlet up to your chin or they'll recognize you."

"Not a chance of it in here, unless they have a light, and they wouldn't chance that unless they are masked."

The knock was repeated, and there still being no answer some one kicked the door. "Open up, Freshmen," said a gruff voice.

"That's Bronson, sure," said Jimmy.

"What's wanted?" shouted Frank, in a weak sort of voice. "We're in bed."

"Oh, you are, are you?" said another voice. "Well, we'll come in and sing you a lullaby, eh, boys?"

"There's a bunch of them," whispered Jimmy, "we're in for it."

"Let 'em come," whispered Frank, in answer. "We'll show 'em a thing or two."

The door of the study was pushed violently open now and footsteps sounded outside the bedroom door.

"Where are you runts?" said the gruff voice, the one that had first been heard. They could hear the owner of the voice bumping around among the furniture. "You ought to have lights for the convenience of your visitors. Oh, there you are in your downy little couches for the night," said the voice again, and a hand grabbed the portières between the study and the bedroom and jammed them back.

"What do you want?" said Jimmy, in a plaintive voice, into which he tried to put as much fear as possible.

"Just want to see two cunning little things in their nighties. Have you said your prayers?" There was a laugh at this, and both boys on their backs in bed concluded that there were three of their enemies.

"Yes," said Frank, "we always do that. Please, sir, what do you want?"

"We want you, angel face," said the foremost of the trio, and striding into the room he reached for the bed clothes.

Just what happened that leader of the hazing gang never quite knew. But as he reached out, something struck him hard right in the stomach. It was Jimmy's head. That individual had been curled up in bed waiting for what was about to happen, and as Bronson bent over, Jimmy uncoiled himself. With his head boring into Bronson's big body, he surged forward with all the force of his sturdy frame. Reënforced by Frank, who sprang instantly at Jimmy's attack, the two forced Bronson backward through the doorway and into the faces of the other two waiting there.

Into Bronson's companions they crashed and the whole crowd went smashing to the floor with Frank and Jimmy on top. Bronson fought and kicked and hit blindly in the dark, all the while making desperate efforts to reach the door; but Frank and Jimmy, whose eyes had become accustomed to the dark while they lay waiting, could see fairly well, and directed their blows with telling effect. Jimmy landed a stinging thump on Bronson's nose, and when he took his hand away he felt something warm and sticky on his knuckles. It was blood.

Bronson, thrashing around on the floor with Frank and Jimmy on top of him, was begging for mercy. His two companions had gathered themselves up in the dark and beat a hasty retreat down the stairs, with only the thought of getting away with their lives. Frank, a straddle of the big bully's neck, and Jimmy on his stomach, plugged him right and left; and when they had punished him to their heart's content, and had him almost in tears, they grabbed him by the legs, dragged him to the door and into the entry and then, springing nimbly back into the room, slammed the door and locked it.

In spite of his hammering, Bronson picked himself up with astonishing alacrity and tore down the steps of Warren Hall as if the fiend himself were after him, while Frank and Jimmy rolled around on the floor in a paroxysm of laughter.

Pale and trembling, the two rightful occupants of No. 18 came from the closet and lit the gas. Their eyes met a scene of destruction. Scarcely anything was left standing in the corner of the room where the hurricane of fighting had taken place. But the destruction was nothing in comparison with what they had been saved from, and they thanked their rescuers almost with tears in their eyes.

Frank and Jimmy slipped on their coats, helped Hopkins and Hewlett to straighten up the furniture and departed.

"They will let you alone in the future, or I make a mistake," said Frank, laughing as he went out. He had lost some skin from his nose in the scuffle, but otherwise he was none the worse.

"I'll bet Bronson will think you two are worse than a den of wildcats!" said Jimmy, and his grin stretched from ear to ear.

Bronson and his companions did not learn of the trick that had been played upon them till some time afterward, but when they did know they laid plans for vengeance of which you will hear later.

CHAPTER XII. CLASS NINES.

"Have any of you fellows seen the football schedule?" inquired Jimmy one night after Queen's had been open about a week.

"Our rising young journalist, David Powers, ought to know all about it," said the Codfish. "Only thing I know is that it contains the same old lot, with Warwick on the end of it. How about it, David?"

"The schedule was published in the Mirror last spring after Dr. Hobart approved it, and it isn't the same old thing by a good deal. Dixon took on some pretty strong schools. Don't you remember how you sneered at it, saying that it was big enough for the York freshmen, and that Queen's would be a second rater long before the big game came on?"

"You don't expect me to remember what I said three or four months ago?" retorted the Codfish. "It's bad enough to have to remember a week. Why don't you publish the old thing again?"

"Being live editors, we did that very thing, and if you hadn't been asleep you would have seen it. Here's the paper," returned David.

