Thees
SUBMARINE BOYS
FOR THE FLAG
VICTOR G.DURHAM
4: LN
S
SUBMARINE BOYS
SERIES



UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
SQUARIS PENINSULAM AMOENAM
Q:17
SCIENTIA
ARTES
LIBRARY VERITAS
OF THE
VVS
TCEBOR
CIRCUMSPICE












-We Are Going to Take You Into the German Navy!”
Frontispiece.


The Submarine Boys
for the Flag
OR
Deeding Their Lives to Uncle Sam
By
VICTOR G. DURHAM
Author of The Submarine Boys on Duty, The Submarine Boys'
Trial Trip, The Submarine Boys and the Middies, The
Submarine Boys and the Spies, The Submarine
Boys' Lightning Cruise, Etc., Etc.
Illustrated
Phil
LA DE L P H I A
HENRY ALTEMUS COMPANY


COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY HOWARD E. ALTEMUS


مه
مه


8
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
“My good man,” began the German, stiffly,
drawing himself up to his full six-foot-one, “it
is not often I am affronted by being addressed
So-
“There! He'll be outer sight in another
minnit, while you are arguin' about your dig-
nity!” muttered Holt. “And that's the feller
you said you wanted to see—Jack Benson.'
“Benson?” cried the German, forgetting his
outraged dignity and springing forward.
"Benson?”
“That's him-almost up to the corner,”
nodded Landlord Jabez Holt.
“Run out and bring him back with you,” di-
rected Herr Professor Radberg. “Be quick!”.
“Waal, I guess you're spryer'n I be," re-
turned old Jabez, with a shrewd look at his
guest. “Besides, it's you that wants the boy."
Running back and snatching up his hat, Pro-
fessor Radberg made for the street without
further argument.
Moving along hastily, the German soon came
in sight of young Captain Jack Benson, of the
Pollard Submarine Torpedo Boat Company.
“Ach, there! Herr Benson!” shouted the
Professor.
Hearing the hail, Jack Benson turned, then
halted.
“You are Herr Benson, are you not?” de-
MIU


FOR THE FLAG
9
manded Professor Radberg, as soon as he got
close enough.
“Benson is my name," nodded Jack, pleas-
antly.
“Then come back to the hotel with me."
"You are a foreigner, aren't you?” asked
Jack, surveying the stranger coolly.
“I am German,” replied Radberg, in a tone
of surprise.
“I thought so," nodded the boy. “That is, I
didn't know from what country you came. But,
in this country, when we ask a favor of a stran-
ger, we usually say 'please.'
“I am Herr Professor-
“Oh, barbers are just as polite as other
folks," Jack assured him, his laughing eyes rest-
ing on the somewhat bewildered-looking face of
the German.
"Then please, Herr Benson, come back to the
hotel with me.”
“Yes; if it's really necessary. But why do
you want to go to the hotel?”
“Because, Herr Benson, when we are there,
I shall have much of importance to say to you.
“Important to me, or to you?” asked Jack,
thoughtfully,
He had no intention of answering a much
older man disrespectfully. But there was about
Herr Radberg the air of a man who expects his
>>


10
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
greatness to be recognized at a glance, and who
demands obedience from common people as a
right. This sort of thing didn't fit well with
the American boy.
"Oh, it is important to you, and very much
so,” urged the Professor, somewhat more anx-
iously. “Besides," added the German, with a
now really engaging smile, “I have met
your demand, Herr Benson, and have said.
‘please.'”
“Then I suppose I'll have to meet your de-
mand,” nodded Jack, good-humoredly. “Lead
the way, sir."
“Ach! You may walk at my side," permitted
the German.
It all seemed a bit strange, but Captain Jack
Benson had been through more strange experi-
ences than had most Americans of twice or
thrice his age. Besides, as he walked beside
Herr Professor Radberg Jack imagined that he
had guessed at least an inkling of the other's
business. The German had announced himself
as a professor; probably, therefore, he was a
scientist. Being a scientist, the Professor had
very likely invented, or nearly invented some-
thing intended for use in connection with sub-
marine torpedo boats, and wanted to interest the
'concern by which the young submarine skipper
was employed. Though this guess was a rea-


FOR THE FLAG
11
sonable one, it soon turned out to be the wrong
one. The Professor's real reason for seeking
this interview was one that was bound to take
the submarine boy almost off his feet.
Readers of the preceding volumes in this ser-
ies need no introduction to Captain Jack Ben-
son, nor to his chums, Hal Hastings and Eph
Somers. Such readers recall, as told in “The
Submarine Boys on Duty,” how Jack and Hal
drifted into Dunhaven just at the right moment
to fight for an opportunity to work themselves
into the submarine boat building business.
How the boys helped build the first of the now
famous Pollard submarines, and afterwards
learned how to man her, was all told, together
with all their strange adventures in their new
life.
In the “The Submarine Boys' Trial Trip”
was related how Jack Benson solved the prob-
lem of leaving a submarine boat when it lay on
the ocean's bottom, and also the trick of enter-
ing that submerged boat again, after diving
from the surface of the water. The attempt
of shrewd business men to secure control of the
new submarine boat company was also des-
cribed, together with the manner in which the
submarine boys outwitted them. Through a
successful trial trip, and Captain Jack's ingeni-
ous ways of arousing public interest, the gove
3


FOR THE FLAG
13
By the time the present narrative opens it was
near the first of May. Over at the shipyard,
where facilities had been greatly increased, two
of the submarines had lately been finished, and
four more were under way in long construction
sheds. Work on the government's order was
being rushed as fast as could be done while keep-
ing up the Pollard standards of high-class
work.
Of late Jack and his young friends, though
their pay went on, had little work to do. When-
ever a new boat was completed it was the task
of the submarine boys to take her out to sea
and put her through all manner of tests in or-
der to determine her fitness. But there were
days and days when the submarine boys had
naught to do but enjoy themselves as their fancy
dictated.
“Shall we sit down here?” asked Jack, as he
and the tall German entered the hotel office.
Jabez Holt stood behind the desk, bent over
the register, on which the Professor's name had
been the only new one in a week. The old land-
lord pretended to be busy, but he was covertly
watching and listening.
“Sit here?” repeated Professor Radberg.
“Ach, no! Come along with me.”
There was something rather disagreeably
commanding in the German's invitation, but


14
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
Jack merely smiled quietly as he followed in
the stranger's wake.
Up the stairs they went. The Professor un-
locked a door, admitting himself and his guest
to the outer of a suite of two roms. Once they
were inside Radberg locked the door behind
them.
“Come to the other room, Herr Benson,” di-
rected the Professor. The door of this inner
room the German also locked, remarking:
“Now, if the man, Holt, chooses to follow and
listen, he can hear nothing.”
“All this sounds mighty mysterious,” laughed
Jack Benson, good-humoredly.
However, the submarine boy went and stood
by a chair near the window and then waited
until he saw that the stranger was about to seat
himself.
“Now," asked Jack, stretching his legs,
"what's the business about? I haven't a whole
lot of time to-day.”
“Listen, and you shall hear, as soon as I am
ready," came, stiffly, from the stranger. “You
are a boy, and I am Herr Professor
“Oh, you told me all about being a hair pro-
fessor before," smiled Jack, “Now, see here.
Whether you're really a barber, or whether
you're just amusing yourself with me, we want
to have one thing understood. I came here, sir,
>>


FOR THE FLAG
15
as a matter of courtesy to you, and you will
have to treat me with just as much courtesy.
Otherwise, I shall wish you good-morning.'
This was said with a flash of the eye which
warned Radberg that, in his rather overbearing
way, he was going too for.
“Oh, my dear young friend," he replied, per-
suasively, "you don't understand. In Germany
I am-well, perhaps what you would call a
rather distinguished man. At least, my neigh-
bors are good enough to say so.
And, in
Germany, when a herr professor talks, others
listen respectfully."
“Just the same way with the hair professors
in this country," chuckled Jack. “When an
American barber gets wound up and started,
all a fellow can do is to listen. It's no use try-
ing to run away from a barber anywhere, I
guess. He has you strapped down to the
chair."
“Barber?” repeated Professor Radberg, in
disgust. “I don't understand you."
“Oh, it isn't necessary,” laughed Jack. "It's
a sort of Yankee joke. And I beg your par-
don, Professor, if I am wasting your time.
Now, go ahead, please, and tell me why you
invited me here."
There was something of salt water breeziness
and crispness about Jack's speech that caused


16
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
the German's brow to cloud for an instant.
Then, after a visible effort to compose himself,
Radberg leaned forward to ask:
“Do you speak German?”
“No, sir.” Jack shook his head.
“Ach, that is too bad!” muttered the German,
in a voice suggesting severe disapproval of one
who hadn't mastered his own native tongue.
“However, you will soon learn."
“Yes; if there's a big enough prize goes with
it,” agreed Jack.
“Prize?" repeated Professor Radberg.
“You will say so!”
Then, leaning forward once more, and speak-
ing in his most impressive voice, Herr Profes-
sor Radberg continued:
"Herr Benson, we are going to take you into
the German Navy!”
The Professor now leaned back to watch the
effect of his words.
“Are you going to do it when I'm awake?”
asked Jack, curiously.
"Nein! I do not understand you.
“Are you going to take me in by force, or
wait until you catch me asleep?” questioned
Captain Jack Benson.
“Ach! Do not be silly, boy!”
"I might say the same to you, Professor,"
replied Jack Benson, composedly, “but we'll let
19


FOR THE FLAG
17
it pass. How are you going to get me into the
German Navy, and what are you going to do
with me after you get me there?”
“How?” cried Professor Radberg. “Why
we are going to pay you a very handsome sum
of money, and we are going to give you a most
honorable position in our imperial service.
And
Here Professor Radberg leaned forward once-
more, lowering his voice considerably.
“There are three of you boys, all experts at
the Pollard works. Well, we are going to take
all three of you into the German navy, and we
will do something very handsome for you all.”
“The other fellows will be delighted when I
tell 'em what's coming their way,” smiled Cap-
tain Jack.
"Ach! So? Of course."
“Now, what do you propose to do with us in
your navy?” Jack went on. “Are you going
to make officers of us?"
“Officers ?” repeated Herr Professor Radberg,
slowly. “Well, no, Herr Benson. We could not
exactly do that. Our officers are, as you will
understand, very—what is your English word ?-
aristocratic. They could not be quite persuaded
to take American commoners as their brother
officers. That you would not expect, of course.".
“Certainly not,” young Benson agreed. If
2-The Submarine Boys for the Flag.


18
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
there was a slight tinge of sarcasm in his tone,
it was lost on the German, whose brow cleared
as he went on, heavily:
“No, no, my young friend; not officers. But
you shall all three have very honorable posi-
tions, and handsome sums of money to pay you
for entering our service. We in Germany know
the rank which you young men have won as sub-
marine experts, and we shall not be niggardly,
for we have determined to have you in our ser-
vice."
“I hope you'll pardon me," proposed young
Benson. “There is just one point that has been
overlooked. You tell me that you are author-
ized to come to Dunhaven and kidnap my
friends and myself. But, really, how do I
know that you have such authority from your
own side of the water?"
Radberg looked a bit puzzled, for a moment.
Then, as he seemed to begin to comprehend, he
replied, heavily:
"Herr Benson, I have already told you that
I am Herr Professor-
“Now, don't hang out the striped pole again,
please," urged Jack, his face as sober as that of
a judge. "Come right down to the points of
the compass. How am I to know that you really
do represent the German government?”
“Ach! I comprehend,” nodded the German.
>>


FOR THE FLAG
19
“Of course you will understand that, on an er-
rand of this kind, I do not travel with too many
papers. But I shall take you and your two
companions on to Washington to-morrow, I
think"
“To-morrow ought to do as well as any time,'
replied Jack, ironically.
“Yes; I think it will be to-morrow," contin-
ued the German. “I shall take you to our
German Embassy, and one of our officials there
will prove to you that I have been acting with
authority.'
“That'll be right fine of him," agreed Jack,
placidly.
"Ach! It is settled, then,” replied the
German, all but dismissing the matter with a
wave of his hand.
“Yet you must bring your
two comrades here. They must understand just
what is wanted of them. And now, Herr Ben-
son, do you wish to understand what is to be
paid to you to transfer your services to our
German flag?”
“Why, yes; that will be mighty important-
if we go under the German flag."
“If you go?”' repeated the Professor. “Why,
that is all settled!"
“Then I must have missed something, by not
watching you closely enough,” murmured Jack.
"I shall have to sit up straighter and keep my


FOR THE FLAG
21
who are such a young boy?” smiled the German,
teasingly.
“I–I don't know, really,” responded Jack,
thoughtfully, thrusting a hand down into his
own trousers pocket. Young Benson brought
up into the light a very comfortable looking
handful of banknotes, rolled and surrounded by
a broad elastic band. “Let's measure the two,
Professor, and see how they compare.
"Ach!” muttered the German, regarding
Jack's money with some displeasure. “Where
did you get all that?”
“Oh, now, Professor!” cried the young sub-
marine captain, reproachfully. “I didn't ask
you where you got yours!”
“Ach! This is all so much foolishness!”
cried the German Professor, returning his
money to his pocket.
"That's what I think, too,” agreed Jack, fol-
lowing suit. “It's what our English cousins
call 'bad form,' to go to comparing piles of
money."
""Now, sit down, Herr Benson, and I will tell
you what a very handsome sum of money, and
what excellent wages, the German government
will pay you to enter our imperial naval serv-
ice."
“How much money is there in Germany?”
interrupted the submarine boy, thoughtfully.


22
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
“How much, in all Germany?" demanded the
Professor. “Nein! How should I know?"
“You expect me, of course, to turn my back
on this country for good, to tell you Germans
whatever I may know about submarine secrets,
to drill with your navy, and be prepared to fight
in your navy if war comes?”
“Ach, yes! of course," replied Radberg.
“Now, we are beginning to understand one
another."
“Professor,” interrupted Captain Jack Ben-
son, “we've had enough of joking."
“Joking? I assure you-
“Professor," once more broke in the subma-
rine boy, “I wouldn't sell out my country's flag
for all the money you ever saw!”
For a few moments the Professor's face was
a study in consternation. Then he broke forth,
angrily:
“Ach! You are a fool!"
“I guess so,
" nodded Jack, without resent-
ment. “That's just the kind of fools we Ameri-
cans are generally.”
Herr Radberg was a good enough reader of
human faces to realize that, at all events, there
was no use in continuing the conversation at
present.
“Very good,” he growled. “You can go. I
shall see your friends, instead.'
>>


FOR THE FLAG
23
"When you get through with 'em you'll think
they're idiots,” grinned Captain Jack Benson.
Herr Radberg wasn't a fool. Neither was he
a rascal, expert in offering bribes. Brought up
within the walls of a German university, he
- would have been willing to lay down his life
instantly for the good of the Fatherland. Yet
he couldn't understand that men of other na-
tions could be just as devoted to their own coun-
tries. From Herr Professor Radberg's point
of view Germany was the only country in the
world that was fitted to inspire a real and deep
sense of patriotism.
“No harm done, Professor,” said Jack, mov-
ing toward the door, and turning the key to un-
lock it. “I'm sorry you had all the trouble and
expense of coming to Dunhaven on a useless er-
rand. Good-bye!”
“Ach! You may go, but you will come back,"
scowled the other. “If not, your comrades will,
I hope, prove to be young men of better sense
and judgment.'
“Oh, they'll listen to you,” smiled Jack.
“Good-bye!”
"I shall have two of you, anyway,
Radberg's last words before the door of the
outer room closed and Jack's footsteps sounded
in the corridor.
were
so


24
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
CHAPTER II
'FRENCH SPOKEN HERE"
19
“W
ELL, what do you think of that?”
It was Eph Somers who put the
question, and the time was some fif-
teen minutes later.
Captain Jack had met his two comrades up on
the main street of the village. He had told
them, with a good deal of amusement, of his lat
talk with the German.
Hal Hastings didn't say a word, but his eyes
twinkled.
“I wouldn't have minded,” laughed Jack,
but it was the Professor's cock-sureness that I
was to be Germany's oyster.”
“Is he an old man?” asked Hal.
“Not very,” Jack answered. “Perhaps not
old enough to know better. Anyway, if I were
going to a foreign government, Germany would
be about the last country. Germany is our rival
in building a large navy. About every other
month the experts in Germany sit down to figure
whether they are anything ahead of us in the
tonnage of warships, and, if so, whether
there is any danger of our catching up with
them. Now, unless the Germans have a notion


FOR THE FLAG
25
that they may need to fight us one of these
days-
“Oh, I don't believe anything of that sort,”
broke in Hal, shaking his head. “I don't be-
lieve any country in the world is aching to pick
a quarrel with us."
“Not while the United States pocket-book is
such a fat one, and so well built for paying war
expenses,” grinned Eph. Then his look became
more solemn, as he added :
“But we don't want ever to get into a naval
condition where it will be easy for some other
country to snatch that fat pocket-book out of
our hands.'
"Let's go along, fellows. Drowning and con-
fusion to all possible foes afloat,” proposed
Hal, the one who could never see "war” on the
horizon. “After a winter on hot sodas, it'll
be a relief to know that the druggist put in ice-
cream soda to-day."
So the three boys turned and made their way
to the drugstore. While they were exploring
with spoons the bottoms of their glasses, the
street door opened. Herr Professor Radberg
looked in, then came in, beaming condescend-
ingly on the young men.
'Ach! You young men are just the ones I
wish to see,” he exclaimed, resting one hand on
Eph's shoulder, the other on Hal's.


26
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
>9
“Lots of folks will pay for that privilege,”
declared Eph, solemnly.
“Yes? Well, I will pay, too—you shall see.
I shall look for you at the hotel, in just one hour.
One hour-remember."
“Have
you a telescope?” inquired Eph,
calmly.
“A telescope. Eh?” înquired the German.
“What for?"
“You might need it in looking for us,” Eph
replied.
"Then, in one hour, I shall see you—at the
hotel!"
“You'll be lucky, if you do,” grinned Eph.
“Eh? I do not know that I understand,” re-
sponded Herr Professor Radberg, slowly.
“If you're figuring on seeing us,” Eph went
on, gravely, “I'm afraid you're in for bad
news.
"Bad news ? Ach! What do you mean,
young man?"
“Just what I said,” replied Eph.
Professor Radberg looked so puzzled that Hal
Hastings broke in, quietly:
“Professor, unless I'm much in error, you
want to see us about a proposition that we enter.
the German naval service."
,Hush ! Not so loud," warned Radberg,
looking suspiciously around.


28
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
captain?” demanded Herr Professor Radberg,
almost incredulously.
“Bigger!” promised Eph, with a grin.
'Ach! Well, we shall talk this all over when
you come to the hotel in an hour,” replied the
German. He turned and left the store.
“Now, I don't doubt,” mocked Hal, “he has
gone away firm in the belief that we'll keep his
appointment.”
“He'll wake up after a while,” laughed Eph
Somers.
After indulging in a second ice cream soda
the submarine boys started down the street to-
ward the Farnum shipyard where the Pollard
boats were built.
As they passed a street corner they heard a
cautious:
"Hss-sst!'
“Now, who threw that our way?" demanded
the irrepressible Eph, turning swiftly. Then he
added, in a tone so low that only his comrades
could hear:
“Say, fellows, I'll bet that cost some-
thing!"
“That” was a rather undersized little man,
of perhaps thirty. Dark of hair, and sparkling
of eye, the stranger's rather pallid face was
partly covered, in front, by a short goatee, of -
the French “imperial” sort, and a moustache


FOR THE FLAG
29
whose points were waxed out in fierce military
fashion.
It was the stranger's apparel that had at-
tracted Eph’s notice particularly. The stranger
was arrayed in most exquisite fashion; his
clothes were of finest texture and latest Parisian
type. His little, pointed shoes were almost as
dainty as a girl's. Though the day was warm
the stranger was gloved, and handled a cane in
the head of which a handsome amethyst shone.
“I wonder how that got through the custom
house?” was Eph Somers's next undertoned
question.
“Ah, good morning, gentlemen," greeted the
stranger, coming toward them, all smiles and
bows. “Av I have not med ze mistake, zen I
am address ze torpedo boys.'
“Right-o," drawled Eph. “Regular human
torpedoes, as touchy as gun-cotton. Why, I am
due to explode this moment!”
Though the stranger looked puzzled at first,
his face rapidly broke into a cordial smile.
“Oh, ah! I understand. You mek what is
call ze American joke, eh? You have little fun
wiz me."
The Frenchman, for that he unmistakably
was, laughed in the utmost good humor. The
boys found themselves much inclined to like this
stranger.


FOR THE FLAG
31
thought. But yes! You have made ze one right
guess. However, I cannot more say upon ze
street. Let us go somewhere."
“All right," nodded Eph. “You go along,
now, and we'll be along in an hour.'
“Wiz pleasure," nodded the chevalier, eag-
erly. “But we're shall I go?”
“Anywhere you like, suggested Eph, cordi-
ally.
“But, zen, how will you know w'ere I am to be
found?”
“Oh, we'll take a chance on that,” proposed
Eph, carelessly.
“But, unless I am able to say, now, w'ere I
shall be " the Frenchman started to argue.
“We'll guess the meeting place as well as we
did your errand," proposed Eph.
“Ten thousan' thanks!” cried the chevalier.
“Yet, for fear we mek ze one mistek, suppose
I say
Eph Somers had struck such a streak of
"guying” nonsense that Jack Benson felt called
upon to interpose, for he and Hal both liked the
twinkling eyes and good-humored face of this
dandified little Frenchman.
“Pardon me, sir," Jack accordingly broke in,
“but, if we happened to guess your errand, it
was because we have just gotten away from the
agent of another government.


32
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
Ke How? Is zat posseeble ?” cried the Cheva-
lier d'Ouray, a disappointed look coming into his
face.
“Yes; it's true," nodded Jack.
“But you did not come to any terms wiz him?"
“Oh, no!”
“Ah, zen, ze coast is steel clear,” cried the
little Frenchman, delightedly. “So, as to w'ere
we can meet and mek ze one talk-
“We can get that all over with, right here,"
Jack replied. “We can make you the same an-
swer that we gave the other man.
We are
Americans, and would never think of serving
any other flag, even in peace time. Chevalier, I
can save your time by telling you that any ar-
rangement to engage our services away from the
United States would be utterly hopeless."
“But ze money-
” began the Frenchman,
protestingly.
"There isn't money enough across the At-
lantic to hire us,” Jack answered, bluntly.
“And ze honneur-
“Honor? What would that word afterwards
mean to Americans, Chevalier, after they had
left their own country to serve another?”
The Chevalier d’Ouray began to look as
though he realized he had a harder task before
him than he had expected.
“So you see, sir,” Jack went on, “it will not


FOR THE FLAG
33
be in the least worth your while to try to tempt
us. Come what will or may, we are under the
American flag for life. You yourself, Cheva-
lier, wouldn't leave the French flag to serve this
country, Great Britain or Germany."
“No; but zat is deeferent, for I, monsieur, am
French.'
“And we are American,” Jack responded.
“I will leave you, now, zen, gentlemen,” re-
plied the Frenchman, in a tone of disappoint-
ment. “But I shall not go away before to-mor-
row.
If you change ze mind-or weesh to hear
w'at I have to mek ze offer"
"Thank you,” nodded Jack. “But don't
waste any more time on us, Chevalier. And
now-good-bye!"
The Chevalier d'Ouray shook hands with
them all most gallantly. Eph felt somewhat
ashamed of his late nonsense, and, to prove it,
hit the Chevalier d'Ouray a friendly slap on one
shoulder that set the Frenchman to coughing.
“Say,” muttered Jack, as the three now hur-
ried along the street, “I begin to wish I had a
good umbrella."
“Humph! You'd look great with one,
torted Hal. “You, who have stood on the plat-
form deck of a submarine for hours, steering
unconcernedly, when the skies were trying to
drown you."
3-The Submarine Boys for the Flag.
re-


34
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
“But I feel,” remonstrated Jack, “that it's
soon going to rain foreign agents. I'd like to
get in out of the international wet.”
“Oh, we won't see any more of these fellows,"
smiled Hal.
“Now, there's just where I believe you're
wrong, messmate,” Jack contended. "These
foreign governments hire detectives to watch
each other. When we hear from one, we're
likely to hear from the whole lot at once. Look
around you, Eph. Do you see a Japany-
where?"
“Not a solitary jiu-jitsu fiend,” responded
Eph, after halting and staring both ways in turn
along the street.
“Well, Japan is about due," laughed Benson.
· And now, let's get in through the gate of the
shipyard. If any more of these foreign agents
show up--well, there are two boats in the har-
bor that are in commission. We'll find an ex-
cuse to put to sea in one of them.”
“Just the youngsters I was going out to try
to find,” hailed Grant Andrews, foreman of the
submarine construction work, as he hurried
across the yard. “Mr. Farnum told me to get
out and find you.
He'd have sent some one
else, but I guess the business is rather on the
quiet.”
“Is he in his office?" queried Jack.


FOR THE FLAG
35
"Yes.'
“Thank you; we'll go right in, then.'
“Now I wonder what country it is whose agent
has gotten hold of Mr. Farnum?” asked Eph,
plaintively.
"Nonsense!” mocked Jack.
"That's what we try to tell 'em all,” mocked
Eph. “But the Germans are the hardest."
All three of the submarine boys were laugh-
ing so heartily, as they entered the shipbuild-
er's private office that Jacob Farnum, a young-
ish looking man to be at the head of so large a
manufacturing plant, glanced up quickly.
“What's the joke, boys?” he asked. “I
haven't had a laugh since I pounded my thumb-
nail with a sledge-hammer.”
Captain Jack Benson quickly detailed the
meetings with Radberg and d'Ouray.
“The Frenchman didn't look a bit like a
"shovelee?,' either," muttered Eph.
" muttered Eph. “If any.
thing, that looked more in the German's
line."
“Well, you'll have a chance to get rid of non-
sense, now, for a while," went on Mr. Farnum,
after having enjoyed a few laughs with the boys.
“I've some serious business in hand for you,
and the time has come.
That was like the shipbuilder. Whatever he
was planning, at any time, he kept strictly to


36
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
himself until the time came to put the plan into
operation.
“There's quite an important little job for you
up at Craven's Bay,” continued Mr. Farnum.
“You know, there are important fortifications
there, because the Navy people expect, in war-
time, to use Craven's Bay as a possibly import-
ant naval station and shelter for vessels that
have to put in. Now, for some time the Army
engineer officers have been perfecting a system
of submarine mines for the bay. The engineers
have a problem on hand as to whether an ene-
my's submarine boats could sneak into the bay
and blow up the submarine mines before the
Army woke
up
to the danger.
“There's a chance that that could be done,”
nodded Jack, musingly.
“Just so," nodded Mr. Farnum. “So I want
you to go up in one of the boats. To-morrow
the engineer officers at that station will test it
out with you whether a submarine can destroy
the mines, or the mines could be made to destroy
the submarine boats."
“Then the Army engineer officers will use
dummy submarine mines, I hope," broke in Eph.
“Oh, of course," nodded Mr. Farnum. “Now,
the trip to Craven's Bay is only an eight-hour
sail at a good gait, so you won't really need to
start until after dark to-night.”


FOR THE FLAG
39
the short signal mast forward. Nor was he
much ahead of time, for by this time the launch
had described part of a circle, and was coming
up alongside.
In the bow of the launch stood the Japanese,
smiling, and holding a megaphone in his hand.
“Submarine, a-ho-0-0-oy!” came the hail.
“Will you slow down? I have something to
say to you."
Up flew the signal flags, fluttering in the
breeze. Then Eph snatched up a megaphone,
holding the smaller end to his mouth.
“Launch ahoy!” he shouted back. “Just tell
your folks that you saw our signal!”
The Japanese read the fluttering flags, then
called back:
“N. D.? What does that mean?”
Hoarsely Eph Somers bellowed back:
“Nothing doing!”
CHAPTER III
THE MAN WHO MARKED CHARTS
IT
T was a little before midnight when the
“Spitfire” came to anchor in Craven's
Bay, after having been piloted to anchor-
age by a quartermaster's tug that put off from
Fort Craven on signal.


40
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
“Fine place, if your searchlight is keen
enough,” yawned Eph, gazing off into the dark-
ness.
Eph and Williamson had slept through the
evening, after supper, and were now to take the
night watch tricks, the machinist's deck watch
beginning at once and lasting until four in the
morning.
About an hour after daylight, Eph Somers
deserted the deck, except for occasional inter-
vals. After a while the odor of coffee and steak
was in the air. Then, snatching up a bugle,
Somers sounded the reveille tumultuously
through the small cabin of the submarine tor-
pedo boat.
Not long did the other members of the crew
take to turn out and dress. They came out into
the cabin to find Eph trotting between table and
galley, putting things on the table.
“This seems like old times," chuckled Wil-
liamson, as he seated himself with the boys.
“Yes; because you don't have to cook,"
grimaced Eph. “Wait until after break-
fast, when you have to clear away and wash
dishes!"
“Even so, I have the best of it,” laughed the
machinist, good-humoredly. “I have something
in my stomach to work on."
“I always do get the tough end of any job,


FOR THE FLAG
41
don't I?" grumbled Eph, resignedly, then bur-
ied his troubles under a plateful of steak and
fried potatoes.
“You hoisted the signal, ‘N. D.', yesterday
afternoon," laughed Captain Jack, laying down
his coffee cup. “If you don't watch out, Eph,
I'll hoist the ‘N. G.' flag over this table.”
“Breakfast no good?” demanded Eph, look-
ing much offended.
“No; ‘N. G.' will stand for ‘no grouch.
Somers joined heartily in the laugh that fol-
lowed.
Just as they were finishing a really good meal,
for which every breakfaster had a royal, salt-
water appetite, a steamer's whistle was heard,
not far off to port.”
“I'll bet that's the Army tug!" muttered
Captain Jack, rising hastily from the table.
“Tell you what, fellows, we've got to begin to
have something like Navy discipline aboard this
craft. In that case, we'd have had breakfast
over an hour ago."
Jack was off up the steps as though pursued.
Eph went after him as soon as that youth with
the sun-kissed hair had time to pull on his vi-
sored cap and button his blouse. No matter
what the need of haste, Somers never appeared
on deck looking less natty than a veteran naval
officer.


42
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
Forward, on the tug, stood a major of engi-
neers, a young lieutenant beside him.
“Good morning, Mr. Benson,” hailed Major
Woodruff. “We're going to try to come in
close enough to put a gang-plank over. Can
you take a bow line from us?".
“Yes, sir,” Captain Jack saluted the Army
officer, and Eph hurried to receive the line.
In less than two minutes Major Woodruff and
Lieutenant Kline were on the platform deck of
the “Spitfire."
“This is the first one of your craft we've
seen,” declared the major, as Eph cast off the
bow line, and the tug backed water. “Will you
show us over?'
This the submarine boys gladly did, as the
Army shares with the Navy in the defense of
the country.
“You see what you have to do, Kline," said
Major Woodruff, presently. Then the older
officer turned to Jack to say:
"Mr. Benson, since Mr. Farnum has been
kind enough to place you and the boat at our
orders, Kline is going to remain on board, to-
day, during the tests. He will give Mr. Somers
whatever orders are necessary in order to make
the tests most successful."
“Why not give the orders to me, sir?” Jack
asked.


FOR THE FLAG
43
“Why, you see, Mr. Benson,” replied the
major, “I plan for you to be on shore, out on
the neck, to make certain observations regard-
ing the work of your craft. Those observations
you will turn in to me."
“Very good, sir. The neck, I take it, is the
narrow strip of land that separates this part of
the bay from the ocean?”
“Quite right, Mr. Benson."
It was to be observed that the major,
like naval officers, addressed Jack by the
title of “mister," not "captain." This
was because, in the military service, Army and
Navy titles are not recognized unless con-
ferred by government appointment or commis-
sion. Hence, though young Benson was “cap-
tain” to his crew and to civilians, officers of
the United Service could address him only as
"mister."
“The neck, Mr. Benson,” continued Major,
Woodruff, “is the land best suited for watching
our work from to-day. And now, I will state
what the object of to-day's tests is. This morn-
ing our tug will be engaged in planting certain
submarine mines. Mr. Somers will watch our
work of planting. Of course the mines will con-
tain no explosives. You young men have, I
understand, solved the problem of leaving a sub-
marine boat while it lies on the bottom? You


44
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
are also able to enter the submarine again from
the surface?''
“Quite right, Major," Jack nodded.
“Then, if Mr. Somers watches the planting
of the dummy mines, he will have the same ad-
vantage as would the commander of an enemy's
submarine in knowing where our mines are
planted. We shall plant four of them, this
morning, and Mr. Somers, after seeing each
mine planted, will mark down its position on a
chart of the bay. He will then take the boat
outside, enter under water, and, without touch-
ing any of our mines, while handling the boat,
will see if he can stop close by and cut the con-
necting wires.”
“If your mines contain no explosive, Major,”
Eph inquired, “how are you going to be able
to tell whether I collide gently with one of your
submarine mines?"
“We shall know at once,” smiled Major
Woodruff. “If you should collide with one, you
will cause a bell to be rung in the camera ob-
scura room over at the fort. The bell that
rings will show us which one of the mines you
touched against.”
The “camera obscura, as used at a modern
fort, is in itself a most interesting contrivance.
While no elaborate description of it can be at-
tempted here, it will be enough to explain to


FOR THE FLAG
45
the reader that, in the camera room, which is
darkened, is a large white table covered with
white oil-cloth, or other white substance. On
this white surface is drawn a plan of the har-
bor to be defended. The position of each mine
sunk under the water's surface is indicated on
this map against the white background. Each
mine is numbered. Overhead is a revolving
shutter, somewhat on the plan of a camera's
lens shutter. This shutter, which turns a reflect-
ing lens on the harbor, can be turned in any di-
rection. Any vessel in the harbor, can thus be
“caught," and its reflection, in miniature,
thrown
upon
the white
map
surface.
Suppose an enemy's battleship to be enter-
ing the harbor. The camera obscura shutter,
in being turned about, suddenly throws upon the
white screen-map the miniature picture of the
hostile battleship. Henceforth the officer in
command sees to it that the shutter is so oper-
ated as to keep the image of the battleship al-
ways upon the white screen map. Thus the
course of the battleship is followed-absolutely.
At any second the exact position of that battle-
ship in the harbor is known.
Let us suppose that the officer in command at
the white, map-covered table finds that the bat-
tleship is gradually approaching the position
indicated in the harbor as mine number nine-


46
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
teen; as the officer watches the moving image
of the battleship, he sees it going closer and
closer to the exact spot numbered nineteen or
the white map.
‘Be ready, Sergeant,” calls the officer, warn.
ingly, to a non-commissioned officer who stands
before a board on the wall on which are several
electric push-buttons, each numbered.
“Yes, sir,” replies the sergeant.
At this moment the officer sees the image of
the battleship passing fairly over the dot on the
white map that is numbered nineteen.
"Fire nineteen, Sergeant," calls the Army
officer in charge.
The non-commissioned officer quickly presses
electric button numbered nineteen. As he does
so the electric current is sent flashing, perhaps
along four or five miles of insulated wire on the
bottom of the harbor. At the other end of that
wire is submarine mine number nineteen. In
a breathless instant the current traverses the
whole length of the wire. The spark has
reached the gun-cotton! There is a dull, boom-
ing sound; a great column of water shoots up
from the surface. In the midst of the commo-
tion the enemy's battleship is rent, and all on
board, perhaps killed. The cool, dry-eyed
Army officer bending over the white screen-map
sees all this scene of horror depicted under the


48
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
“You will keep sufficiently below the surface,
too, Mr. Somers,” continued Major Woodruff.
"We do not want you so close to the surface of
the water that a ripple would show on the cam-
era obscura table. You cannot, of course, rise
and use your periscope to see where you are.
Even the periscope would betray you.”
The “periscope" is a device also of the nature
of a camera obscura. In the case of the peri-
scope a narrow metallic tube is thrust above the
water and the shutter turned about, reflecting
all the scene about on a white-covered table in
the boat's cabin.
“I think I can beat you, Major," smiled Eph.
“I certainly hope you can,” replied Major
Woodruff. “That is what we want to see to-
day. We shall watch closely, too, and see
whether any plan can be devised for beating a
submarine torpedo boat at its own game.
Lieutenant Kline was to remain on board the
“Spitfire,” both in order to watch the work and
to give Eph any instructions that might be nec-
essary in order to make the tests more conclu-
sive.
“If you will come along with me, then, Mr.
Benson,” suggested Major Woodruff, “I will
put you ashore on the neck. On the way over I
will give you your instructions."
As the tug came alongside again Jack fol-


50
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
Then, in the course of a very few minutes, the
inevitable happened. Jack Benson drifted off
into sleep.
He awoke with a fearful start, for he had no
idea how long he had slept. Yanking out his
watch and noting the time, the submarine boy
concluded that he had not been asleep more than
twenty or thirty minutes.
“But I might just as easily have slept for
hours,” Benson reproached himself. "Then
what a hero I'd have felt. Asleep on post!”
At that moment Jack Benson heard a far-
away whistle, across the bay. Showing just the
top of his head above a ridge of sand, Captain
Jack saw the Army tug just pulling out from
the dock across the bay.
But Jack saw something else, too, in that brief
instant.
A slim, soldierly-looking man of perhaps
thirty, tall and of naturally good carriage, was
skulking along in front of the submarine boy,
yet hidden from the bay by a sand ridge.
Under
the stranger carried a
draughtsman's board and a book. A strap over
one shoulder held a field-glass case.
"Where in blazes have I seen that chap be-
fore?” wondered Captain Jack Benson, staring
hard. "For I have seen him somewhere. I'd
declare that under oath.'
one
arm