"Oh, very well, boy, you may bring it to me," said the Codfish lazily.

Frank picked up the latest copy of the Mirror and launched it at the Codfish's head. "Thank you very, very much," said that individual; "I always like polite little boys. Yes, here she is, third page. Some schedule, that——" he announced, as he read; "listen:

"October 5th—Hillside Academy at Queen's.
"October 12th—Burrows at Queen's.
"October 19th—Milton High School at Milton.
"October 26th—Taylor Hall at Oakland.
"November 2d—Porter School at Queen's.
"November 9th—Warwick at Warwick."

"What's going to be left of this Queen's School eleven when that's over?" inquired the Codfish. "Why, I wouldn't give a plugged nickel for Queen's chances."

"You're a pessimist!" said Jimmy. "Have you been down to see us work?"

"Have I been down? Oh, Master Turner, what a question! Of course I've been down, and that's the reason I'm pessimistic."

"Oh, we're not so bad," said Jimmy, laying aside his book to argue a little. "We might get away with one or two of them, even if we did lose most of our good players."

"Most of your good players? Why, you lost all of them, didn't you?"

"Where does Jimmy come in?" inquired Frank mildly.

"And where does Frank come in?" questioned Jimmy quietly.

"Mutual admiration societies never affected my judgment," said the Codfish. "Jimmy can't play all the game behind the line, and Frank the Drop Kicker hasn't grown up yet into the husky giant that you are, Turner. Anyway, Dixon wouldn't have Frank on the team if he could help it. You forget that Chip owns the School, don't you?"

"Not a bit of it, and Frank might get his chance sooner than you think, Mr. Critic," said Jimmy. "Did you notice what a shine Horton took to him to-day?"

"Don't be sarcastic, now," said Frank. "Horton had some of us kicking down on the field to-day, and he said that my style was all wrong and I'd never be any good until I changed it. But I'm not to be considered at all. I'm going out for the fall baseball."

"Sensible boy," said the Codfish. "You are wasting your glad young days down on that football field, for as long as Dixon runs the captain you will have a pretty slim show. Maybe when he gets through here and into a wider field for his politics, you may be allowed to do something, unless he hands his curse down to his successor."

The talk of the boys uncovered the situation down on the football field. Dixon, in spite of his excellent knowledge of the game, was so thoroughly bound up with the Society of Gamma Tau that, even at the risk of weakening the team, he played his favorites. Frank and Jimmy had come out at the first call for candidates on the eleven. Jimmy, with his natural ability to play the game, could not very well be kept off, society or no society, because the back field was weak without him; Frank, with less knowledge of the game and with Chip's secret grudge still against him, stood little chance. Horton had given Frank an opportunity once or twice on the second team, but as Frank was green, he was soon replaced.

"He's too light," Dixon said to his coach one night after practice, "and doesn't seem to have much football sense. It's no use in bothering with him." And, although Horton was a good coach, such little remarks as these, frequently repeated, had their effect on the older man's judgment. He overlooked Frank when substitutions were to be made in the progress of practice, and finally forgot about him—remembering only, perhaps, that he appeared to have a knack of kicking, albeit in very bad form.

Horton, however, was one of the old school of coaches who had not much use for a kicker. It was his particular hobby that the eleven should be strong enough to carry the ball. And, it might as well be set down now as later, he lost a good many games by having no adequate punter or drop kicker. Finally the blow fell, and in the second cut of the candidates, Frank read his name among those "who need not report for football practice again."

Frank was not particularly sorry, because he recognized his shortcomings in the game of football. He secretly longed to be at the game which came most naturally to him—namely, baseball.

But his friends up in Honeywell Hall raised their voices in protest. "I think it's a shame," said the Codfish indignantly, "but do you remember I told you so?"

"Don't you care, boys," said Frank. "Don't worry about me. I'm going to have a little baseball now and, Mr. Codfish, I want you to help me with my call for candidates. Most of the School nine fellows are playing on the eleven, so we can have the whole place to ourselves."

"What would you say to an organization of class baseball," suggested the Codfish, "same as they do at the colleges? Here's a fine golden fall going to waste. I've been thinking of it for some time, but we had no leader. But now that our thousand-dollar beauty, Frank Armstrong, has been kicked off the eleven, the gap is filled. With the leader at hand, all we want is a press agent."

"Hear, hear!"

"And we have one right ready to our hand—Mr. David Powers, journalist! What's the use of having these cards to play if you don't play them? sez I."

"What's that you're saying about me?" inquired David, looking up from an essay that he was composing for next day's English literature lesson.