FOR THE FLAG
51
Figure, carriage and face all strangely
haunted the submarine boy, who crouched lower,
watching.
"By the great turret gun! He's skulking for
a reason!” muttered Benson. “Is he spying on
the mine-planting? I wonder? Yes! That
must be his work! Long-legs, I'll keep my eyes
on you!”
The stranger hastened along for perhaps a
quarter of a mile further. Then he threw him-
self down on the sand, choosing a position in
which he could lie flat, his head fairly well
hidden behind a low ridge of sand.
Unslinging the field-glass, the stranger
brought it to his eyes, closely watching the prog-
ress of the tug.
“Ha-ha!” muttered watchful Jack, who
had followed, keeping behind another sand
ridge. “So, sir!"
The minutes passed, though Jack Benson was
so absorbed in watching this long stranger that
the boy had but the vaguest notions of the flight
of time.
The tug had halted, now. A great crane at
the bow swung around, and a submarine mine
hung poised in the air. Then, with a rattle of
chains not audible at the distance, the mine was
slowly lowered until it touched on bottom.
While this was going on, the long-legged


52
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
stranger, wholly absorbed in his own work, made
some observations and some hurried calcula-
tions. Then he pulled the drawing-board to-
ward him, jotting down a point.
Jack Benson, standing stealthily, got a good
look, for the first time, at the top of that draw-
ing board.
"A chart of the bay, of course,
" muttered
Benson, savagely, between his teeth. "The fel-
low is marking down the exact position of that
mine!”
Still, the submarine boy did nothing to betray
his own presence. He watched and wondered.
The thought struck him that this long-legged
one might be an officer of the Army, on observa-
tion duty like the submarine boy himself.
“But that isn't right; I'm sure it isn't,” de-
cided young Benson, quickly. “If the fellow
were here on honest business, he wouldn't have
sneaked out here to get in position. Besides,
I have a vague remembrance of this fellow, and
I don't connect him with anything honest!”
The Army tug, out on the bay, was now en-
gaged in planting a second mine. Again the
slim stranger was all attention. When the
crane began to lower the mine, a second mark
was made on the chart on the drawing board.
Now, once more, the fellow lay at full length,
watching intently off over the bay. At his


54
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
“Yes, but which government?”' Jack shot back
at his pursuer.
“Are you going to stop?”
Jack's answer was to increase his burst of
speed slightly.
“Then I'm going to fire!" came the warning.
Glancing over his shoulder the submarine boy
saw the long-legged one still running after him.
At the same time the pursuer was raising his
revolver, sighting.
Jack felt a little shiver. He had never been
suspected of being a coward, yet he was willing
to admit that he didn't want to feel a chunk of
lead plowing its way through him.
“Last word to halt!” yelled the pursuer, in
an ugly tone.
“Fire, then!” dared Jack Benson.
Crack ! Whizz-zz! Chug!
was discharged promptly. Jack, still in flight,
heard the bullet whistle by him. Then it struck
the sand, fifty feet ahead, throwing up a spurt
of the fine particles.
“That was for a caution. The next shot will
be to hit!” panted the pursuer.
"I wonder if you can do it?” Jack taunted
backward over his shoulder.
There was method in the submarine boy's tac-
tics. He hoped, by making the stranger angry,
to spoil his aim.
The weapon


FOR THE FLAG
55
Crack! The bullet sped by, fanning the fugi-
tive's face. The close aim, however, had the
reverse of the effect expected by the marksman.
It roused all the submarine boy's anger. He
might be hit, but he would stop, now, only if a
bullet laid him low.
Two more shots sped after the fugitive.
Their aim was too close for comfort, though
not true enough to score a hit. Each of the
shots sounded a bit further back, too.
“He's getting winded,” gritted the running
submarine boy. “With his long legs that chap
ought to get, over ground faster than I. The
difference is that that fellow is out of condition,
and my hard work keeps me about up to the
mark of condition all the time. He"
Crack! Jack happened to turn, just as the
fellow fired, and the boy was able to see that the
bullet struck the ground behind him.
“Out of range!" clicked Benson. “What's
the good of carrying a pocket revolver for serv-
ice work? Now, if he had a dozen shots more
left he would be wasting his cartridges to fire at
me.”
In fact, it was plain enough that the pursuer
had given up the chase for the time being. Not
only was he out of range of his quarry, but the
long-legged one lacked the wind to keep on on
foot.


56
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
'Say, what a fool I'd have been, to give up
this plunder!” cried Jack, mockingly. “That
chap couldn't catch me; he couldn't hit me. So
I've gotten away with the stuff he was so anxi-
ous to have—and which the Army, I'll bet,
would a thousand times rather he didn't have!"
“Now, how am I going to get back to the
Army people?” wondered young Benson, slow-
ing down to a walk, though keeping a vigilant
lookout to the rear. “I don't want to walk
something like a million miles to find a place
from which I can get across the bay."
It was desolate country, over here. Jack and
the long-legged one, well to his rear, now, might
be the only human beings within some miles.
The outlook was not an encouraging one.
“Say! Wow! Whoop!
Whoop! Blazes !” uttered
Captain Jack, suddenly. “Now, I remember
Long-legs! Millard was the name he gave when
he came to us, at Dunhaven, last Fall. He was
the chap who wanted to work on the submarine
construction. Said he'd do any kind of work,
but Grant Andrews put him in a separate shed,
sorting and counting steel rivets, and never let
him get near a submarine boat. That's the
same fellow-Millard. Or, at least, that was
the name he gave them. But, when Millard
found he wasn't going to do anything but take
care of rivets, he threw up the job four days


FOR THE FLAG
57
after. He had pretended to be mighty hard up,
too, and wanted work at any sort of wages.”
Jack's face began to glow as he remembered
more and more of the brief career of Millard at
Dunhaven.
“And Dave Pollard, when he was over in
Washington later, said he ran across Millard
living at the swell Arlington Hotel! Millard
had a different name in Washington, and re-
fused to recognize Mr. Pollard—said there was
some mistake. By hookey!
There isn't any
mistake. Millard was trying to steal submarine
secrets at Dunhaven, and now he's trying to
map out harbor defenses in Craven Bay!”
Again Captain Jack glanced backward over
his shoulder, but Millard was no longer in sight.
“He knew me, probably, in a flash,” mut-
tered the submarine boy. “I'm sorry I didn't
recognize him sooner."
Having gotten his wind back, Jack broke into
a run again. Just because Millard had dropped
out of sight was no reason for taking chances
of a sudden swoop from the stranger.
For some five minutes Jack Benson jogged
along. Then he came in sight of a little, semi-
cove. Here lay a small motor launch, whose
skipper, somewhat of the fisherman type, was
busily engaged with the engine.
“Say,” hailed young Benson, running down


FOR THE FLAG
59
was racing along, pistol in hand, and was pre-
pared to believe his present passenger. That
little launch stole out of the cover under its re-
verse gear until the master of the craft thought
himself far enough from shore for him to be out
of range of Millard's weapon.
“Who is that feller ?” asked the fisherman,
when satisfied that he was at a safe distance and
increasing it every instant.
“From the way he's dancing up and down, it
looks as if he were crazy,' laughed Jack,
coolly.
“What's his particular specialty in crazi-
ness?” asked the master of the launch, looking
shrewdly at the submarine boy.
“Now, see here," protested Benson, good-
humoredly, “as I understand it, you're paid to
take me over to the Army tug—not to ask ques-
tions. Am I right?”
“You're right,” nodded the fisherman, then
surveyed the boy's uniform curiously.
“Your uniform looks like you was in the
Navy?” suggested the man at the stern of the
boat.
“Does it?” queried Jack.
“Are you in the Navy?” persisted the boat-
man.
9
"Just now, I'm serving with the Army,"
Captain Jack replied, evasively.


60
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
"Are you
." started in the human inter-
rogation point, anew.
“See here,” broke in the submarine boy, “I
thought we agreed you had just one job to do
for me, and that questions formed no part of
it.”.
“That's right,” agreed the fisherman. “But
say, there's just one question I wish you'd an-
swer me. Are you—"
“No!” interrupted Benson, decisively. "I
am not. I never was.”
“You didn't let me finish,” complained the
man.
“Wait until I'm out of the boat,' pro-
posed the submarine boy. “Then ask all
the questions you like. Maybe you're paid to
ask questions, but I'm paid to hold my mouth
shut.”
It went a good deal against the submarine
boy's grain to be so brusque with an inquisitive
stranger, but there seemed to be no other de-
fense.
“Oh, well, if you're ashamed of your busi-
ness " retorted the fisherman, falling into a
sullen silence.
This turn of affairs just suited Benson. He
compressed his lips and sat back, looking out
across the bay at the tug, which was at work
some three miles away.
1


FOR THE FLAG
61
“Can you put on a little more speed?” in-
quired Jack.
“No,” answered the fisherman, sulkily.
“Doin' all the gait she'll kick now.”
So Jack possessed his soul in patience until
the wheezy little launch had covered the whole
distance.
While still some two hundred yards off Jack
caught sight of Major Woodruff coming out of
the after cabin of the tug.
“Ahoy, Major!” yelled the submarine boy,
holding his hands to his lips. “Perhaps you'd
better stop work until I've reported.”
Then the launch ran in alongside, and Jack
stepped up to the deck of the tug, holding tightly
to the loot he had taken from Millard.
The master of the launch manifested a dispo-
sition to hang about in the near vicinity, until
curtly ordered away by Major Woodruff.
“I suppose you thought, Major, that I took
a good deal upon myself in advising you to sus-
pend work,” Jack hinted. “Yet I've something
to show you, and much to tell you. And I'm
wagering an anchor to a fish-hook that you'll be
glad you stationed me over on that neck of
sand.''
Major Woodruff led the way back into the
cabin. There be examined the chart, with a
start of astonislıment.


FOR THE FLAG
63
sworn into the service and had a record of being
tried and tested !”
In an instant after speaking the submarine
boy realized that this must have had a boastful
sound. So he added, quickly:
“Please don't suspect me, Major, of being a
braggart. But Hal, Eph and I have always
taken our work with seriousness. We have al-
ways acted just as though the Flag depended
upon us for its protection. We have the desire,
every minute of our lives, to be great Americans
—that is, great in our devotion to the Flag, even
if we cannot be great in deeds."
“By Jove, I believe you!” cried Major Wood-
ruff, reaching forward and clasping Jack's hand
tightly in his own.
The major went on heartily:
“No, no, Benson, I don't consider you boast-
ful. You're talking the way I heard some
youngsters talk when I was a boy. It's refresh-
ing and encouraging to hear you talk that way.
Do you know, boy, when we older fellows some-
times get to thinking of the country's past glor-
ies, we wonder whether the boys of to-day are
going to make such men as have carried the
United States of America forward in the past?
The thought makes us solemn and anxious. I
suppose every man who is grown and on to-
ward middle life has always, in every gener-


64
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
ation, wondered whether boys were as serious
and dependable, as staunch and loyal as the
boys of the day before yesterday. Look here,
lad!'
Major Woodruff rose, stepping to the door
aft and throwing it open. The stern of the tug
was visible.
From the pole that slanted out
over the stern, hung the Stars and Stripes.
"You don't need to glance at that fine old bit
of bunting more than a second, lad,” continued
the major, "before you
feel' all that it can ever
make you feel. In your case, I believe the sight
of the Flag is always an inspiration to you. I
pray it is so with every boy who grows up in this
country. But is it?"
Standing there before the Flag, Jack quietly
doffed his cap.
"Thank you, Benson,” acknowledged the
major, also doffing his own cap. Then, closing
the door, Major Woodruff stepped back to the
table on which lay chart and book.
“This chart, Benson, shows what the rascal
Millard has been doing out on the neck. This
book proves that he has been at work at some
other points. The book doesn't tell much of the
story, though. Of that I am certain. Millard,
if he has been at work long, has compiled other
notes in other written volumes. If so, then he
has also made other charts of our coast defenses.


FOR THE FLAG
65
For what other government has he thus marked
a series of charts with our secrets! And has
Millard succeeded in getting other charts, and
other books of notes, off to the foreign govern-
ment he is serving—or has he them hidden
somewhere in this country, awaiting his chance
to take the results of his spying out of the
United States?"
"I wish I knew !" muttered Jack.
“I'm coming to the point," continued Major
Woodruff, briskly. “Now, of course, when we
discover evidence that spies of other govern-
ments are at work along our lines of national
defenses, the first thing we try to do is to catch
these foreign agents and all the material they
have succeeded in getting together.”
Major Woodruff, who was becoming consider-
ably excited, paused to light a cigar, ere he con-
tinued, more slowly:
“Now, you and your two friends, Benson,
know this fellow Millard. You will spot him
instantly, wherever you go.
I shall communi-
cate with Washington, at once, by means of a
telegram in cipher. The War Department will
order me to use all speed in catching Millard,
and in finding out where he keeps his other
stolen records. Men and money will be used in
running down this fellow. Yet you and your
two chums should be in the front ranks of pur-
5-The Submarine Boys for the Flag.


68
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
>>
“We ought to run that rascal down, sir,” an-
swered Jack Benson, rising. “Unless-
“Unless what, Benson?"
“Why, sir, unless he's more clever than a ras-
cal usually succeeds in being. I haven't lived
so very long, Major Woodruff, but, from what
little I've seen of the world, it has struck me
that the cleverest scoundrels are always just a
little less smart, in the end, than the average of
honest men."
“I hope you'll prove it, in this case," replied
the major. “And now, to signal your boat.
We'll run both craft in at the ordnance dock at
Fort Craven."
A couple of miles away Eph Somers was
slowly running the submarine back and forth
over the water in seeming aimlessness. In re-
sponse to sharp blasts from the whistle of the
Army tug, the “Spitfire” was seen to turn and
head for the tug.
“Mr. Somers, you will follow in our wake,”
shouted Major Woodruff, when the two craft
were within hailing distance of each other.
“We will show you where to make fast at the
ordnance dock."
“Very good, sir," Eph responded, with a
salute.
A little later in the forenoon both boats docked
at the water front of Fort Craven.
$


FOR THE FLAG
69
“You'll come up to my quarters, now, and
meet Lieutenant Ridder," announced the Major,
when he had gathered the submarine boys to-
gether, and when Jack had given necessary ex-
planations to Williamson.
“You may not see us again, for a few days,”
Jack informed the machinist, in winding up.
“That won't surprise me so very much,
either,” laughed the machinist. “Things are al-
ways happening, where you are, and mysteries
have ceased to puzzle me.'
“Have you young men ever been on a military
post before?” inquired Major Woodruff, as he
led them up from the dock.
“Never sir,” replied Jack. “We have seen
considerable of Navy life, but this is the first
time we've ever been at a fort.'
“You don't see much about this place, do
you," laughed the engineer officer, “that makes
you think of a fort?”
“Not much," Benson admitted.
“Yet we have a fighting plant here that could
prevent a big fleet, indeed, from getting far up
the bay at the important cities beyond. That
is,” Woodruff continued, thoughtfully, in a low
voice, “if the enemy, in advance of his coming
here, doesn't know all about our defenses
through the work of spies."
Just at the point near the dock, Fort Craven


70
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
looked not unlike the yard of a big factory plant.
Wagons going and coming constantly heightened
this effect. Beyond, past the plain, on one side,
Major Woodruff pointed out the barracks of the
Coast Artillery, of the Engineers soldiers, and of
the Infantry. There were also laborers' quar-
ters, several office buildings, a hospital, a chapel,
and two streets of cottages that served as quar-
ters for the officers stationed at Fort Craven.
It was into one of these officers' streets that
Major Woodruff soon led his three young com-
panions. Admitting the boys to his home, the
major took them to the library on the ground
floor.
“Now, I'll telephone for Lieutenant Ridder to
come over in citizen's dress,” announced the
major. “At the same time, I must advise
Colonel Totten, who is commander of the post.
He may come over here, or he may order us all
over to headquarters.
Colonel Totten elected to come over to the
major's quarters. He arrived just after Lieu-
tenant Ridder, who proved to be a rather boyish-
looking young man, not long out of West
Point.
The plans were quickly laid by which Lieu-
tenant Ridder was to take an automobile up
to Radford, going to one of the hotels and reg-
istering.


FOR THE FLAG
71
Jack and his two chums were to make the
journey in another auto. They would go to still
other hotels, perhaps to three different ones. At
any moment when instructions were needed, any
one of the three could call up Lieutenant Ridder
on the telephone.
In addition, Major Woodruff gave each of the
three submarine boys a written and signed au-
thorization for them to call upon the police to
seize Millard, if found, and hold the fellow for
the United States military authorities.
“Now, you young men may start for Rad-
ford,” continued the major. “Colonel Totten
and I will busy ourselves with the despatches
that must be sent to Washington about this af-
fair. But I trust, lads, you will not fail to real-
ize the importance of prompt success.”
“It's a special duty to the Flag, sir," Cap-
tain Jack answered, simply.
The automobiles were waiting outside. Lieu-
tenant Ridder was given a three minutes' start.
Then the submarine boys followed after, in a
second car.
As Radford was but four miles distant from
the post the trip was not to be a long one.
“This is the sort of job that has me by the
ears,
" glowed Eph Somers, enthusiastically.
“I won't be selfish enough to say I hope to be
the fellow to catch Millard. But, if he does


72
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
stray my way, I hope I won't be idiot enough to
let him slip through my fingers.
“I don't care if Lieutenant Ridder is the one
who nabs him,” remarked Hal, coolly. "All
that I'm particular about is to see this foreign
agent nabbed before he succeeds in getting any
information out of the country.”
The car that bore the boys was soon driving
through the streets of Radford. Jack held in
his hand a list of the better grade and mid-
dle-class hotels that Colonel Totten had given
him.
“Which hotel are we going to first?” asked
Hal.
“I don't know," uttered Jack, suddenly,
sharply. “I know what I'm going to do, how-
ever."
Leaning slightly forward the young submarine
captain prodded the chauffeur lightly, twice, in
the back—a signal that had been agreed upon at
need.
In
response,
the chauffeur ran the car slowly
in at the curb.
Captain Jack, opening the tonneau door, was
quickly out on the sidewalk, without any need
having risen for wholly stopping the car, which
then shot forward again.
“Now, what on earth was that for?” de-
manded Eph Somers, as the car sped on.


FOR THE FLAG
73
“Don't look back," replied Hal.
“Why not?”
“Well, a certain party would see you look-
ing at him.'
"Who?"
“Why, Jack had the good luck to see Millard
going along on the sidewalk. We've just passed
the fellow !"
"Are we going to nab him?" demanded Som-
ers, breathlessly.
“You'll have to leave that decision to good
old Jack," chuckled Hal Hastings. “He's out
there, dogging Millard from the rear. It's Jack
Benson's affair just at this moment."
It was mighty hard for Eph to refrain from
looking back. But he restrained his curiosity.
CHAPTER VI
FLANK MOVEMENT AND REAR ATTACK
W
HEN Jack Benson first touched the side-
walk, and the automobile glided on,
leaving him in the wake of Millard, it
was the young submarine captain's intention to
follow his instructions to the letter.
Millard, having no especial reason of his own
for feeling in danger, was walking along at a
moderate gait, occasionally glancing into shop


74
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
99
windows or gazing at the people whom he
passed.
He did not look behind, so it was easy for
Jack, less than half a block to the rear, and keep-
ing close to the buildings, to follow without be-
ing detected.
“Hullo, muttered the submarine boy.
“There's a policeman on the crossing at the next
corner. In another moment our long-legged one
will be safely in custody."
Feeling in his inner coat pocket for the written
authorization, Benson's fingers touched the en-
velope.
"He's easily caught," murmured the boy.
There is sometimes a big slip between a wish
and its fulfillment. Just as Captain Jack was
on the point of darting out into the street to
hail the policeman a street car whizzed by.
With a flying leap the policeman landed on the
front platform and was whirled along the thor-
oughfare.
"Lesson number one about being too sure,”
grumbled disappointed young Benson. “How-
ever, we'll soon come upon another policeman."
Two blocks more were
were covered, however,
without sighting a bluecoat. Jack even began
to wonder how it would do to leap upon Millard,
calling upon passing citizens to aid him until a
policeman arrived.
>>


FOR THE FLAG
75
“But that would be a two-edged sword, that
might cut too keenly on the wrong side,” re-
flected the submarine boy. “Millard would be
sure to claim that I was assaulting him. It
would look like that, too, and I'd probably get a
thumping from the crowd, while Millard slipped
away. Then he would be warned that he was
wanted, and he'd make himself mighty scarce
after that."
Still no policeman came into sight.
“Gracious!” muttered Jack Benson, sud-
denly. He had just glanced into a store's show
window, where a mirror was set at an angle.
The submarine boy, looking into that mirror,
became aware that he could see people at a con-
siderable distance behind him down the street.
"I wonder if Millard has been taking sights,
too, and has had a peep at me, that way?” mut-
tered the boy.
At the next corner the long-legged one, after
a brief look down the side street, turned into it.
“Now, that we're getting away from the main
street there'll be far less chance of finding a
police officer,” sighed Jack, at last wholly dis-
contented with luck.
Millard led without, apparently, ever think-
ing to glance back. He turned a second corner,
into another small street, and kept on.
"This is getting more exciting," muttered the


76
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
young trailer. “Yet all signs point to the fact
that I've got to make the grab all by myself. I
wonder if I can down that chap and get the up-
per hand of him? I don't mind a thumping, but
I'd be sadly ashamed of myself to let the fel-
low get away from me."
Millard was walking briskly, now. Next, he
turned sharply to the left.
“Ah!” Then Jack Benson shot swiftly for-
ward on tip-toe, trying to make no noise as he
99
ran.
For the long-legged one had, to all seeming,
at the distance, wheeled and gone through the
wall of a brick building.
Just an instant later, however, this impossible
feat was explained. The submarine boy found
himself at the street-end of a narrow alley be-
tween two brick buildings.
"He has gone into the rear house, at the end
of the alleyway," decided Benson, peering down
this narrow thoroughfare. “He has left the
door partly open, too. I'll have to have a
look-in."
As he stole down the alley-way Jack Benson
was too sensible, and by this time, too much ex-
perienced in the ways of a rougher world, not to
suspect that there might be some trap in that
door partly open.
“He may have seen me, and may have left


FOR THE FLAG
77
that door open on purpose,
" Benson reflected.
“He may be lying in wait for me, inside. Or
else he may have left that door open, just to
make me suspect a trap and keep out. In the
meantime, he may be slipping through a door
on the other side of the house, and sneaking
away from me."
For a few seconds Jack Benson paused
thoughtfully on the step just outside the door
that was partly ajar.
"I may walk into a trap, by going inside, or
I may be letting that wretch walk out of one by
staying out here,” wavered Benson, torn be-
tween two impulses.
Then, just as suddenly, this thought flashed
through his mind:
“What you're doing is for the Flag! Never
mind what happens to you, Jack Benson. Just
rush in and say 'here goes'!”,
There was not another second's hesitation.
Jack Benson softly pushed the door far enough
open to admit him.
At the back of the hallway
he saw stairs leading below.
“Basement stairs, with a rear basement door
letting out on another alleyway!” suspected the
submarine boy.
Though he had determined to be as reckless as
seemed necessary in order to get quickly on the
trail of the vanished one, Jack moved on tip-


78
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
toe. He had all but reached the head of the
stairs when a ground-floor door behind him
opened noiselessly. The long-legged one, who
had an equally good reach of arm, thrust out a
noose that fell over the boy's head.
“Ug-g-g-gh!” rattled in Jack Benson's
throat, as Millard, in grim silence, jerked the
rope noose tight about the boy's neck. A sharp
pull, a twist, and Millard had the boy face down
in that hallway, and was kneeling on the victim's
back.
“You ought to have known enough to keep
away from me,” growled the wretch, as he tight-
ened on the noose.
That was about the last that the young sub-
marine captain heard or knew, just then, for
things were rapidly growing black before his
eyes. Jack tried to fight, but the choking was
too severe. He couldn't get even a breath of
air into his lungs to give him fighting
strength.
Finding that the boy's struggles had ceased,
the long-legged one eased off on the noose. He
bent Jack's arms behind him so that the wrists
crossed. Then, pulling another cord from one
of his pockets, the wretch tied the youngster's
hands with a few deft movements. Oh, but this
rascal was an expert artist with ropes and
cords.


FOR THE FLAG
79
Jack felt himself being prodded just over the
pit of the stomach, and his senses slowly wan-
dered back to him under the disturbing hand-
ling. He was lying on his back, when his eyes
opened once more. His throat felt sore, but he
could breathe again.
Then the submarine boy discovered that his
hands and feet were securely lashed. Beyond
that, he discovered Millard squatting on the
floor, close by, in Japanese fashion, for the for-
eign agent was sitting back on his own crossed
heels.
“Feel wholly comfortable?” mockingly in-
quired the foreign agent, when he saw the boy's
eyes open.
“Not especially, thank you,” mumbled the
boy, dryly.
Jack had discovered, by this time, that he was
lying on a wooden floor, very likely in the base-
ment of the house. The room contained no
furniture, beyond an old table. Daylight was
excluded by wooden shutters fastened into place
over the windows. On the table a single candle
burned in a candlestick.
“Why didn't you bring along with you, Ben-
son,” sneered the long fellow, “the property
of mine that you stole from me?''
It was plain, then, that the foreign agent re-
membered the submarine boy well.


80
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
“Why are you playing this fool trick on me?"
counter-questioned Captain Jack. "You knew
I didn't have the—the things with me. You
could see that."
“I put you to this inconvenience," replied
the foreign agent, “because I wanted to know a
few things. In the first place, why are you
bothering with me, or with my plans ?”
Jack remained silent.
“Won't talk, eh? Oh, well, then, perhaps we
can find out a few things without any very
especial help from you."
Millard bent over, thrusting his hand into one
after another of young Benson's pockets. In so
doing he brought to light the envelope in the
lad's inner coat pocket. Just an instant later,
the wretch snatched the folded sheet from the
envelope, spread the paper open and held it up
to the light.
“Ho-ho!” sneered the rascal, “an order au-
thorizing you to cause my arrest? This dis-
poses of your case, then, young Mr. Benson!”


FOR THE FLAG
81
CHAPTER VII
A LESSON IN SECURITY AND INFORMATION
D
ESPITE the savageness of his utterance
Millard continued to gaze thought-
fully, for a few moments, at the sub-
marine boy's face.
As the rascal gazed, however, a grayness came
into his cheeks that, somehow, smote Captain
Jack with secret terror.
“I–I don't see how it can be helped,” gasped
Millard, at last, in an altered tone that came as
another dash of ice water over the submarine
boy. “Benson, I hate to do it. I'd hate to use
a dog in such a way, but—but there's no help
for it!”
A long-drawn-out sigh, a still queerer look
in his face, then the scoundrel broke forth again:
“It's your own fault, after all, boy, and.
there's no help for it."
“By and by I suppose you'll enlighten me as
to what 'it' means?” hinted Jack, trying hard
to bolster up a courage that, none the less, would
ooze and drop.
Millard's only answer was to bend over the
boy and roll him somewhat in examining the
prisoner's bonds. It was through this that Jack
6- The Submarine Boys for the Flag.


82
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
discovered what he had not known before
namely, that his wrists, besides being bound be-
hind his back, were also lashed fast to something
in the flooring.
There was a queer little choke in Millard's
breathing as he went out of the room and re-
turned with a bushel basket of shavings. These
he dumped on the floor, close to a wall. Then,
again, he went out. When he returned he was
carrying a can of coal-oil. The contents he
poured over the shavings, then against the wall.
Next, over the shavings, he heaped three or four
newspapers.
Jack Benson didn't ask questions. Millard
went at it all in such a business-like way that
the submarine boy felt the words sticking in
his throat; they couldn't be uttered.
Finally, when all else was ready, Millard took
the lighted candle out of the candlestick.
“This candle will burn for thirty minutes
yet,” guessed the wretch, noting its unburned
length with the air of an expert. “That will be
time enough. Poor lad!"
He set the lighted candle down on top of the
papers, over the pile of oil-soaked shavings. It
fitted nicely into a place that the wretch had
made ready for it. Then, without a word, the
long-legged one tip-toed softly over and bent be-
side the submarine boy.


FOR THE FLAG
83
“Open your mouth,'' he ordered.
Of course Captain Jack didn't propose to do
anything of the sort. With one hand, however,
Millard gripped the boy's nostrils, pressing
tightly. Just a little later Jack had to open his
mouth for air.
“Thank you,” mocked the other, and neatly
shoved a handkerchief between the boy's jaws.
This he tied in place, and rising, looked down
upon a gagged foe. Then, with a last look over
at the candle, the long-legged one darted from
the room.
Left alone, Jack Benson watched that candle
on top of the prepared heap. His eyes gleamed
with the fascination of terror. When that can-
dle burned down to the right point it would set
fire to the paper, and then!
Try as he would to bolster his grit, Captain
Jack Benson found himself in a fearful plight.
At first, he could only stare, with terror-dilated
eyes, at that candle-ever burning just a slight
fraction shorter!
While the horror-laden moments were drag-
ging by Jack heard a step on the stairs behind
his head. Then he realized that some one was
looking into the room. Then a voice spoke. It
was Millard's, though scarcely recognizable on
account of its huskiness.
“It's a fearful thing to do, Benson, but—but


84
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
I can't help it! If you only knew what it means
to me to win!"
Then followed a moment of utter silence.
Jack could hear his own heart beating, as he
fancied he could hear that of his persecutor.
Then there was another sound, as though some
light-weight metallic object had fallen to the
floor.
“Good-bye, old chap! I–I respect you for
your calm grit—that's all I can say."
There was the sound of a quick turn, then
soft footsteps. Jack knew that Millard had fled.
“He respects me for my 'calm grit?!” laughed
Jack, grimly-almost hysterically. “Doesn't
the scoundrel know that I'm all but frozen into
the torpor of dread?”
Then, just as suddenly, an anguished "oh!”
broke from the boy's lips, to be followed, in-
stantly, by a tremor of hope.
For, except at the time when interrupted by
Millard's return, the young submarine captain
had been fighting savagely at the bonds behind
his back. Now, he fancied, he heard or felt a
single strand giving way.
“I've got to get out of this quickly, if at all!”
quavered the boy, staring with wavering eyes
at the ever-shortening candle-bit. “There won't
be anything left to do—except bear it-if I'm
ten minutes longer at this all but hopeless task.
.



“Good-bye, Old Chap!"
85





FOR THE FLAG
89
In one upper room Benson found a small mir-
ror hung from a nail in the wall. In this same
room was a small trunk, lid up and empty.
Back to the basement Jack returned. At the
rear he found a small yard. Beyond that a
fence, with a gate in it. The gate was unlocked.
On a nail at the edge of the gateway Jack found
a fluttering fragment of gray veiling.
“A woman has left here,” thought Jack,
holding the fragment of veiling in his hand. “Or
else Millard got away disguised as a woman.
That trunk may have held woman's apparel for
the very purposes of such an escape.'
This rear gateway opened upon a long, nar-
row alley that led to a street beyond.
Having satisfied himself on this point, Ben-
son stepped back into the yard.
“Hold on! Here's something that will help,”
muttered the boy, staring down curiously at the
ground.
It was the imprint of a foot in a wet spot on
the ground. As Jack bent over it he saw the
marks of diagonal criss-crossing such as is found
in the soles of rubbers.
“The print is a fresh one. Either Millard
wore rubbers away, or some woman has been
here who wore them," Jack concluded.
Dropping his cudgel, since he would have no
use for it, Benson made his way down the alley,


90
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
9
to the street beyond. At the corner stood a
small grocery store, whose proprietor was in
the doorway.
“I wonder,” began Jack, “whether you saw
a woman came down out of this alley-way lately?
A tall woman?”
“About twenty minutes ago I saw a tall
woman, in a gray dress and wearing a gray
veil,” replied the storekeeper.
“Was she carrying anything?”
“Some sort of a grip—a suit case, I guess.
“Did you ever see the woman before?” per-
sisted Jack.
The storekeeper shook his head.
“Which way did the woman go?”?
“I don't remember, particularly, but I think
down that way,” replied the grocer, pointing.
Jack hurried along. It was a quiet part of
the town. None of the people to whom he spoke
within the next three or four minutes remem-
bered having seen the tall, veiled woman in
gray, though some “thought” they "might
have."
“I reckon,” wisely decided Captain Jack
Benson, “that I know just about enough to take
my information to Lieutenant Ridder."
>>


FOR THE FLAG
91
CHAPTER VIII
EPH FEELS LIKE THIRTY TACKS
AS
S agreed, the young West Pointer was in
a room at the Grindley House. As this
room was equipped with a telephone,
the young Army man was in touch both with
Fort Craven and with the submarine boys,
should the latter find anything to report over the
talking wire.
Here in the room Captain Jack found Ridder,
for the boy had felt it best to go direct to the
hotel.
“Surely, you haven't found out anything as
quickly as this?” asked the young lieutenant of
engineers, looking up in surprise.
“I've learned a few things,” replied Jack,
quietly.
“Sit down, and let us hear what you've
learned."
Jack dropped to the chair, but Lieutenant Rid-
der, when he heard the news, was so excited
that no chair could hold him.
“Jove! and just our luck!” gasped the Army
officer. “No policeman in sight! Now, if you
three boys had kept together-
“But, you see, when I dropped from the au-


92
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
tomobile, I wasn't sure it was Millard. I had
had only a glance, and his face was away from
me.”
“If you see that wretch again, jump on him
wherever he is.'
“I could have done it, this last time," Ben-
son nodded. “Yet I had an idea that, if I fol-
lowed him, he might lead me to the place where
he kept his maps and his other stolen informa-,
tion. And he did, I guess," added Jack, with
a somewhat disappointed smile.
"Wait a moment. I'll try to get Major
Woodruff over the wire," muttered Lieutenant
Ridder. “He may have some orders for us.”
Major Woodruff was at his home. He heard
the message and sent his orders crisply.
"The major thinks we had better keep this
matter from the police, yet, and do our best to
find Millard, either in his own garments, or be-
hind that gray dress and veil,” announced the
Army lieutenant.
"Then I wish we had the other boys here,'
muttered Jack, wistfully.
At that moment the 'phone bell rang. It was
Hal, reporting, and inquiring whether any word
had come from his chum.
“Mr. Benson is here, and I think you'll do
well to get here as quickly as you can," replied
Ridder.


FOR THE FLAG
93
“Is there any word" began Hal Has-
tings.
Ting-ling-ling! The 'phone bell rang, cutting
off Hal. The latter had received his orders, and
his next concern was to obey them. That was
lesson number one in brisk Army discipline.
Hal was on hand in five minutes. While Jack
was recounting to him the adventure with Mil-
lard, Eph Somers came in. He stood in the
background, listening, his jaw gradually drop-
ping until his mouth was wide open.
"You heard how Benson ran into the fel-
low?” asked Lieutenant Ridder, turning to
Somers.
“Yes," muttered Eph, disgustedly, “and I
guess I have been enjoying the fool's part of
the adventure!"
“How so?” demanded the Army officer
quickly.
“I met that same woman, I'll bet a cookie,”
growled Eph, “and—and—I-"
“Well, sir?" demanded Lieutenant Ridder,
briskly.
“I carried that bag for her-carried it nearly
two blocks!”
“What's that?" cried Jack Benson, leaping
up. “How-"
“No; I don't believe, on second thought, that
I'm the prize fool."


94
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
>
“Come, come," directed Lieutenant Ridder.
“Talk up quickly, young man.”
“If you want to hear what I have to say,'
retorted Eph, with a slight flash of his eyes,
"you'll have to wait until I get around to
it.”
It was serving direct notice on Ridder that
Army briskness wouldn't do in Eph's case.
“Well, what have you to tell ?" demanded the
young lieutenant, impatiently.
“I was on my way back here," Eph continued.
“Guess, maybe, I was eight blocks or so away
from here. I had been to the hotels that I
agreed to visit, and-
“Why did you go to the hotel, anyway, after
you knew Benson had sighted Millard?” broke
in the Army officer.
“Because it wasn't a sure thing that Jack had
seen Millard. He thought so, and so did we.
But, after we left him, the auto ran along slowly,
and we heard no row behind, so we guessed that
maybe Jack had been wrong in his guess. At
least, Hal and I figured it out that way. So I
went to the hotels on my list, just the same, and
I guess you did, didn't you, Hal?”
“Yes,” nodded Hastings.
“This isn't bringing us, very fast, to your
latest adventure," complained young Ridder.
“It's your fault, then,” continued Eph, pla-


96
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
headed the same way. I thought it was the
least I could do for a woman who had just had
a great shock. If that was Millard-and I'd bet
a torpedo boat it was—how he must have
chuckled over the idea of having one of the sub-
marine boys carry his bag for him.”
“How far did you go with this ‘lady'?”
asked the Lieutenant Ridder, with a faint touch
of sarcasm.
“Two blocks,” replied Eph.
“And you left her-"
“At a cheap hotel where I can find her again.
And I guess it's up to us to start right away.”
“Yes,” nodded Jack. “And we can't start
too soon."
It may have occurred to Lieutenant Ridder
that he wasn't exactly being consulted. How-
ever, he saw that these submarine boys were
used to acting swiftly, and he began to believe
that they would work better if left to their own
devices. So he merely nodded, adding:
“I'll wait here. I'll hope to have a report
before long."
Eph led his two comrades back unerringly to
the cheap hotel. They went straight to the ho-
tel desk, Jack asking, bluntly, whether any very
tall woman, in gray, and carrying a dress suit
case, had registered there.
“No," replied the clerk, very positively.