"I was saying," said the Codfish glibly, "that we had a scoop for you—a red hot story that will make the readers on the Mirror sit up and shout hallelujah! They always do that when they see an interesting article in the Mirror, eh, David?" continued the Codfish. "Now, as Mark Anthony said: 'Lend me thine ears.' It's like this. Can't you cook up, dish up, or write, if you prefer ordinary grammatical terms to culinary ones, an article which will go into the next issue of the Mirror, suggesting an inter-class baseball series which shall begin now and last as long as the weather holds good, then sleep like the ground-hog through the winter, and continue in the spring? What says our aspiring literary genius?"

"Good idea," said David.

"Wonderful!" said Jimmy. "I'll resign from the football eleven."

"Where am I to play?" inquired Lewis, "short-stop or second base?"

"You'll be the boy who carries the bats and brushes off the homeplate," said the Codfish, "and maybe if you're very good we may let you bring the water."

"Thank you for nothing," retorted Lewis.

"And as the Mirror, thanks to our progressive friend and erstwhile rope-climber, David, has changed its shirt and appears nice and clean once a week instead of twice a month, it ought to make its appearance about Thursday of this week. There's no time to lose. Bring on your pens and paper and let's get that article ready."

The boys entered into the spirit of the thing, and before they turned in for the night had produced in brief form a plan for inter-class baseball. Each class, including the Freshmen, was to organize a nine, and there was to be a series of games between these nines, the two having the highest percentage to meet for a final match.

"It's up to you, Codfish, to figure out the schedule and the percentages," said Frank. "We'll call you the unofficial scorer."

"At what salary, please?"

"We'll give you a cheer after it's all over."

"O. K. Then I'll accept. Let the cheer be a long one and a strong one."

The announcement in the Mirror which came out a few days after the talk in Honeywell, had a surprisingly quick recognition. Leaders in each class got to work and organized, and before the end of the week the diamonds were covered with boys working with might and main to win a place on the nine of their particular class. Frank, of course, was quickly chosen as the leader of his class team, and after a day or two gathered together the best of a dozen boys who had put in an appearance for his particular nine. But Frank missed the services of his old backstop, Jimmy, who, in spite of his statement that he would resign from the football team, still held his place in the back field of the School eleven. His allegiance to the eleven was made the subject of one of the nightly discussions in Honeywell Hall.

"I thought you were going to be with us, Half-back Turner," said the Codfish, one night. "You are throwing your energies away, down there on the gridiron with Horton and Chip and the rest. Come up and have a little fun with the real sports."

"I'd like to, I tell you," said Jimmy wistfully. "It's no fun getting banged about two hours a day, but I've got to stick to the ship even if there are rats in it. When I said I'd resign I was only joking."

"Nice way to crawl out of it," growled the Codfish. "We need your services. Frank has to pitch to that fellow Button who lives upstairs, and he can't hold the ball. It needs a real red-head like you to hold our young Matthewson."

"That's right, Jimmy, stick to your guns," said Frank. "While it's not the best eleven that ever was, it is still the School eleven and I wish I could help it. I'd chuck this baseball series."

"Oh, you traitor!" shouted the Codfish. "Jimmy, we're going to have our first clash of the season, as the newspapers say, next Thursday afternoon; can't you come over and see us wallop that bunch of third-year pill tossers?"

"If you don't start it too early I might get over," said Jimmy, "but as long as the practice is on I've got to stick there. And I kind of like the uphill fight."

"Don't you let him bother you, Jimmy," said Frank. "He's an A number one josher. Since you are good enough to play for the school, it's your job to stay there and do your best."

"What do you call your nine?" said Jimmy.

"Oh," murmured the Codfish, "it's a pretty, pretty name—the Piratical Pippins. I selected it from a hundred names, more or less. It was the worst I could think of."

"It sure is bad enough. And what are your opponents called?"

"The Hilarious Hitters—so-called because they can't hit anything—and the Rough Rowdies of the upper class. These are all alliterative names, you see," explained the Codfish, "and each has a significance which would not easily penetrate your cranium."

"Have the Freshmen a nine?"

"Sure, and a good one, too. We call them the Toy Toddlers."

"And which of these aggregations do you play Thursday?" inquired Jimmy.

"Let's see, where's my schedule?" lisped the Codfish, as he fumbled in his coat pocket. "Here we are—'Pippins versus the Hilarious Hitters, game called at 4 p. m. Umpire, Snooks'—and he's that fellow with the lopsided eye, but he makes a great umpire."

Jimmy laughed. "I'll be over to see you if I can. Now I've got to go and lay in a deep store of knowledge for to-morrow. I'm away. Good night."

"Good night," echoed the boys, and Jimmy trotted downstairs whistling.

You can imagine that Gamma Tau did not view the baseball series with pleasure. The eleven, loaded with favorites as it was, did not at any time hold the attention of the School, and now that there was a rival attraction, still fewer of the fellows went down to watch the practice. Dixon and Captain Wheeler, well knowing the state of mind of the School, still fretted about the matter, and things were not improved when practically the whole school turned out for the first of the class series, in which the Pippins crossed bats with the Hitters. Frank captained the Pippins and pitched, and he pitched so well that his nine won, seven runs to two. The Hitters, true to their name, got only four hits off his delivery.

"This Armstrong is getting too popular altogether," said Dixon the night after the game, as he and Captain Wheeler with several others of the Gamma boys got together in Dixon's room.

"Well, what are you going to do about it?" grumbled Wheeler. "He has a right to do something, hasn't he? Since he's no good on the eleven, we can't keep him from playing baseball."

"I'm afraid he'll make trouble for us, with that redheaded friend of his, Turner. They've got a pretty strong combination there, and not one of them is in the Society. There's Powers, who is going to be a force on the Mirror some of these days. He's the best man on it now, with the exception of the chairman, Miller."

"Well, what are we going to do about it, I'd like to know?"

"We can pull his teeth by getting him into Gamma," returned Chip.

"Your first attempt wasn't very successful," returned Wheeler.

"No," said Chip, making a wry face. "But we'll try it again. I think if we got him and several of his pals into Gamma, we could bring so much influence to bear on them that we could sew them up."

"I don't know about that," said Wheeler, "he's just the kind of a fellow that's hard to sew up, and he is making himself stronger every day."

"What would you say to my asking him again? The second elections come off two weeks from to-night. We might land him, and then we'd be in clover."

"Well, maybe. We might go over and try some night," ventured Wheeler.

"We might bust up his baseball work by calling him over to the School football squad again. He looked to me as if he might make a kicker, and Horton was saying only this afternoon that we've got to develop some one, since you get worse every day."

"Thank you for the compliment!" growled Wheeler.

"And if we can't spoil some of this popularity wave, I've got another scheme. The blamed little fool could have anything he wants if he only came over to us."

"Unfortunately he doesn't see it that way," said Wheeler, "but if you think best we'll send our Committee over to see him Monday night."

"Agreed," said Chip, and the conference closed.

The determination to bring Frank and Turner over into the camp of Gamma Tau was strengthened by the disastrous defeat of the Queen's School on the following Saturday by two touchdowns to nothing.

CHAPTER XIII. FRANK'S FOOTBALL EDUCATION.

It is needless to say that the attempt of the society of Gamma Tau to gather Frank and Jimmy into its fold in order to put a curb upon their growing popularity, failed, in spite of the fact that it had been advanced with the greatest care. The most persuasive members of the Campaign Committee, as it was called, had been sent to the two rooms in Honeywell Hall, and the glib-tongued committee men, after clearing out all but the intended candidates, used every argument.

"What possible objection can you have to taking an election to Gamma?" said the chief of the Gamma expedition to Frank. "Gamma is the oldest and most powerful society in the School, and runs about everything here," he added. It was an unfortunate slip of the tongue and gave Frank his chance.

"That's just the trouble with Gamma. As you say it runs everything, and as far as I can judge, it doesn't run anything very well."

"That's a rather bold thing for a Second-year boy to say," suggested one of the trio. "Most of your class would be mighty glad to get a chance to come into it."

"I can't help it," returned Frank. "I mean what I say. I am only a Second-year boy as you have told me, but I've been here long enough to know my way around. I can see very plainly that Gamma is not helping the School, but hurting it, and I always supposed that the main business of a Society was to help the School and not the members of the Society."

"But all the big fellows are with us," said Hastings, a boy who had been elected because his roommate played on the eleven, but who himself was not an important part of the school life.

"They may be big on the athletic teams, but I don't see that they are doing much else. Why don't you take in some one besides the athletic fellows? There's my roommate, David Powers, or Gleason, they both have more brains than I have."

"No, we want you to come first. They will come later, if you come."

"Oh, so that's it, is it? Well, gentlemen," said Frank, with so much determination that the committee men gave him up as a bad job, "I appreciate the honor you offer me, but I think I can do more for the School by staying outside. Some day I hope to see the Gamma recognize the boys for what they are worth, and not for the distance they can punt a football or throw a baseball. It used to be that way, and if I can help in my little way to putting it back that way, I'll do so."

"This is your last chance, you know," said Hastings. "If you turn us down this time you can never wear the Gamma pin."

"Well, I guess I can never wear it, then, for I wouldn't agree with Gamma about most things. It is better for all of us."

"All right, it's settled," said Hastings, "but you're going to be a sorry kid some day."

"I doubt it," said Frank shortly.

And that ended the interview. Nearly the same thing was repeated in Turner's room, for Jimmy and Frank were one in their determination not to be drawn into the society, as they knew that once in it they would have to be governed by it, and that didn't suit their fancy at all.