FOR THE FLAG
97
He re-
Then they interviewed the porter.
membered the “woman” having stepped inside
the hotel. She readjusted her veil in the lobby
near the doorway.
“Then she went outside, spoke to a driver, got
into his cab, and went away,” continued the
porter.
“She spoke to the driver, did she?” Eph
asked.
“Of course, sir," retorted the porter. “You
didn't think she made signs, did you?”
From their talk the submarine boys were sat-
isfied that it was the same “woman" whom Eph
had so gallantly assisted. They were equally
ok
sure that this veiled woman” in gray was none
other than Millard.
“Do you remember which driver it was whose
cab she engaged?” Jack asked, turning to hand
the porter a dollar.
“Jack Medway's cab, sir," was the quick an-
“And here it comes, now."
The submarine boys hurried out, transferring
their attention to Medway.
“I'm just back from taking the lady," replied
the driver, after Jack Benson had slipped him,
also, a dollar bill. “But say—was it a lady, or
a joke?”
“Why?” queried Jack Benson.
“Well,” replied the driver, “the voice was
7- The Submarine Boys for the Flag..
swer.


93
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
pitched high, but there was something peculiar
about it. I wondered, at the time, if it was a
man rigged and togged out like a woman."
“Where did she tell you to take her?” Jack
Benson wanted to know.
“To Furnam Square!”
“Did you take her to any address there?”
“No; just to the square. Then I waited to
fill my pipe, and I saw the woman, if woman it
was, walk across the square and get into another
cab.”
“If you haven't anything else to do," hinted
Jack, “suppose you take us to Furnam Square
now.”
Within a very few minutes the three friends
were gazing out of a cab window upon the
square. It looked like a very quiet residence
section.
“There was another cab here, you say, that
'took your last ‘fare' from this square?” asked
Jack.
“Yes; there is a fellow who has a regular
stand here. It's his cab,” replied Medway.
"Let us know, then, when that particular
driver gets back here," begged Jack. “We'll
sit here in your rig and wait."
Medway grinned. Waiting, as well as driv-
ing, meant money for him.
Fully an hour and a half dragged by. Jack


FOR THE FLAG
99
was beginning to wonder if it would not be bet-
ter to give up this present clue to the chase,
when Medway, leaning down from his box, called
quietly:
“That's the other fellow and his rig, coming
back into the square now.”
“As soon as he stops," directed Benson,
"drive us over alongside. Don't say anything
to him. Let me do the talking."
In a moment more Jack was out on the side-
walk, talking earnestly with the driver just re-
turned.
“You've had a long trip of it,” guessed Jack,
noting the warm condition of the horses.
“You bet," nodded the other driver.
“Just got back from taking the tall woman
in gray somewhere."
“Yep. But do you call it "somewhere'? I'd
call it most anywhere."
“How far was it?" asked Jack.
“What do you want to know for?” demanded
the Jehu, looking with sudden sharpness at his
questioner.
“Because we'd like to go to the same place
that you took the woman,” returned Benson,
promptly.
"Huh! I took her for three dollars. I
wouldn't go over that trip again for less ’n five."
“We'll pay the five, and be glad to,” pro-
>>


100
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
posed Jack Benson, displaying some money.
“More than that, if you play right fair with us,
we'll put another five on top of the first, just as
a little present to your horses."
“You'd better use the young gentlemen right,
Jim," advised Medway. “They're good fel-
lows, and they pay well.”
“Why do you want to go where I took that
last party?” questioned Jim, with a shrewd
look.
“One of the things that the second five-dollar
note pays you for is asking no questions," re-
torted Jack. “Do you want to take up our
offer?"
“Yes; if you'll give me fifteen minutes to rest
and water the horses,” agreed Jim.
"That'll be all right,” nodded Jack. “And
now, Medway, have we paid you enough?”
“Plenty," cheerfully responded the first
driver, taking the hint and leaving.
“Where did you take that woman?' ques-
tioned Jack, while the new driver got out a
bucket for watering his horses.
"Away down by the sea-coast. Know where
the Cobtown fishing shanties are?”
"No."
“Well, Cobtown is made up of three or four
little villages of rickety old houses. Some are
occupied by fishermen, and some ain't. There's


FOR THE FLAG
101
three or four coves down that way fishing craft
anchor in. It's a lonely, wild bit of country,
and some rough characters 'mong them fisher-
men.'
“Did you take your fare to any particular
house or shanty down at Cobtown?”
“Nope; she got out on the road, in sight o'
Cobtown, an'walked along, toting her old grip."
“What kind of a'grip' was it?”
“An old brownish suit case.”
“That's the one,” nodded Eph.
As the driver busied himself over his team,
the submarine boys drew aside to talk over their
new information.
“I reckon we're going to be too late,” grum-
bled Captain Jack.
“What makes you think so?” Hal inquired.
“Fishing villages, smacks and fishermen,”
answered Jack, gloomily. “Fishermen are a
daring, reckless lot of fellows. They'd take a
craft anywhere, in any kind of weather, for
money enough. Fellows, I'm afraid Millard has
hired a smack and started up or down the
coast."
“Then we've got a craft that can chase any
smack on the Atlantic coast,” declared Eph,
stoutly.
“Of course; if we knew which craft to over-
haul, and had the authority to do it.”


102
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
99
“Authority? Then what's the matter with
the people at the Fort?” demanded Eph.
“Their authority runs only on the land. Be-
sides, by the time we got through the red tape,
and got started, any smart smack, in a good
wind, would be forty miles the other side of the
horizon."
“Are you going to take this long drive, then?”
asked Hal Hastings, rather dubiously.
“Yes,” declared Jack Benson, promptly.
“Hal, old fellow, any trail is best where it's
freshest."
“I reckon you can git in, now, gents, if ye
want,” called the driver.
Seated in the cab the submarine boys set out
to meet whatever might be before them in Cob-
town. Had they possessed the gift of proph-
есу—
However, none of us possess that!
CHAPTER IX
JACK PLAYS WITH A VOLCANO
A
FTER something more than an hour's
drive the Jehu pulled his horses up, got
down from the box and opened one of
the doors.
“Here you are, young gents.
This is the


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103
#
spot where I put the last fare down. An' now
you
know as much about her whereabouts as I
do."
The district into which the submarine boys
had come was well outside of the city, and in a
different direction from Craven's Bay and the
Fort.
It was bleak and wild here. Even the shanties
of the three little villages, with their fish-sheds,
their racks with nets
spread, the rickety
wharves-all looked dismal. It seemed as
though here must be one of the spots where
only a scanty living is earned and only by the
hardest kind of work.
“Well, we're much obliged to you, driver, and
here's the money promised to you."
“Obliged to you, gents. Will you want to be
going back with me?”
“No,” Captain Jack answered. “I reckon
we're going to be moored here for a while.”
“Now, whereaway? What's the course?” de-
manded Eph Somers.
Benson glanced at his watch, then up at the
sun.
"It'll be dark in about an hour and half,"
he muttered. “Why not wait until dark? We
can't have been seen from any of the villages
yet. Looking out over the water you don't see
a craft of any sort headed away from here.


104
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
our
From this point, looking down, we can see if
any of the boats in port get ready to put out.
So Millard, if he hasn't already escaped, can't
get away by sea without our knowing it. If he
tries to get away by land, we're right where we
can see him coming."
“Then you think we'd better wait here, keep-
ing out of sight, until dark?” asked Hal.
“Most decidedly. Don't you?”
“Yes," nodded Hal.
“But it'll be a mighty tedious wait," growled
Eph, the impatient one.
"Well, youngster, we're not here to consult
own comfort,” retorted Captain Jack.
“There's something higher to consult—the best
interests of our country.”
“Oh, if you put it that way!" grumbled Eph,
much mollified.
The submarine boys had stepped into a little
hollow, just off the road, and barely below a rise
in the ground. There were trees and bushes
about to aid them in concealing themselves. If
they saw anyone coming their way they could
easily find better hiding.
No one came, however. Dark found the boys
desperately hungry.
“Of course we didn't think to bring anything
to eat,” uttered Eph, disgustedly. “What are
we going to do about it?"


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105
“We've got to each of us take a village, pres-
ently, enter it and search,” replied Captain
Jack. “With only one of us to each village, it
will be tough luck if each one can't find some
one who has enough food to sell a little of it.'
“How soon are we going to start?" asked
Eph, hopefully.
“Well, supper time will be the best time to go
through the villages," decided the young subma-
rine skipper. “If Millard has taken refuge
with anyone who lives in one of these villages,
he'll be more likely to show himself at supper
time than at any other."
“It won't take long to look into each of the
houses," muttered Hal. “There aren't many in
any one of the villages."
“If we don't espy our man at table," Captain
Jack went on, “we'll have to try other means
of finding him out. You two will know what to
do when you're on the ground. If Millard is
anywhere in the village that you go to look
through, don't fail to find him—that's all."
Jack chose, for himself, the northernmost vil-
lage. Hal took the next one, and Eph the
southernmost.
“Now, remember, fellows,'' breathed Benson,
sharply, as they parted, "the one great thing is
not to fail !"
The night was dark and the sky overcast as


106
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
the submarine boys parted to go their several
ways.
"I think I can understand how Eph feels
about his stomach,” grimaced Jack, as he strode
along. “I don't believe I'd balk, just now, at
the plainest food ever cooked. Why, I haven't
eaten since this morning!”
The evening being rather warm, most of the
houses, as Jack neared the village, proved to
have open windows. Lights shone, and the fish-
ermen and their families could be seen at table.
No one appeared in the street, at first. Jack
strolled down the principal street, looking into
each house without much difficulty. Yet the one
face that he sought was not visible.
Down at the further end of the street Ben-
son came upon a tumble-down-looking grocery
store.
“What kind of sandwiches can you put me
up?” queried the submarine boy, casually.
“Stranger, eh?” asked the man behind the
counter, staring curiously.
“Yes; haven't you had any other strangers
here lately?”
“Not as I knows on,” replied the man, a
shaggy, unkempt-looking fellow of forty.
“None here to-day, eh?” asked Jack, taking
out a half-dollar and toying with it on the coun-
ter.


FOR THE FLAG
107
“Don't remember anybody very special,” re-
plied the storekeeper.
“You haven't answered me about the kinds
of sandwiches you can put up,” Jack reminded
him.
“Not very fancy in that line, young feller.
Cheese, or sardines; that's all."
“Give me three of each, then,” begged Jack.
He seized the first sandwich that was prepared
and began to eat it.
“Hungry, eh?” asked the storekeeper.
“Yes,” Jack admitted;“for want of anything
better to do."
“Foller the sea, don't ye?”
“Depends,” muttered Jack, his mouth half
full of sandwich. “When I'm going before a
brisk fair wind, sometimes the sea follows
me.'
“ 'Spose so," grinned the storekeeper, pass-
ing over the second sandwich. After that, the
fellow got in slightly ahead of the submarine
boy's appetite, though Benson finished the whole
meal in a few minutes.
“Now, if you've got a bottle of soda water,
to wash that all down with," hinted Benson. It
was forthcoming, also a smoky-looking glass.
“So you haven't had any strangers here
lately,” hinted Captain Jack.
“Nope."


108
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
“Any craft been fitting out to sail to-night
or first thing in the morning?"
"Nope."
“Gracious, but this is a dead place," laughed
Jack. "Must be a lot of shacks for rent around
here?"
“There was one place,” stated the store-
keeper, “but a dude feller hired it last week.
Said some sort o' fishing club'd be down this
way to fish, once in a while. That kinder 'minds
me,” went on the storekeper. "I guess maybe
some o' that crowd are down, 'cause I saw a
light up there at the house, jest come dark."
“If there's a fishing club down here, that
ought to make business good for you,” sug-
gested Captain Jack.
“Dunno. They can start tradin' as soon as
they like. I'm ready."
“Which house has the fishing club hired?"
was Jack's next question.
“Why, I guess you can make it out from the
door," replied the storekeeper, coming out from
behind the counter and going to the front of his
establishment. “There, if yer eyes are good,
you can jest make out a building over there on
the point. See it? Well, there's a little boat
wharf in front that ye can't see until you get
closer."
Jack had found out just what he wanted to


FOR THE FLAG
109
know. He had the very information for which
he had been fishing, nor did he believe the store-
keeper suspected him of undue curiosity.
“Well, I 've got to be moving along, now I'in
fed," announced young Benson. “The yacht I
belong to is some distance from here. Good
night!”
Nor did Captain Jack linger in the village.
Had anyone stood still in that street and stared
after Benson, he would have seen the boy van-
ish in the darkness.
Captain Jack, however, had not disappeared
from the scene. He was merely shifting to the
part of it that interested him most. Cautiously
he stole out along the further side of a ridge of
land, toward the rickety old house on the
point.
“Not a sign of a light, now," breathed the
submarine boy. “If Millard was really there, I
hope he hasn't had time to get away for
good.”
All was silent and dark about the old house,
as Captain Jack stole closer. At nearer range
he made the circuit of the house, only to find
every window shuttered, and the place as dismal
as the grave.
“I'm afraid the game has escaped," muttered
Benson, with a sinking feeling at his heart.
“Yet he didn't escape, by sea or land, while we


110
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
were watching outside the village. And it was
just at dark that the storekeeper saw a light
here. I wonder if it would be easy to-"
Right there Jack Benson's train of thought
broke off. From the opposite side of the house
came a sound exactly like that of the opening and
closing of a door.
“Can that be our man coming out?” wondered
Skipper Jack.
He started cautiously around the house, but
soon drew back around the corner of the build-
ing. Dropping to the ground, and lying flat,
the submarine boy allowed only the top of his
head to show as he peeped.
Glory! Jack knew, well enough, that tall fig-
ure striding off into the gloom. It was Millard,
and under his left arm the fellow carried a large
package that might be a bulky portfolio well
wrapped.
“He has his drawings—his maps of American
fortifications and fortified harbors—the very
stuff that we want to get!” throbbed the boy.
“And now—we're going to get them!”
Keeping Millard's receding figure zealously
in sight, Jack, crouching low, started after the
long-legged one as soon as the distance be-
tween seemed sufficient to keep Millard from
guessing at pursuit.
“Oh, how I wish Hal and Eph were here!”


FOR THE FLAG
111
muttered Captain Jack, in keen disappointment.
“I need help on this !”
Within two minutes Millard had struck
into a well-beaten path that led northward over
succeeding ridges of land. In a way, it was
easier following here, for there were occasional
trees and clumps of bushes behind which the
young shadow could drop at need.
Two minutes in this path, and Jack Benson's
heart gave another quick leap. Some one else
was coming stealthily behind him. Jack dodged
around a clump of bushes and waited.
“Hal!” breathed Jack, almost wild with joy,
as the two chums clasped hands fervently for
one brief instant. Then:
“See here, Hal, I've got to dart forward
again, or Millard will be out of sight. But
I'll tell you what—while I trail Millard,
you concern yourself only with following
me.
“Good enough,” whispered Hastings, nod-
ding. “Now, you start again!"
For just an instant Millard had disappeared.
However, by moving forward quickly, Benson
was soon able to make out the quarry through
the darkness.
For some five minutes more the chase con-
tinued. Then, his long body rather sharply de-
fined against the sky, Millard began the ascent of


FOR THE FLAG
115
Yet, suddenly, there came a new note on the
night air.
“Jack, O Jack!” sounded in Hal's frantic
tones. “Quick!”
“Eh?” called Captain Benson. “What's the
row? Come here and see what I can show
you!"
“No! You come here-quick!”
“That's queer," pondered Jack Benson, lean-
ing on his shovel, trying to understand what it
could all mean.
Then he heard, even at the distance, the sound
of Hal Hastings panting, as though engaged in
hard physical effort.
Again rose Hastings's frantic voice, though
somewhat muffled in its sound.
“If you don't hustle, it will be too late!”
Jack dropped the shovel on the ground,
wheeled, and ran down the slope to where Hal's
voice sounded.
“I'm coming, old fellow!" quivered the sub-
marine skipper, starting to run,.
Boom! A terrific explosion shook the
ground. The air seemed full of flying frag-
ments of rock.


FOR THE FLAG
117
Yank! Millard was pulled over backward.
Down he went Benson piling a-top of him.
“Down!” cried Skipper Jack, exultantly.
He found, however, that Millard possessed
strength enough to put up a stiff fight.
“Come on, Hal—if you can!” called Jack
Benson, sharply.
“Can't-just yet,” came, in muffled tones,
from the usually prompt Hal Hastings.
“Let go, you young hound!” ordered Millard,
striking out savagely.
Jack hung desperately. Yet the trouble was
that the young submarine skipper had tackled
a man who was at least fifty per cent. stronger
and fully as agile.
While Hal still hung back, Millard gave a
heave, then rolled himself over on top of Jack
Benson.
“I'll give you just a short lesson!” snarled
the long-legged one.
He raised a fist, intent on bringing it down
like a sledge-hammer across Benson's face.
That blow, however, wasn't the one that
landed. Biff ! whack! Two sturdy, hard fists
registered on Millard's head from behind. Then
a boy shot himself forward, battering-ram
fashion, hurling Millard over to the ground.
The boy went with the fellow, landing on top of
him.