Dixon and Wheeler were furious when it was reported to them that both boys had again turned down the invitation. "They'll regret that to the day of their death!" Chip stormed. "The impudent little upstarts! The Gamma will smash them, see if it don't." Wheeler said nothing, but the scowl on his face boded no good for our friends in Honeywell Hall.

Two days after the interview in Frank's room, and when the class baseball series was in full swing, Frank was sent for by Boston Wheeler and told to report on the football squad the next afternoon.

The Codfish was wild. "It's as plain as the nose on your face," he said to Lewis, "what they're after; they're going to bury him on that football squad, hold him there and finally give him no chance at all."

The subject of the discussion appeared at that moment, and the Codfish whipped around on him. "Are you going down on the gridiron?"

"No help for it," said Frank gloomily. "Wheeler came over himself to-night and told me to come down. I told him I was no good, but he insisted that they needed a punter. Horton, also, has suddenly discovered that I'm a kicker."

"I'd refuse," snorted the Codfish.

"And get the School down on me? No, I can't do that. If they really want me I'll be glad to help. And if I can't, I've got to take my medicine and have neither the fun of our baseball series nor the glory of football. I'm going to try hard to develop myself especially for drop kicking. Gamma or no Gamma, it is the Queen's School eleven and not the Gamma eleven. I'd be a pig not to do what I can to help, little as it may be."

"Well, maybe you're right," reluctantly admitted the Codfish, "but I haven't your forgiving nature. Hey," he called to David, who had just come into the room, "Frank's going to shyster the baseball end of it and go down to the gridiron just because Wheeler wants him. What do you think about it?"

"Just one thing. He can't do anything else."

"All right, then, down goes the house of baseball, because there's not another pitcher on the staff of the Piratical Pippins to make a dent in a pound of butter at six feet."

It was indeed with great reluctance that the captains of the baseball nines heard of the break that had been made in their ranks. Practice fell off materially in the following few days, and before the end of the week the nines had disbanded, at sight of which the leaders of Gamma grinned to themselves. So far their plan was working well. Frank's opportunity had been smashed, and they promised themselves that he would not have another one if they could help it.

Frank, although called over to the football squad, was lost in the ruck. He had missed nearly two weeks of practice, which in so short a season as football is a serious matter. Once he was sent in at end on the Second team but did not distinguish himself. In the punting and drop kicking, which was taken before regular practice, he showed an aptitude. Horton began to take more notice of him, and on several occasions took him aside and coached him on the proper step and swing of his leg in meeting the ball. Dixon did not relish these attentions to Frank, and did all in his power to keep him out of the practice.

At night in the room Jimmy labored with Frank and endeavored to teach him what he knew of the play of a half-back. Jimmy was considered the best back on the Queen's eleven. Thick-set, stocky, short, strong of leg and thick of neck, and with a trick of running low, he was hard to stop. He was fast, too, because he never took any roundabout way for the hole that was opened for him, and when the hole wasn't open for him he often made it himself by sheer strength. On defense he was a regular demon. Wherever the ball was, there might be found Jimmy's flaming top-knot. Never for a moment was he deceived by any tricks that the opponents might play. His eye was glued to that ball, and he was always in front of it.

So, with this knowledge, Jimmy proved a good and patient teacher, and always after supper the center of the study was cleared of tables and chairs, and Frank and Jimmy worked for half an hour or so with a ball before taking up the regular lessons. Frank learned quickly and, when he had a chance, put his knowledge into operation. In this, what might be called secret practice, Frank learned to handle the ball quickly without fumbling it, to shift it rapidly from hand to arm-pit, and to take just the right position on his feet. It was surprising how much skill he was able to acquire in the narrow space of a room.

Once Jimmy, in illustrating how the offensive half-back could help his tackle, pressed Lewis and the Codfish and David into service.

"Now, Lewis, you are the opposing guard. Stand here," commanded Jimmy.

Lewis was dragged into position, protesting, and assumed the attitude of a crouching guard with his hands on his knees.

"And you now, Coddy, you stand here at his right. You're the defensive tackle."

"Good!" said the defensive tackle. "It's a pleasant job, how much do I get?"

"You'll get all that's coming to you in a minute."

"It won't rumple up my hair, will it?"

"No, don't stand too far out there. That's it, keep your place and look pleasant. Now, Frank, you're the right half-back and you've got to carry the ball. Here, David, you snap it back; you don't need to get down, just face Frank and toss it to him. That's it, right there where you are. Now I'll give the signal. Remember, Frank, you cross over behind me. I'm going to help the offensive tackle to block off his opponent. You see I haven't any offensive tackle or guard here, but it will do to illustrate. Now, ready all!"