118
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
And that boy was Eph Somers!
“Come on, Jack, if you want some of this !”
offered Eph, generously.
Truth to tell, there was need of both the sub-
marine boys, for Millard now fought more
fiendishly than before.
Millard was a powerful fellow, when aroused,
but he had pitted against him two of the
doughtiest, gamest boys to be found along the
Atlantic coast. He was pretty well beaten up,
in fact, by the time that Hal came limply upon
the scene.
“Want any help?" demanded Hal, in a still
somewhat breathless voice.
“Nope!” answered Eph, sturdily. “Not un-
less you want exercise.'
As Somers spoke he landed another blow, this
against the "wind” at Millard's belt-line. In
the same instant Jack Benson managed to knot
his hands in the fellow's coat lapels, and to press
the backs of his hands against the wretch's
throat.
“I sur—ug-g-gh!-er-render,” gurgled the
long-legged one, weakly.
“You'd better, unless you want to discover
that we haven't yet started in with rough hand-
ling," retorted Eph, valiantly.
Young Benson eased his hold on Millard's
wind-pipe. Yet all three of the submarine boys


FOR THE FLAG
119
watched their prisoner, cat-like, for any new
outbreak.
“Now, roll over on your face, if you want us
to believe you're going to be good,” ordered
Jack.
Though he swore, under his breath, Millard
obeyed. Then something flashed in the night-
handcuffs that Jack had brought away from his
meeting with Lieutenant Ridder at the hotel.
Click! The steel band snapped into place
around Millard's right wrist.
"Hold on-not that!” protested the prisoner,
hoarsely.
“Yes; even that!” mocked Eph, picking up a
fragment of rock. “And keep quiet, unless you
want me to batter your head in!”
It was this rough, vigorous sea-talk, backed
by a belief that young Somers would prove
equal to his threat, no doubt, that made Millard
allow his left wrist to be brought over to meet
the right.
“You've got those things on too tight,” com-
plained Millard, sullenly.
“No-o-o, I don't think so," retorted Captain
Jack, after looking. “We need 'em as tight as
we can have 'em, without causing pain, when
we have a fellow like you to deal with. Now,
what was that explosion?”
“Wait a second !” broke in Eph, in a low


120
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
voice. “Millard had a pal here. It was the
pal I shadowed here. And that pal is running,
now, with a fair-sized bundle that he came here
to get."
“He was running when you jumped into this
business ?" demanded Benson.
"Yes."
“Then the pal is too far away, by this time,
for us to catch him by running after him," de-
cided Skipper Jack. “Now, about that explo-
sion?”
“This wretch had a mine planted up on the
hill,” explained Hal Hastings. “I was watch-
ing, at the rear, you know, and it happened that
I stopped right close to the hollow where you
found me.
Then I saw Mill-rd drop into that
hollow, and I took a look-in. I was just in time
to see him bending over to reach for the handle
of a magneto battery. Now, I happened to
know that magneto batteries are made for the
purpose of touching off explosives at a safe dis-
tance. So I jumped in on him. Just at that
second I heard you, Jack, old fellow, striking
with the shovel up above there. I had to guess
fast, so the whole thing struck me like a flash.
Millard had been digging, up there, just to lead
on anyone who might be shadowing him. While
you were bent over the spot where he had been
digging, he meant to touch off a mine that must


FOR THE FLAG
121
have been planted and laid days ago. Millard,
you rascal, if you suspected that you were be-
ing watched, it was your idea to lead the shadow
out here, get him over that mine and touch it
off!''
The prisoner's eyes flashed.
“That was your game, wasn't it?" demanded
Benson, angrily.
“Find out, if you can," growled the prisoner.
“You've guessed it, Hal,” nodded Jack, then
shuddered. “Had I followed this villain out
here alone, and then gone to digging, unwarned,
where I had seen him digging, my remains
would have come down in four counties. But,
you mean scoundrel, you never happened to
think that you'd be trailed by three different
fellows, all at different points along your
trail."
“This is where my account comes in,” inter-
posed Eph Somers. “You remember the vil-
lage you sent me to, Jack? Well, all I could
find out was that, a few days ago, a chap named
Gray had come along and hired a little schooner
that's about twice as fast as any other sailing
craft in these parts. He hired two fishermen
to sail it for him--when he got ready. His
crew have been wondering, since, when he'd be
ready. Since he made the deal, Gray has just
been hanging around and doing nothing.


FOR THE FLAG
123
in
teen feet across, where the mine had been ex-
ploded.
“Say, it's hard, even yet, to understand why
I wasn't killed," muttered Jack Benson. “But
here we are, standing here, thinking about our-
selves, when that fellow, Gray, is getting away
with a package that we ought to have. Come
along, fellows! And you, Millard, if you try
to hold back on us, you'll learn some new things
the
way
of discomfort!"
Thus warned, and realizing that his determ-
ined young captors were in a savage frame of
mind, the long-legged one didn't try to lag. All
four appeared in the village in which Eph had
prowled for information. The appearance of
the handcuffed prisoner stirred up a lot of curi-
osity. Eph, however, showed his written au-
thorization for taking Millard in the name of
the United States government, so no one offered
the captive any aid or sympathy.
But the submarine boys met with disturbing
news. They heard that a little more than a half
an hour before, Gray, still carrying a big pack-
age, had embarked on his chartered schooner,
and had put to sea.
“Had we better charter something and go in
chase?” wondered Hal.
“What's the use?” demanded one of the fish-
ermen. "The Juanita' is four miles or more


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125
man they met inside the city limits, and had ex-
plained to him.
“This man is wanted as a United States pris-
oner, is he, sir?" inquired the policeman.
“Yes; if his name is Millard,” replied Lieu-
tenant Ridder.
“Oh, this is Millard, all right,” confirmed
Jack Benson.
“Then shall I leave the fellow with you, sir?”
inquired the policeman.
“Yes, of course; and thank you."
“You'll give me a receipt for the fellow, as
a United States prisoner?” hinted the police-
man.
“As a United States suspect," corrected Lieu-
tenant Ridder, going to a table on which were
writing materials. The policeman was handed
the desired document, then withdrew. Then
Ridder went to a telephone, calling up Major
Woodruff.
“The major will be here in about ten min-
utes,” announced Ridder, hanging up the re-
ceiver. “In the meantime we will do no talking
in the presence of this suspect.”
It was just a little less than ten minutes later
when Major Woodruff, accompanied by a cor-
poral and two private soldiers, entered the room.
Millard was at
once taken
away, under
guard.


FOR THE FLAG
127
>>
hands. As soon as the messenger had gone out-
side, the major read this telegram:
“Keep prisoner Millard close confinement
pending further orders. Have communicated
Secretary of Navy. Latter official says sea
chase shall be made to catch fellow Gray on
‘Juanita.' If submarine boys will accept sea
service, briefly, for Navy Department, have them
come to-night's train and report Secretary
Navy at nine tomorrow morning. Their ex-
penses borne by government.
(Signed) “SECRETARY OF WAR."
“What does that mean, sir,” cried Jack Ben-
son, rising, “about if we will accept sea service,
and reporting in the morning to the Secretary
of the Navy at Washington?”
“Why, I belong to the Army,” replied Major
Woodruff, hauling out his watch, "and this is
a Navy matter. However, since one of you
youngsters knows Gray by sight, and you're all
of
you familiar with this business, I imagine
the Secretary of the Navy wants to put you out
to sea on one of the country's gunboats, to aid in
the chase. For any real information, however,
you'll have to apply in person to the Secretary
of the Navy himself. Are you going to Wash-
ington?"
“Are we going—" Jack started to repeat,


128
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
with mild irony, when a knock at the door in-
terrupted him. Major Woodruff opened the
door, to receive another telegram.
“Washington wakes up quickly," he laughed.
“Here you are, Mr. Benson-a despatch from
our other fighting department at the Nation's
capital.”
Clearing his throat, Major Woodruff read:
“Send description of schooner ‘Juanita,' and
of suspect, Gray, as mentioned in your telegram
Secretary War. Are submarine boys leaving
to-night to report in morning?
“SECRETARY OF Navy."
>>
99
“Here you are, and you see you've got to
make up your minds quickly," said the major.
“The night train south for Washington leaves
in a little more than an hour from now.'
“Why, there's only one answer possible, sir,'
cried Captain Jack Benson, his eyes shining.
“Of course we'll take to-night's train and report
to the Secretary of the Navy in the morning.
When it's for the Flag I don't even have to con-
sult my comrades, or look their way. I know
their answer as well as I know my own.
“Good enough, young man," applauded
Major Woodruff, while Lieutenant Ridder gave
Jack a hearty slap across the shoulders. “But,
to go to the Navy Department, you'll want citi-
-


FOR THE FLAG
129
zen's clothes—not your present uniforms, which
are not official. I can send my auto to your
boat, and you can be back here in forty minutes,
if you dress quickly."
'Ready for the word, 'forward,' sir,” re-
sponded Captain Jack, saluting. Hal and Eph
also raised their hands to their foreheads.
It was a swift trip, with some hurried dress-
ing on board the “Spitfire,” but Major Wood-
ruff landed them at the railway station ten min-
utes ahead of train time.
“Good fortune, gentlemen,” wished Major
Woodruff, pressing the hand of each when the
train was ready. “Don't be scared when you
find yourselves face to face with so big a man
as the Secretary.”
It is not to be wondered at if the minds of all
were in a bit of a whirl as they made for their
berths in a sleeping-car.
“After all,” muttered Jack, to himself, as he
undressed in his berth, “it's strange how some
fellows get the cream of things. Here we get
the trip to Washington, while Lieutenant Rid-
der will have only the fun of going out to the
cliff above Cobtown to-morrow to have a look
at what is left of Millard's mine."
Their train brought the submarine boys into
Washington just before seven in the morning.
There was time for a good breakfast. Then,
9-The Submarine Boys for the Flag.


FOR THE FLAG
131
asking, by wireless, through the night and early
morning, to have all craft on the lookout for a
schooner answering to the description of the
'Juanita'."
Secretary Sanders paused, but none of the
three boys asked any questions.
“You will wonder, of course, what success
we've had so far, and I may say that our suc-
cess has been ample,” resumed the Secretary of
the Navy, with an amused smile. “In other
words, we've been able to pick up news of three
schooners, all of which answer to the general
description of the ‘Juanita'—but it happens that
that isn't the name of any one of the three."
Jack Benson nodded, but did not speak.
“Of course," pursued the Secretary, "it may
be that the skipper of the 'Juanita' has tried an
old trick, through the night. He may have set
a man to painting another name at the schoon-
er's stern.'
Again Skipper Jack nodded.
“The schooner that we think most likely to
be the ‘Juanita' is about fifty miles out at sea,
now, according to a report received twenty min-
utes ago. Evidently she is headed for one of the
British West Indies. Now, if the wind contin-
ues the same, and the suspected vessel keeps to
her present course, she will, at five this after-
noon, be off the Norfolk Navy Yard, and some


132
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
sixty-two miles out at sea. Now, unless we are
otherwise advised, we want a gunboat, the ‘Sud-
bury,' now at Norfolk, to overhaul the suspected
schooner and ascertain whether she is really
the ‘Juanita,' and whether the man, Gray, and
his bundle of documents are still on board. The
suspected vessel is to be searched, and Gray and
the documents, if found, are to be seized, and the
schooner then released. Do you understand ?”
“Perfectly, sir.” Jack answered quietly.
“One of you young men will know Gray at a
glance. The other two are familiar with the
whole case. Otherwise, it would not have been
necessary to have called you into this matter.
Yet, to overhaul a vessel, or to make an arrest
or a seizure, you require authority. Such au-
thority can be vested only in naval officers.
Hence, for the present, it will be necessary to
give all three of you appointments as officers in
the United States Navy."
At this announcement Jack Benson lost, for
the moment, some of his cool composure.
“Officers of the Navy, sir!” he gasped, but
his eyes glowed at the mere thought.
“You will be officers only temporarily,” re-
turned the Secretary. “You are not of age,
any of you, I take it."
“We are all just about the same age, sir-
seventeen, nearly eighteen," Jack replied.


FOR THE FLAG
133
“Just so.
Now, none of you could legally
hold officers' commissions, except by a special
act of Congress. However, with the approval
of the President, it is legal for me to give you
special, temporary appointments under which
you have the title, rank, pay and command of
officers. These appointments I am going to give
you, and, for a brief while, though you will not
have commissions, you will nevertheless be as
actually officers of the Navy as are any admirals
on the list.”
This astonishing statement almost took away
the breath of the submarine boys.
“You are familiar with navigation, Benson,
and are a capable enough sea-pilot along this
coast. I learned that much, early this morn-
ing, through Mr. Farnum's answer to my tele-
gram."
“Then Mr. Farnum knows what we are going
to do?” asked Jack, quickly.
"He doesn't,” replied Secretary Sanders,
with a shake of his head. "Mr. Farnum knows,
only, that you have a chance to be of some serv-
ice to the Navy. He seemed to be much pleased
by our inquiry.”
The Secretary had just touched an electric
button on his desk. Now a clerk entered the
room.
>>
“Telephone the secretary of the President,"


134
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
directed Mr. Sanders, "and ask him whether
the President has examined and approved the
special appointments that I sent over a while
ago."
99
The clerk was quickly back, to say:
“The special appointments, Mr. Secretary,
are duly approved, and are now on their way
over from the White House."
Two minutes later, a messenger entered, hand-
ing a sealed envelope to the Secretary of the
Navy.
Breaking the seal, Mr. Sanders drew forth
three heavy, folded sheets of parchment.
“Here you are, Mr. Benson," resumed the
Secretary, banding over one of the parchments.
“This document confers upon you, for the time
being, the rank, pay and command of a lieuten-
ant, junior grade, in the United States Navy.
You, Mr. Hastings, and you, Mr. Somers, will
rank as ensigns under your special appoint-
ments."
Jack's head swam a bit as he thanked Mr.
Sanders; then he started to glance over this mar-
velous document.
But the Secretary of the Navy now cut in,
briskly:
“That is all, gentlemen. You know your in-
structions, in general, Lieutenant Benson. You
will now go to my chief clerk, who will swear
-


FOR THE FLAG
135
you into the service.
He will also give you an
order on a local tailor for the uniforms of your
ranks. In one hour and twenty minutes your
train starts south. On arrival at Norfolk you
will report without an instant's delay at the
Navy Yard. Aboard the ‘Sudbury' you will re-
ceive all further instructions, wired from this
Department. Good morning, gentlemen.”
Then, indeed, things moved fast. At the desk
of the chief clerk of the Navy Department the
three budding naval officers stood with their
right hands raised while the official at the other
side of the desk administered to them the oath
binding them to loyalty to the government and to
obedience to all lawful orders of their superi-
ors.
“And now, gentlemen,” continued the chief
clerk, “I will send for Ensign McGrath, who is
on duty here, and present you to him. He will
go with you to the tailor's, and will see that you
are properly rushed to the train that you are
to take. Remember, you are not to pay for your
uniforms or equipment. The bill will be sent
here."
Ensign McGrath looked sleepy, but proved to
be a hustler. One of the Department's autos
was out in the grounds, and into this McGrath
bundled the three submarine boys. Five min-
uates later they were in the tailoring establish-


136
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
ment, where a good many ready-made uniforms
were kept for sale.
What a whirl it was. Yet, in twenty minutes,
each submarine boy found himself in the duty
uniform of a United States junior naval officer,
each uniform adorned with the insignia of the
wearer's rank. In the meantime, dress-suit
cases had been procured from a store near by.
“All right and proper,
» nodded Ensign
McGrath. “And—I'm not throwing bouquets,
gentlemen, but you really look as though you
had been born for the uniforms. Now, only one
thing is missing—the swords.'
“Are we to wear swords?” asked Jack, his
face flushing with pleasure.
“Under certain conditions, on duty, naval
officers wear swords. You will need them as
parts of your equipments.
The dealer brought these side-arms at once.
The naval sword is a handsome one, vastly more
natty than the infantry side-arm of a junior
officer.
What a thrill each submarine boy felt as he
was shown how to adjust his sword to the
belt!
“They're really nonsensical jewelry in these
civilized days,” declared Ensign McGrath,
dryly. “But the regulations call for swords at
some times. Now, gentlemen, you will need to


FOR THE FLAG
137
get your uniforms off as quickly as you can, and
the tailor's helpers will pack them in your suit
cases. You travel in citizen's clothes, and don
your uniforms as soon as you get aboard the
gunboat.”
Ten minutes later each proud submarine boy
picked up his suit case and sword, the latter, in
each instance, being inside of a chamois-skin
carrying case.
In single file they made their way to the
street.
“Now, for the last leg of the race in Wash-
ington," announced Ensign McGrath, as they
entered the automobile once more.
“I wonder if it will happen on the way, or at
the station?” laughed Jack, as the government
gas-wagon whirled them down Pennsylvania
Avenue.
“Will what happen?" inquired McGrath.
“Why," laughed Benson again, “I know
we've got to wake up out of this trance, but I
can't figure when it's going to happen.
“I suppose all of you do feel excited,” nodded
Ensign McGrath, understandingly.
“Not excited,” declared Jack. “I'm just
simply unprepared to believe that any part of
this has really happened.”
At the railway station they were met by a
messenger from the chief clerk's office, who


FOR THE FLAG
141
“I am Ensign Fullerton, executive officer of
this vessel.”
They shook hands and Jack presented his
comrades.
“I think I had better show you to your cabin,
sir,” suggested Ensign Fullerton.
“As you please,'' nodded Jack.
The way was actually led, however, by three
of the marines, who, at a word from the cor-
poral, had possessed themselves of the limited
baggage of the new arrivals.
In Jack's cabin was a broad double berth, two
deep wardrobe closets, a book-case, desk and
several chairs.
“I had no idea junior officers had such roomy
quarters," murmured Jack.
“They don't, usually, sir,” smiled Fullerton.
“But it's different, of course, in the case of the
commanding officer."
“But I'm not the commanding officer,”
gasped Jack.
“For the purposes of this cruise you are,”
smiled Fullerton. “But I forget. You haven't
received your orders. There they are on your
desk. They arrived less than an hour ago by
wire.'
Like one in a dream young Jack Benson
picked up a bulky telegraph envelope and broke
the seal. There, before his eyes, danced the


142
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
words of the latest order from the Secretary
of the Navy.
Lieutenant Jack Benson was directed to take
command of the United States gunboat, 'Sud-
bury,' until further orders. Ensigns Hastings
and Somers were directed to assume such duties
aboard as were assigned to them by Lieutenant
Benson.
“I didn't expect this,” stammered Jack. “I
-I-we thought our temporary rank in the
Navy was given us merely that we might have
legal standing in making one arrest that is
wanted."
“No one ever does know just what is wanted
of him, until the order comes,” laughed En-
sign Fullerton. “At least, that has been the
case since Mr. Sanders became Secretary of
the Navy. He keeps all officers on the jump.
But I guess that is what a good many of them
need, sir."
As the Ensign appeared to be at least twenty-
five years old that respectful “sir” struck
young Benson's ear queerly.
“Pardon me, gentlemen, but be seated, sug-
gested Lieutenant Jack, suddenly, as he realized
that his chums and this one sure-enough naval
officer were all standing.
“You have been aboard naval vessels before,
sir, haven't you?” asked Ensign Fullerton.