Jimmy yelled this last as if he were outside on the football field, so earnest was he in his work. David snapped or tossed the ball to Frank, who dashed across behind Jimmy. Jimmy threw himself against the unresisting opposing "tackle" and "guard." Over they went like nine pins, Lewis fetching up in the fireplace and the Codfish under the window seat!

There was a howl of laughter from Frank, David and Jimmy, but it wasn't echoed by the defensive "tackle" and "guard." Instead they picked themselves up very carefully and felt of themselves.

"Where's the automobile that hit me?" said the Codfish, in a rueful tone, feeling his shins tenderly.

"Some one get a shovel, please," groaned Lewis, "and dig these ashes out of my left ear." He was a sight.

"All right!" yelled Jimmy, "line up quick, and I'll show you how the cross-buck ought to be played!"

"Oh, no you don't," said the Codfish, edging away. "You can't show me a cross-buck or a tame-buck or a golden-buck or any other kind of a buck this evening. I've had all I want of football instructions. If you and Frank want to continue your jolly little game, go and borrow a few saw-horses."

"Why, what's the matter?" inquired Jimmy innocently, while Frank stood holding the ball and grinning.

"I have nothing to say about Lewis, but if you imagine I'm a chopping block," grumbled the Codfish, whose hair had been seriously rumpled and his immaculate clothes mussed up, which he didn't relish a bit, "you have six more guesses and you'll never get one of them right."

"Oh, I say," said Jimmy, "this is in the interests of science, you know. We've got to teach Frank football, somehow."

"You can teach him anyhow," said the Codfish, "but you can't make a Roman holiday out of me again. Science is all right, but it can't be allowed to flourish at the expense of my dignity. Look at our poor friend, Lewis Carroll." The sight was so comical that even the Codfish got over his grouch and laughed.

"That's what we get every day," said Jimmy. "I wonder if the School knows how many hard knocks its football players get. You've got to take what's coming to you without a whimper. If a fellow is tender he better keep out of football."

"Or out of the fireplace, eh, Lewis?" cried the Codfish.

"Or from under the window seat," retorted Lewis, who by this time had made himself again presentable by a liberal supply of soap and water.

There was no more football practice that evening; and thereafter when the floor space was cleared away for Jimmy's illustration of the tactics of the back field, the Codfish and Lewis always found it convenient to be absent on important business.

The fall drew on with rapid pace. Sometimes the football eleven of Queen's seemed to be getting together, but it was only seeming; for, lacking the right spirit, the eleven had no fight in it. Captain Wheeler often chafed at the interference of his quarter-back, Chip Dixon, whose bitter feeling toward Frank he could not understand.

Dixon had forgotten Frank's generous attitude the night of the supposed drowning of Tommy Brown in the Gamma initiation, and remembered only that Frank had beaten him out in several of his ambitions. It seemed to be forever in his mind that Frank had beaten Warwick with the Freshman nine, and he lost no opportunity to hurt him in the eyes of the coach and the rest of the players.

But, in spite of his disadvantages and of the scant attention he got on the field, Frank continued to improve. Under the loving coaching of Jimmy at night and much observation and practice on the field, he forged ahead in the knowledge of the game; and once, called in by Horton to replace the full-back when the School eleven held the Second on its five-yard line, he kicked a neat goal from the field.

"Good boy!" said Horton that night, as the teams trudged off to the gymnasium. "You are getting the knack of it. I'd give good money if you were twenty pounds heavier. But you'll grow. Keep at it, and you'll surely get a chance at the eleven next year."

This praise from the coach, heard by Dixon, rankled in the latter's heart. He set to work planning for an overthrow of Frank's hope, the results of which will be seen later on. Dixon was so busy working off his grudge or trying to do it, that he played poor ball, much to the exasperation of Coach Horton. The next day after Frank's drop kick, Chip was warned for a rough and ugly piece of work in the practice, and after some words with the Coach, was sent to the side lines in disgrace. Walker, the little quarter on the Second team, was pulled over to the position at quarter on the first team, and to the astonishment of every one, the coach, after running his eye over the possible candidates to fill the quarter's position on the Second eleven, ordered Frank to take his place. "He handles the ball like a flash," said Horton, in defense of what he had done, when the Captain protested; "he's as fast as lightning and, if my dope isn't wrong, he'll make a dandy quarter. He's too light to play anywhere else. We'll give him a trial."

Horton's change proved to be a stroke of genius, for Frank, although not well acquainted with the signals or accustomed to the place, proved to have a natural aptitude for the position, and it was only a few days till he began to find himself. His punting, although not great in distance, was accurate, and so quick were his movements that he put a life and ginger in the Second team which brought about a vastly different condition on the field. Dixon was finally recalled to his old position on the School eleven, but Frank had improved so much that Walker came back to the Second as Frank's substitute.

Jimmy was overjoyed at the turn affairs had taken, and every minute that he had to spare from lessons he coached Frank on tricks of the back-field play. For hours together the two worked on the handling of the ball from center, Jimmy playing center, of course. Frank improved with wonderful rapidity. His baseball playing helped him in handling the ball, and as the season advanced he began to rival, except in experience, the resourceful Dixon himself. He had even an advantage of the latter, for he could punt and drop kick as well.

CHAPTER XIV. THE TELEGRAPH COMPANY.

"What's that you have?" said Frank, coming in one night after supper and finding the Codfish handling a kind of an instrument composed of bright polished brass set on a wooden base. Gleason was examining it closely.

"That, my inquisitive young sir, is nothing more nor less than a telegraph instrument."

"Where did you get it? Make it, buy it or pinch it?" inquired Frank.

"I bought it, kind sir. I was down at the Queen's station to-night getting off some of my important business by telegraph, and his nibbs down there, the telegraph operator, recognizing in me a man of excellent perceptions, invited me in."

"And you got away with some of the tools. Does he know it?"

"Oh, yes, sir, he knows it. I sat there and watched him tapping away. He told me it was New York on the other end of the wire, after he had called up. I didn't believe him, and he told me if I didn't believe, I could prove it for myself by simply touching two little posts that he pointed out."

"And you touched?"

"Yes, if you must know the details, I touched it, and incidentally I jumped about six feet in the air. It gave me a shock, you see."

"And then you realized that it really was New York on the other end of the wire?" queried Frank, who knew something about telegraphy because he had studied it in a series of articles in the Boys' Magazine.

"Sure, I realized at once that it was New York, for I've heard that New York is a shocking city. Now, then, will you be good?"

"Put him out! Put him out!" said David, looking up.

"Electrocute him, I should say," cried Jimmy. "He ought to be given two thousand volts in the neck for that."

"Well, if you will draw down these things on your heads, keep on interrupting my story. I asked the gent if it took much brains to learn it, and he had the nerve to tell me it didn't take much of any, and added that he thought I could just about accomplish it. If I had been a fighter like Redhead here, I'd have been insulted, but as it was I kept a dignified silence."

"Well, when did you make away with the instrument?"

"All in good time, kind friends. He showed me how easy it was to wiggle the little key, and I tried it myself. If I had stayed another half hour, I would have been an accomplished operator."

"And how about the instrument?"

"Well, finally, I got so much interested in the little clicker that he said he would sell me something that I could learn on, and he brought forth this attractive affair and agreed to sell it to me for twenty-five dollars."

"Oh, oh, and you bit, did you?"

"I said he agreed to sell it, note my words carefully. I made him a counter offer of three dollars and a half for it, and he said 'It's yours.' And, generous soul that he was, he gave me an instruction book which I also have, if I haven't lost it," and the Codfish began to search hastily through his pockets.

"There it is," he said, holding it up—"How to Learn Telegraphy—A Complete Analysis of the Entire System of the Morse Alphabet—With the Complete Code for all Letters, Figures and Punctuation Marks. There's a bargain at three-fifty. Eh, what?"

"Cheap at half the money," said Frank. "Hand it over."

He turned the pages over thoughtfully. "Say, this gives me an idea. Why wouldn't it be a good scheme to have a little telegraph line of our own?"

"Where to—New York? I insist it shall not be connected with New York. I had enough of New York to-night. It's too shocking."

"Quit your fooling. If you get off that New York joke again I'll punch your head. No, I really mean it. We could have a lot of fun with a telegraph line. We might have an instrument here and one in Jimmy's room. We might even connect up with Wee Willie Patterson who seems to have deserted us this fall."

"I say," said Jimmy, "it would be a great stunt. We could use it as a kind of alarm clock. When I sleep over, the Codfish can rattle a little on it and I'll be awake in a jiffy."

"Thank you," said the Codfish. "I vote against it, if I'm to be the alarming fellow."

"And," continued Frank, "we might run a wire down to Queen's station and get the night operator to send to us for practice."

"Yes, I imagine he'd love to do it," quoth the Codfish. "He seems so much like a generous fellow, particularly when you show him money."

"Well, let's show him money, if he won't do it without it."

David agreed with Frank that it would be a good scheme to have a telegraph line; and the long and the short of it was that the next night a descent was made on Murphy, the night operator at the station who, after much haggling about the price, agreed to run a private wire from the station to Queen's School and equip it with two sets—because only two sets were available. Murphy also agreed that for this sum he would furnish enough "juice" from the station batteries to make a sending current on the wire, and moreover he would "send" for fifteen minutes every night when the boys desired.