144
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
sergeant we have eighteen other enlisted men
among the marines. Here is the ship's com-
plete roster,” continued the Ensign, taking a
document out of a pigeon-hole over the young
commander's desk. “And now, sir, shall I pass
the order for piping the crew to quarters?”
“If you will be so good,” Jack nodded, rising.
At this moment Hal and Eph appeared at the
doorway.
“Pardon me, gentlemen, for suggesting that
you had better put your swords on,” suggested
Fullerton. “Inspection of crew at quarters is
about to come off.”
Hal and Eph vanished, but soon reappeared,
wearing their new swords and trying hard not
to look conscious of the fact. Jack was en-
gaged in adjusting his own side-arm to his belt.
“I neglected to state, sir,” continued Ensign
Fullerton, “that we have no medical officer at
present. A hospital steward down in sick bay is
our nearest approach, at present, to a medical
cfficer."
“Forewarned is forearmed,” laughed Jack.
“We'll try not to be ill."
It was time, now, to proceed to the quarter-
deck; for, forward, the shrill sound of the boat-
swain's whistle seemed to fill the air.
Though all the crew, including the marines,
had been summoned and formed at the mast,


FOR THE FLAG
145
an-
the inspection was but a matter of a moment.
Its purpose was more to give the crew a glimpse
of their new officers."
Just as the inspection was ending, a marine of
the guard approached, announcing in a low
tone:
“Telegram for the commanding officer, sir.”
Ensign Fullerton received it, returning the
marine's salute, and passed the envelope to Jack
Benson, who opened it.
“Our sailing orders, Mr. Fullerton,
nounced Jack, as soon as the former had dis-
missed the formation at the mast. “This tele-
gram gives, as you see, the latest reported po-
sition of the schooner believed to be the 'Jua-
nita,' and her course. You will get under way
at once, Mr. Fullerton. Then you and I will
work out the course.''
“This is the starboard watch, sir," continued
the executive officer. “Which officer is to com-
mand it?"
“Mr. Hastings. Mr. Somers will take the
port watch."
“Very good, sir. And I would suggest, sir,
that Mr. Drake is an excellent pilot between
here and the sea."
“Then direct Mr. Drake to take the bridge
with the watch officer."
“Very good, sir.'
10- The Submarine Boys for the Flag.


FOR THE FLAG
147
“I–I—" began Ensign Fullerton, slowly,
then paused.
"Well?” smiled Jack Benson.
“On second thought, I believe I had better
not say what I started to say,” replied the en-
sign.
“Oh, go ahead, Fullerton," urged Jack. “It
isn't easy to wound my sensibilities.”
"I was going to say, sir," replied the En-
sign, flushing a bit, “that I quite understand
how you feel about a short cruise. The sensa-
tion of holding a command in the United States
Navy is one that you would not care to give up
too soon."
“I was thinking of something of the sort,”
Benson admitted. “But-see here!
On one
point my orders don't quite enlighten me. If
the suspected schooner proves not to be the right
one, are we to come back to report the fact?”
**If you were so to order," replied Fuller-
ton. “Yet you do not need to. This vessel is
equipped with wireless, and you are in instant
communication, at every moment of the day
and night, with the Navy Department at Wash-
ington.”
“I'm glad of that, " admitted Lieutenant Ben-
son, frankly. “It will lessen the danger of my
making a fool of myself during my first and
last naval command."


148
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
“Not your last command, I hope,” remarked
the ensign.
“The only way I could get a permanent com-
mand," retorted Jack, “would be to get ap-
pointed to Annapolis, if I could, and then work
through the long, long years for command
rank."
“There are other ways," replied Ensign Ful-
lerton, quietly. “And especially, if a war
should break out. Young men trained as finely
as you and your comrades, and showing as
great talent, sir, would have no difficulty in
reaching important rank in a war of the future,
when so much must be risked on the submarine
craft of which you young men are masters."
“We have run a few submarine boats, I sup-
pose,
" nodded Benson. “But none of us has
ever had the Annapolis training."
“Not all of the best American sea-fighters
have come out of Annapolis, sir," replied Ful-
lerton, soberly. "If a boy gets through An-
napolis there's nothing wonderful in his mak-
ing a fairly good officer. But my cap, sir, is off
to boys who can come through the ordinary ma-
chine shop and qualify themselves to command
submarine boats or anything else afloat!”
Then, dropping back to his ordinary manner,
Fullerton saluted, next left the cabin to carry to
the watch officer the orders for the course.


FOR THE FLAG
151
less equipped ocean traveler up to nearly half
way across the great Atlantic.
At three o'clock the Navy Department at
Washington reported to a gunboat out of sight
of land that the last sighting of the supposed
“Juanita” placed her on the same course as
hitherto reported.
At four o'clock came word that the Navy De-
partment had had no new report as to the
schooner by wireless.
At five o'clock another wireless despatch was
flashed through the air. Lieutenant Jack Ben-
son, reading, discovered that the “Juanita” had
again been sighted on the same course, headed
for some port in the British West Indies.
At 5:20 Ensign Eph Somers, port watch
officer of the “Sudbury," sent a marine orderly
to report to Lieutenant Benson that a schoon-
er's topmasts were within sight.
Benson hurried to the bridge, but found En-
sign Fullerton there just ahead of him.
“We'll shape our course in straight pursuit
of the schooner, Mr. Fullerton," decided Lieu-
tenant Jack.
“Very good, sir."
As yet the schooner's topmasts were visible
only from the military top. After a few min-
utes had passed, however, the vessel's masts
were visible from the bridge.


FOR THE FLAG
153
Without leaving the bridge Ensign Fullerton
passed the word for the manning of the gun and
loading with a blank cartridge.
There was a new, deeper glow in Eph Som-
ers's eyes as he paced the bridge. He was to
have, at last, his wish to see the "Sudbury"
fire a shot.
In a few minutes more the "Sudbury” was
ranging up alongside the schooner, though a
full quarter of a mile away to windward.
“Mr. Fullerton, fire the blank shot at the
stranger,” ordered Lieutenant Jack Benson.
“Aye, aye, sir.”
The order was carried by a simple wave of
the executive officer's hand. The petty officer in
command behind the bow gun, looking for the
signal, saw it and gave a low-toned order.
Bang! Eph was watching for it. His eyes
danced as he heard the sharp explosion and saw
the cloud of white smoke, with the tongue of fire
spitting through the center of it. In most of us
there is left some of the spirit of the old Norse
pirate; Eph had a lot of it.
“The people on the schooner act as though
they were bewildered,” smiled Jack, watching
the schooner through his glass. “It doesn't
look as though they expected any such order
from us. I wonder if they mean to obey?”
“Worse for them, if they don't,” replied En-


154
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
sign Fullerton, grimly. “A solid shot across
the bows, and a shot through their rigging after
that. What schooner has any chance to defy a
ship of war?”
“There they go around,” cried Jack, barely
above his breath, “They'll heave to."
“Of course,' smiled Fullerton. "Your
orders, sir?"
“Lower the power launch. Send a corporal
and four marines, and six sailors, armed, beside
the boat-handlers. Mr. Somers will take com-
mand, as he's the only one of us who knows the
fellow Gray by sight.”
Ensign Fullerton accordingly transmitted the
orders, also ordering Midshipman Drake up to
the bridge to serve as watch officer in Eph's ab-
sence. Hal Hastings was asleep in his cabin at
the time.
In the meantime the schooner continued “hove
to,” several men lining her starboard rail.
“Somehow, Mr. Fullerton,” muttered Lieu-
tenant Jack, after Eph had departed in the power
launch with his boarding crew, “I'm not much
inclined to think that's our schooner."
“Somers seemed to think so."
“Mr. Somers said it looked like the "Juanita.'
He's too careful to commit himself to more than
that."
“We shall soon know, sir, anyway.


FOR THE FLAG
155
It is probable that Eph was disappointed that
the schooner had been stopped by anything less
than a round shot through her rigging. Yet, as
he stood up in the stern of the launch, as it
bounded over the waves, he felt a heap of satis-
faction in the thought that he commanded the
searching party, and that he did so by virtue of
being an officer in the United States Navy. And
this, too, was a form of duty in which Ensign
Somers wore his sword at his side.
“I hope they're preparing a surprise for us,
chuckled Eph, as he looked about him at his
armed crew.
“I hope the schooner's people
will try some mean trick for us, or attempt to
put up a fight. Whee!”
Yet none of these aggressive thoughts showed
in the young Ensign's face. Eph knew his
place, usually, and the amount of dignity that
went with any place.
“Make fast alongside!” Eph sang out, as
the launch rounded in alongside the schooner.
“What's wrong with the United States Navy,
Midshipman?” came the jovial question from a
bronzed, broad-shouldered, bearded man of
fifty who appeared at the quarter rail, offering
Eph a hand to aid him on board.
But Eph, disdaining the proffered hand,
seized the rail, vaulting neatly on board. Then
he straightened up.


156
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
“I am Ensign Somers, from the gunboat
"Sudbury.?"
'Ensign, eh?” muttered the schooner's mas-
ter, looking in some bewilderment at Eph's boy-
ish face. “I beg your pardon, Mr. Somers."
“What craft is this, sir?” Eph continued.
“Schooner "Varia,' from New York, bound
for Jamaica."
“We saw ‘Varia' painted on your stern, of
course," smiled Eph. “But was that name
painted there during the night?”
“Sir?” demanded the skipper, in some aston-
ishment. “Oh, I see, Ensign. Your com-
mander thinks we may be sailing under false
colors. Will you be kind enough to step down
into my cabin?”
Here an elderly man, in yachting dress,
stepped forward out of a group of sailors at
the waist of the craft.
"This schooner is chartered to convey-
he began, but Eph interposed, politely:
"Pardon me, sir, but I am talking with the
captain only."
Then, turning toward the launch, Ensign Som-
ers called:
Corporal, board with your marines, and wait
further orders."
Then Eph followed the captain below.
“The gentleman who spoke to you,” explained
99


158
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
Eph returned to deck, leaning against the
starboard rail of the quarter deck. Below, he
heard some sounds of remonstrance in femi-
nine voices. Then, as a step sounded on the
after companionway, and Eph straightened up,
he heard a woman's voice say:
“United States Navy? I would call this a
good deal more like piracy!"
“But, mamma
“Hush, child!”
Mrs. Barnard, when she stepped on deck,
looked as severe as her husband appeared mild.
Ensign Eph doffed his cap quickly to the lad-
ies.
“I know this does not please you," he said,
courteously, “but I will ask you to remember
that I am acting under orders, and have no
choice."
"It is outrageous to stop a pleasure craft in
this fashion!” declared Mrs. Barnard, haught-
ily.
“Do you know why we are making this
search, madam?" asked Eph, sweetly.
“Of course I don't,” snapped the good lady.
“Then I marvel,” replied Eph, with another
bow, “that you can have an opinion of some-
thing that you don't understand.'
One of the girls was so undutiful as to snig-
ger. Thereupon, one of the young men joined


FOR THE FLAG
159
in the laugh, which became so general that the
severe expression on Mrs. Barnard's face soft-
ened considerably.
“Perhaps I owe you an apology, young man,
for having spoken as I did of you,” admitted the
good lady.
“You only called us pirates,” smiled Eph.
"That wasn't much.'
“Perhaps I said more than I should have
said, young man,” admitted Mrs. Barnard.
“Mamma, wouldn't it be better to address
this officer by his title?” asked the elder of the
girls. Then, turning to Eph, the same speaker
inquired:
“May I ask
your
title? Are you a captain?”
“Only an ensign, miss,” Eph replied, “and
only an acting ensign at that."
While this brief conversation had been going
on, the cook, stewards and watch below were
being routed out. Now Captain Walford came
aft to report:
“All hands on board, sir, have been turned
out for your inspection."
“All?” insisted Eph.
“All, sir."
*Then, Captain Walford, I am going to do
something that may appear very extreme, but I
regret to say that I can't help it. I must
search this craft. If I allowed one for whom


160
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
>>
we are seeking to slip through our fingers it
would bring a lot of blame down about my
head."
Eph now stepped back to the rail, ordering
six of the sailors on board. To them he gave
his orders. The party spread, going below.
Eph, excusing himself to the ladies, went with
the sailors.
No more thorough search could have been
made. Every nook and cranny of the schooner
was searched, but at last Eph was obliged to
admit that the man he sought was not aboard.
“My apologies to everyone for all trouble
caused,” declared Ensign Somers. “I trust you
will find it easy to believe that I have only been
following my orders; and, therefore, doing my
duty."
"You couldn't have done less, Ensign,” re-
plied Dr. Barnard, courteously. “You couldn't
have been more courteous.
“Are we at liberty to proceed on our way,
sir?” asked Captain Walford, as the young act-
ing ensign went over the side.
“I shall have to ask you to take the signal
for that from the ‘Sudbury, "" Eph answered.
On the gunboat's quarter deck, following En-
sign Somers's report, there was an anxious con-
ference.
“If this is the craft we've been following


FOR THE FLAG
161
all the time," muttered Jack Benson, "we've a
lot of hunting yet ahead of us.”
“Shall I signal the schooner permission to
proceed, sir?” asked Ensign Fullerton.
“By all means.'
Darkness came down over the ocean while
Lieutenant Jack was sending a wireless des-
patch through the air to the Navy Department.
CHAPTER XV
"THE RIGHT BOAT AND THE RIGHT CREW !”
T
HREE hours later, under a new order
from Washington, the gunboat's launch
stole in alongside of a second schooner
that had been pursued, overhauled and brought
to a standstill.
This craft, however, proved to be a Nova
Scotian vessel, with papers all right, a cargo
beyond suspicion and no sign of the fugitive
Gray aboard.
When news of this second failure had been
flashed to Washington, and twenty minutes more
had passed, the instructions came back out of
the ether:
“Cruise slowly about where you are. Await
new instructions, which will go forward to you
as soon as we have fresh, reliable information
II-The Submarine Boys for the Flag.


162
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
from any source. See that your own search-'
light is freely used through the night."
"'Puss in the Corner,' at sea,” muttered
Lieutenant Benson. "And we can't even find
a corner.”
An hour later the young commander of
the "Sudbury” turned in. Hal was on the
bridge.
The gunboat cruised along lazily at about
eight knots an hour. For some time Hal paced
the bridge indolently, while the sailor lookout,
forward, manipulated the searchlight, sending
its beam in wide circles over the waters.
It was within half an hour of the time of call-
ing the new watch, in fact, when the bow watch
reported:
“Sail dead ahead, sir!"
Barely more than a topsail could be made out,
even through the marine glass of the young
watch officer.
“Hold the light on her; we'll overtake and
examine her, anyway," was Ensign Hastings's
quick decision. From the bridge he gave or-
ders for the engine room to go ahead with in-
creased speed. While the gunboat was bounding
off after the stranger, time came to sall the port
watch. Eph Somers came up to the bridge,
somewhat sleepy.
--Same old story, I guess," yawned Eph.
-


FOR THE FLAG
163
“Have you passed the word to the executive
officer?”
“Not yet,” Hal replied. “I didn't believe it
worth while to break the slumber of Mr. Fuller-
ton, or of the commander, until we got close
enough to see whether the stranger looks in the
least like the Juanita.""
“I don't believe the ‘Juanita' is anywhere on
this wide ocean," muttered Eph, stifling a
yawn.
“It doesn't look that way,” smiled Hastings.
Down before the wheelhouse a bell began to
sound briskly.
“Eight bells; your watch, Mr. Somers,” an-
nounced Hastings. “But I am going to remain
on the bridge with you for a while. I want a
look at that mud-hooker over yonder.”
Within fifteen minutes more the gunboat was
running fairly close, though off to starboard.
“That doesn't look even a little bit like the
‘Juanita,'” muttered Ensign Eph, disgustedly.
“Why, she's longer than the Cobtown schooner.
Besides, the ‘Juanita' is a two-sticker, while that
hooker yonder has a third mast with a yawl-rig
leg-o'-mutton sail."
Hal said nothing, but continued to study the
stranger through his night-glass.
“She is a queer-looking hooker,” muttered
Hastings. “Say, Eph, somehow that boat


164
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
doesn't look as though she was built to fit her
own rig.'
“Why not?” demanded Eph.
"Well, look at her length. · Then take a peep
at the height of her dory-mast. Does it look
tall enough for the length of the schooner?”
“I hadn't thought of that,” admitted Somers,
also taking a careful look through the night-
glass. “Jove, Hal, she is an odd-looking piece
of hulk."
Eph turned to pass the order to run in still
closer to the schooner.
“What's wrong with her stern-hull ?” asked
Ensign Somers, three or four minutes later.
“Looks like a patchwork affair,” declared
Hal, more interested than ever.
“Has she a built-on stern?” demanded Som-
ers, half a minute later.
“By Jove, I half believe she has. Eph, with-
out that stern and the yawl mast, would you say
the craft looks like the 'Juanita'?"
“I believe she would," muttered young Som-
ers, excitedly. “Marine orderly!”
A sea-soldier came quickly up the bridge
stairs, saluting.
“Mr. Somers's compliments to Mr. Fullerton,
and will the executive officer come to the
bridge?”
Again saluting the marine vanished aft. It


FOR THE FLAG
165
doesn't take a naval officer long to report, even
when he has to rouse himself out of a sound
sleep to do it.
Ensign Fullerton reached the bridge rubbing
his eyes, but he listened intently to what the two
younger ensigns had to say.
“Marine orderly!” called the executive officer.
“Mr. Fullerton's compliments to the command-
ing officer, and will he come to the bridge?”
Barely a minute later, Jack Benson stood on
the bridge, listening to his subordinate officers
and staring across the gap of water at the un-
known craft.
“Mr. Fullerton," directed the young com-
mander,” prepare to fire a signal shot and to
lower the power launch. Make up the boarding
party as usual. Mr. Somers, you will go in
command of the launch. And I will accompany
you this time. Mr. Fullerton, when I leave the
bridge, you will assume command."
Both officers, as they received their orders,
saluted.
Bang! The signal gun barked out, the flash
from the muzzle sending a long tongue of red
through the darkness.
But the stranger continued on her way through
the night.
Ensign Fullerton regarded the
young commanding officer of the gunboat ex-
pectantly.