The boys went back to Queen's and scraped together enough money between them to pay ten dollars down, and Murphy, as good as his word, commenced stringing the wire the next day. As the line was to be kept a secret, it took a somewhat crooked path, dodging this way and that way to avoid conspicuous places. It cut across the river from the station, was bracketed on a tree, then took half a dozen leaps among the trees across the roof of an old house long unoccupied, and finally climbed the slope to Queen's School, well hidden among the trees.

Perhaps the most difficult part of the work was getting the wire on Honeywell Hall itself so as not to attract the attention of the caretakers, who would undoubtedly have made short work of it. The heavier wire was ended on a bracket on a great elm that swayed over the roof of Honeywell. From this bracket a very fine copper wire was stretched to the room of Jimmy and Lewis, which was fortunately on the rear of the Hall. From there it was an easy matter to bring it across and down a rain spout to the sill of Frank's window. When the whole job was completed, much of it under cover of darkness, so well had it been done that unless you had been looking for such a wire you might have looked over a hundred times and seen nothing unusual.

When the circuit was complete, Murphy attached the instruments and returned to the station. "I go on duty to-night at seven o'clock," he said, "and I'll cut the wire in and see how she works."

The boys were in high spirits about the successful completion of the job, and waited with eagerness to hear the signals Murphy was to send them.

"Wouldn't it be a joke," said the Codfish, as the hour for the opening of the great telegraph line came and went, "if it didn't work?"

"We'd be out ten dollars," remarked David. "But look at the fun we've had!"

"There speaks a true sporting proposition, gents," said the Codfish.

But the line was not to be a failure. Suddenly, while the boys were discussing their probable bad bargain, the little brass-armed sounder jumped into life and began to dance like mad.

"How well he talks!" said the Codfish, who couldn't read a letter. "I think it's about the most intelligent language I ever listened to. Don't sit there, Frank, pretending you know all about it," for Frank had his ear glued on the sounder and was trying hard to make out what was coming.

"IT'S CHOCTAW!" CRIED THE CODFISH. "WHO CAN READ CHOCTAW?"—[Page 179.]

"No, I can't make it out, it's too fast for me; I can read a little if I haven't forgotten. I wish he'd send slower."

By degrees the sounder stopped its mad dancing and began to work slowly.

"Listen," said Frank, and he seized a pencil, "it's something he wants us to hear. I'll write it down."

Frank began scratching as the sounder clicked on. And this is what he got:

"Do ntfo rgett hat youow eme fi vedol lars."

"It's Choctaw!" cried the Codfish, who had been leaning over Frank's shoulder as the message came in. "Who can read Choctaw? David, don't speak up too quick. And Frank thinks he's an operator! Shades of my grandmother, what a message!"

Frank had been staring at the page. Finally he burst out laughing.

"Oh, it's a joke, is it? It looks funny enough to be a joke. Explain it, please."

"The only trouble is, that I didn't get the spaces right between the words. See, when you space it right the Choctaw becomes the following: 'Don't forget that you owe me five dollars'."

"What an insulting thing to send over our own wire first crack out of the box!" said the Codfish. "Of course we owe him five dollars, and if he were a gentleman he wouldn't remind us of it, particularly when we haven't got it in our clothes."

Frank's unexpected display of the ability to read the telegraph by sound, was a great incentive to the others of our quintet of boys, and they worked with might and main. Pasted in each room was a large white card ornamented in the Codfish's best style with the Morse alphabet and figures spread boldly thereon, and this is what they studied morning, noon and night, and sometimes in between:

"And Murphy says that's all a fellow needs to know, to do almost any kind of telegraphing. Sounds easy, doesn't it?" said Frank, one day. "And it is easy to remember the signals themselves, but when they come flying over the wire it's a different story."

"How are you getting on with the telegraph?" inquired David, one night of Lewis, who was listening to the measured ticking of the instrument.

"Great," said Lewis, "I guess I'll be able to take a job on the railroad pretty soon."

"Get out," said Jimmy scornfully. "Lewis makes a great fuss about it because he can tell such little things as e and i and h and things like that. I can do better than that myself. I have a speaking acquaintance with the big, forbidding fellows like q and x and all the high dignitaries."

For a time the lessons suffered by the introduction of this new toy, but by and by it began to take its natural place in the day or night. They picked up the reading wonderfully quickly and, as the days went on, Murphy was able to take a faster gait. Perhaps they didn't understand all of it, but it was a great joy to be able to pick out small words as the instrument rattled along. All of the boys were able to "send" pretty well, which as every one knows is the easy part of telegraphing. It is the receiving that is so difficult.

Often Frank and Jimmy held labored conversations over the wire when Murphy had cut out and left them to themselves, and it generally happened that they were obliged to stick their heads out of the window to confirm by voice what had been said and to fill in the gaps which were not clear.