FOR THE FLAG
167
“That'll stop her, I reckon!” chuckled Jack
Benson.
And “stop her” it did. There was no choice
but to stop. This gunboat of the United States
Navy was in a position to shoot every standing
stick out of the schooner, if provoked too far,
and the legal right to go to such lengths
existed.
“Stranger is heaving to, sir," reported En-
sign Somers.
“Very good, Mr. Somers. Order the power
launch lowered. Put off as quickly as possi-
ble."
“Very good, sir.”
Ensign Fullerton hastened back to the bridge,
to assume command, while Hal Hastings stood
by him.
Boat-handlers and armed sailors and marines
scampered over the side. Down the gangway
followed Jack and Eph, looking very stately as
they held their swords clear of their legs. Bus-
ily the launch chugged across the intervening
water gap.
“Schooner, ahoy!” hailed Eph, as the launch
ran in alongside. “What craft is that?”
“Schooner ‘Malta,' Cooper, master, from
Sidney, N. S.,” came the reply of a man at the
after rail.
“Seems to me I've seen you before, in Cob-


168
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
town!” suddenly exclaimed Eph Somers, as he
leaped over the rail in advance of his marines.
“C-Cob—town?" demanded the schooner's
master, falteringly.
“By the great Constitution! We've caught
the 'Juanita' in disguise !” bellowed back En-
sign Eph, turning to Jack Benson, who was just
boarding. “See! There's the false stern struc-
ture."
“You're making a huge mistake of some sort,
gentlemen!” protested the vessel's master, trem-
ulously.
“Marines, lay aboard,” thundered Eph.
“Take the deck, Corporal. Round up all the crew
you see, and make 'em stand at attention along
one of the seams of the deck! Sailors aboard,
you down any man who tries to block or balk
you. Lively, now! I've seen this master in
Cobtown, and I'll take my oath this is the 'Jua-
nita' with a pieced-out, false stern and a faked
third mast!”
“We hold you responsible for the deck, Cor-
poral,” spoke Jack, in a low tone to the non-
commissioned officer of marines. “We're going
to take the sailors and go below."
A rush was made for the companionway lead-
ing down into the schooner's cabin. A man's
white, scared face showed below, for a moment.
“Hurrah!” yelled Eph Somers, drawing his





FOR THE FLAG
171
sword and making a bound below. "There's
Brother Gray. Oh, we've the right boat-and
the right crowd, too!”
CHAPTER XVI
THE DUEL THROUGH THE DOOR
B
ANG!
A stateroom door closed just before
the two young officers reached it.
Click! That told the story of a bolt shot into
place.
“You may as well open !” called Jack, coolly.
“We have ample force for breaking down that
door!'
Crack! In that confined space the discharge
of a pistol sounded almost deafening. A line of
red shot through the stateroom door. The bul-
let from the weapon whizzed between Jack Ben-
son and Eph Somers, the missile burying itself
in wood across the passage.
Crack! Crack!
With that desperate fellow the other side of
the door, shooting through the key-hole, it was
worse than folly to remain in line of range.
Yet Jack and Eph retorted coolly, with the
dignity of officers.
“My man,” requested Lieutenant Jack, turn-


172
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
ing to one of the sailors, “hand me your revol-
ver.'
Taking the weapon, Benson glanced at it a
second or two, then raised the weapon, sighting
for the top of the stateroom door.
Bang! The shot that Jack fired sent a bullet
crashing through the door close to the upper
framework.
“You see, Gray!” Jack called coolly, “we're
armed, too, and in overpowering numbers. Re-
sistance is worse than foolish."
Bang! came the hostile answer.
This shot was fired through one of the panels
of the stateroom door-fired at an angle, too.
Plainly the shot was intended to hit the young
naval lieutenant. It passed Benson's right side
by a margin of barely two inches.
“Pass me another revolver," whispered Ben-
son, in the stillness that followed..
All through the day and evening these sea-
men, though outwardly respectful, and wholly
well disciplined, had cherished a great deal of
amusement over their boyish officers.
Now, however, these bronzed men of the deep
beheld Benson and Somers at work in a manner
worthy of any product of Annapolis.
The second revolver was handed to Jack.
“I want to be in this, too,” muttered Ensign
Eph, and held back his hand for weapons.


FOR THE FLAG
173
“Are you going to surrender, Gray, and open
that door?" demanded Lieutenant Jack.
“Never—to you,” came the ugly defiance.
Bang! Again Gray fired, straight in the di-
rection of the voice. The bullet, crashing
through a panel of the door, fanned Jack's left
ear so that he felt the breeze.
“Open up on him, Mr. Somers," directed Ben-
son. “Slowly. Fire high, and fire low. Try to
get him somehow.'
Two more shots came from the other side of
the locked door.
Then pop-pop-pop! began the fusilade from
outside, Jack and Eph firing with either hand
as they sighted their weapons for new spots.
R-r-rip! crash! A long enough bombardment
of this sort was certain to reduce the panels to
splinters and leave the way clear-if they didn't
riddle Gray with bullets in the meantime.
Pop-pop-pop! The air was becoming heavy
with the white fog of smoke. Breathing was
somewhat difficult, with so many shots being
fired in the confined space.
Then both young officers stopped, passing
back one revolver apiece to be reloaded.
Bang! came a defiant shot from inside the
stateroom. The bullet struck the cabin floor just
behind Jack, having passed between his feet.
The sailors, back where they were compara-


174
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
tively safe from harm, looked on in admiration
at these two grit-full young American officers.
Pop-pop-pop! began the fusilade by Jack and
Eph again.
“Ouch!” came a sudden yell from the state-
room.
“Hit you, did we?” called Jack, calmly.
"Well, we're going to riddle you unless you stop
that nonsense.
The answer was another shot from inside the
stateroom. The bullet clipped off a stray lock
of hair at the left side of Eph Somers's head.
Both young officers fired slowly, searchingly,
until their weapons were emptied. Then they
passed the hot smoking revolvers back for new
loads.
From the other side of the stateroom door
came no sound.
As soon as he and Eph had received the re-
loaded weapons, Jack motioned Eph Somers not
to fire.
For a few moments they listened. Then Jack
turned, selecting the two most stalwart-looking
of the husky sailors back by the companionway.
A nod of Jack's head brought them stealthily
to his side.
“Put your shoulders to the stateroom door,
and force it," commanded Lieutenant Benson.
At the same time Jack and Eph moved up


FOR THE FLAG
175
with the sailors, holding their revolvers ready to
fire at the first sign of renewed hostilities from
within.
Bump! Two pairs of sturdy shoulders went
up against the door. From within there came
no sign of defiance. Bump! At the second de-
termined assault the door flew open.
“Step back, men! We'll go in first,” com-
manded Lieutenant Benson.
Revolvers in hand, and ready, the two young
officers of the “Sudbury” pressed forward into
the battered-looking room.
“Where is the rascal?" growled Eph Somers.
“Here, hiding like a cornered rat,” replied
Jack, aiming both revolvers at a huddled figure
well in under the lower berth. “Come out,
Gray! You won't be hurt unless you try tricks
on us.'
The answer was a groan.
“Are your hurt?” inquired Lieutenant Ben-
son.
“Yes.'
"How badly?"
"You hit me twice."
“Where?"
“Once in the left arm; once in the right thigh.
0-0-0-h!'
Jack Benson felt a swift twinge-almost a
guilty jerk of his conscience.


FOR THE FLAG
179
CHAPTER XVII
THE LAST HOUR OF COMMAND
T
HROUGH the night the “Sudbury"
rolled lazily over the waves.
A wireless message had carried the
news through space to Washington. Orders had
come to return to Norfolk, there turning Gray
over to the United States authorities.
Benson and his comrades were instructed to
return to Washington with the charts and record
books.
Down in a berth in the sick bay lay Gray.
The hospital steward had made the wounded
man as comfortable as possible. The latter was
painfully but not seriously wounded.
At the speed at which the gunboat was now
proceeding the “Sudbury” was due at anchor-
age at six in the morning.
Lieutenant Jack had turned in, after leaving
orders that he was to be called a few minutes be-
fore five. He wanted to be on deck to enjoy
the sensations of his last hour of command on
the cruise of a vessel of the United States Navy.
Forward, the sailors of the watch were talking
in low tones of their very youthful officers.
“There's the real stuff in those boy officers,


180
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
mates,” grunted one sailor who had been in the
boarding party. “It don't make any difference
whether they've been through Annapolis or not.
Look at the way the lieutenant and Mr. Somers
went up against the shooting. Kept us back,
and took the medicine themselves, like real offi-
cers.
“You'd expect it of Somers,” rejoined an-
other sailor. “There's a bit of the bull-neck
about him, and such men always fight. But the
lieutenant makes a real officer that I'd be glad
to foller anywhere."
“Mr. Hastings didn't get a chance to show
what was in him," suggested another of Uncle
Sam's old salts.
“Oh, you leave Mr. Hastings alone for fight-
ing, if he saw any need to," retorted the sailor
who had been the first to speak. “He's one of
your very quiet chaps. Your quiet ones always
sail into a fight while a brawler is getting his
mouth wound up to do some talking.”
“Hanged, if I don't wish them lads could re-
main on board!" muttered another old salt.
“With the young lieutenant to command the
ship?” asked another.
“Him as well as anyone.
He knows what
he's doing, for which reason I don't care for
the number of the year he was born in. Why,
mates, the lieutenant is the head of them subma-


FOR THE FLAG
181
rine boys we've read so much about in the news-
papers when layin' in port. And the other two
are his messmates. Now, I'll stand for it that
the submarine boys are good for any kind of a
job on salt water. I'd foller their lead on a bat-
tleship!”
It would have been fine for the three subma-
rine boys had they been able to know what great
opinions the crew held of them.
But Hal was again on the bridge in the last
watch, and Eph had gone below for an hour's
sleep ere he, like Jack Benson, was to be
called.
Then, at last, two sleepy-eyed boys came from
their cabins, going up to the bridge for what they
felt was their last hour of real sea-glory.
Ensign Fullerton, appeared half an hour be-
fore anchorage was made.
“You have the satisfaction, sir, of knowing
that your task was put through in record time,'
said Fullerton, by way of congratulation.
“For which I'm truly glad,” smiled Benson.
“Yet I could wish our experience with the Navy
had not ended so soon."
"Why, it hasn't ended yet, sir,” smiled the,
executive officer.
“It will, in a few minutes more, however,"
sighed Jack. “My last official act will be to or-
der the gig into the water to take us on shore.


184
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
derly entered, crossed the dining room, stopped
at a respectful distance, and saluted.
“Telegram, sir."
The commandant received the envelope, draw-
ing out the sheet it contained.
"Lieutenant Benson, this will interest you and
your comrades,” pursued the commandant.
“The order revoking my command of the gun-
boat,” thought Jack. Oddly enough, though he
expected it, knew it must happen, the arrival of
the moment brought a strange sinking at heart.
"I wonder how on earth it could have hap-
pened?” pursued the commandant, his eyes
again turned toward the paper. “Millard has
escaped from Fort Craven, and, so far, has
eluded recapture!”
CHAPTER XVIII
EPH BETS AN ANCHOR AGAINST A FISH-HOOK
"T"
HE government possesses the fellow's
charts and notes, anyway,
" observed
Jack Benson, rather proudly.
“Yes, thanks to you, gentlemen,” nodded the
commandant. “Still, I fancy the authorities,
will be fearfully annoyed over this escape.”
“There are no particulars, sir, you say?"
queried Jack.


FOR THE FLAG
185
“No; the mere announcement of the fellow's
escape, and a request to military and naval au-
thorities to be on the lookout for the fugitive.
The despatch also states that description will
follow by wire."
“We can give you a pretty fair word-portrait
of Millard right now, sir," offered Lieutenant
Benson."
“And I wish you would.”
Jack proceeded to do so. He had about fin-
ished, when the carriage stopped punctually be-
fore the door of the officers' club. The com-
mandant took cordial leave of his young guests,
after which they were driven to the railway sta-
tion. Just a little later they found themselves
leaning back in parlor car seats, bound for
Washington.
Most of the way back the youngsters dozed in
their chairs. Now, that the excitement was
over, all felt need of rest.
Not even at the railway station in Washington
could they escape the watchfulness of the Navy
Department. The same messenger who, the day
before, had handed them their copies of the
Regulations, now met Benson with a note.
“The Secretary will not be at his office until
one o'clock this afternoon,” announced Lieuten-
ant Jack, looking up from the order. “We are
directed to report at that hour.”


186
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
"What shall we do until then?" demanded
Eph, blankly, when the messenger had departed.
“Why, since we're still in the service,"
laughed Jack, “and as I've heard that the Arl-
ington is much patronized by Navy officers, sup-
pose we treat ourselves to a carriage, go to the
Arlington and register. That will be the last
grand feeling we'll get out of this."
His comrades rather merrily agreed. So, a
few minutes later, the trio marched through the
lobby of the Arlington to the desk. Jack picked
up a pen, and registered:
“John Benson, U. S. N.”
Hal and Eph followed suit. Then they were
led to their connecting rooms.
“We'll have luncheon at half-past eleven,'
smiled Lieutenant Jack, as he dropped into an
easy chair. “In the service one never knows
when his next meal is coming.”
“Good !” chuckled Hal, though there was a
sad ring to his tone. “Keep up as long as you
can, old fellow, the fiction that we're still in the
naval service."
“Well, aren't we?” demanded Jack, stoutly.
“Surely," assented Hal, meekly.
“Say," demanded Eph, taking out notebook
and pencil, “what is an ensign's pay, anyway?”
“Seventeen hundred dollars a year,” replied
Benson.


FOR THE FLAG
187
“I don't suppose the Navy Department will
try to spring less than a day's pay on us,” hinted
Eph. “If that's right, then the government now
owes me three hundred and sixty-five into sev-
enteen hundred. Let me see-
“Oh, cut it!” laughed Hal.
“What? My pay?" demanded Eph, sol-
emnly. "Not much, sir! I want the only
money I ever really earned.”
“One of us ought to drop Mr. Farnum a line,'
hinted Jack; presently.
“Oh, well, let Hal do it," offered Eph. “He
carries the only fountain pen in the crowd.”
Without a word Hastings crossed to a table
on which were envelopes and paper, and began
to write. Perhaps he welcomed something to
occupy his mind; for, truth to tell, each of
these submarine boys had a woefully “blue”
feeling. Though all were naval officers, still, at
this moment, all realized that they would cease
to be such as soon as they had received the
thanks of the Secretary of the Navy.
However, “blue" as all three felt, none of
them hung back when half-past eleven arrived.
They descended to the dining room, where they
refreshed themselves heartily.
The meal over, there was just about enough
time left for them to walk comfortably to the
Navy Department.


188
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
They had walked a couple of blocks of the way
when Hal suddenly felt the stamped letter in
his pocket. He drew it out, and glanced hur-
riedly down the avenue.
"I don't see a letter-box ahead, fellows, but I
saw one, half-way down the block, at the last
corner we passed. You two keep right on. I'11
join you.
Presently Jack and Eph halted in their walk to
look back.
“Where is Hal?" demanded Somers.
“He can't have lost us,” muttered Jack.
“Oh, I guess he has simply taken a short cut to
meet us ahead on the way."
Yet, though they continued to look for their
comrade until they had neared the State, War
and Navy Building, Hal Hastings had not again
appeared in sight.
“Say, but this is fearfully careless of good
old Hal,” muttered Jack Benson, uneasily, as
he glanced at his watch. “We've no time to go
back to look for him, either, for we've barely
time to reach the Secretary's office."
“We'll have to go in without Hal, then,
grumbled Eph. “It makes me feel like a fool,
too!”
Had the two lads but known it, there was still
plenty of time. For the Secretary of the Navy
may make an appointment with an understrap-


FOR THE FLAG
189
per, and then find that he must first see some
more important personage.
There were ”big” callers ahead of the boys
that day, so that it was nearly two o'clock when
Lieutenant Jack and Ensign Eph were admitted
to the presence that they were to leave shorn
of their brief rank and command.
“Good afternoon, Lieutenant Benson. Good
afternoon, Mr. Somers,” was Secretary San-
ders's swift greeting. “You were most success-
ful, and I must congratulate you heartily. But
—where is Mr. Hastings?”
“We don't know, Mr. Secretary,” Jack ad-
mitted. “He left us for a short time, as we
thought, and, since then-
Mr. Sanders wheeled sharply as the door
opened and a clerk came in.
“Pardon me, sir,” apologized the clerk.
"But a note has just come for Lieutenant Ben-
son, sir, and the messenger was insistent that it
was a most important matter"
“You may take your note and read it, Lieu-
tenant,” suggested the Secretary of the Navy.
Young Benson gave a start when he recog-
nized, in the address, the handwriting of Hal
Hastings.
In another instant Jack gave a much more vio-
lent start. For these were the words that met
his astounded gaze.


FOR THE FLAG
191
Hal, the quiet, the dignified? Oh, dear! Oh,
dear! Hal pounces on the fellow, to arrest him,
and Hal is the one who gets pinched. Woo-00!
I can see Hal's face right now. I'll wager an
anchor to a fish-hook that the astonished look is
stamped on Hal's face so hard that it won't
come off for a week. Oh-woof!”
Eph was laughing so hard that the tears
streamed down his face.
“Quit that!” commanded Jack, stepping over
to his comrade, his own face stern.
“It's no
laughing matter."
Why, they won't hang Hal!” sputtered Eph,
as soon as he could talk. "Hal will be at lib-
erty almost at once. But fancy the shock!
Imagine the dear old fellow's astonishment, and
the jolt to his feelings."
Again Eph Somers went off into a paroxysm
of laughter. It seemed uncontrollable, for Eph
had a strong sense of the ludicrous, and Hal's
face, as Somers pictured it, must have been a
tremendously funny sight at the instant when
Millard so neatly turned the tables.
“Come, quit your nonsense!” grumbled Jack,
disgustedly.
“I can't," roared Eph, going off into still
another burst of laughter.
Just at that instant Somers gave himself the
lie. The door opened, admitting the Secretary


192
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
of the Navy. In a fraction of a second Ensign
Eph had straightened up, while his face was
solemn enough for an Indian chief's countenance.
“I have just been straightening out that lit-
tle matter,” explained Mr. Sanders. “I have
talked with the police, and have described Has-
tings. The police are in deep chagrin over their
blunder. Mr. Hastings is now at liberty and on
his way here."
At a motion from Mr. Sanders the two young
officers seated themselves. The Secretary
turned to his desk to sign some papers.
From Eph, suddenly, came a suppressed, ex-
plosive sound. Jack seated beside him on a sofa
gave Somers an indignant elbow jab. The
Secretary glanced up, then resumed his writing.
A minute later there came from Eph the
sound of another smothered explosion.
The
picture of Hal Hastings's indignant astonish-
ment had once more been conjured up before
young Somers's face. Poor Eph was red in
the face with all the effort of keeping back his
laughter.
"I fear you must have caught some cold,
standing watch on the gunboat's bridge,” said
the Secretary, sympathetically.
That sobered Somers in an instant. The no-
tion that hehe a sea-dog accustomed to stand
watch in all weathers, could catch cold through


FOR THE FLAG
197
our tongues behind our teeth,” returned Hal.
“We're only boys-kids—and we can't say any-
thing smart to men who have been a good many
years in the service."
“You can answer back, if anyone starts to
have any fun with you,” replied Lieutenant Ul-
win. “Remember, a club is where all men stand
on an equal footing. If an admiral gets after
you, you will do well to swallow any witticism
he may try on you. But with any officer below
an admiral you don't have to be so careful.”
Eph Somers immediately began to look
thoughtful. Now, Eph did know how to say caus-
tic things when occasion seemed to demand.
“Here we are," announced Lieutenant Ul-
win, suddenly, as the cab stopped before the club
building.
Hal went in at Ulwin's side. Jack gripped
Eph by the elbow, pulling the auburn-haired one
back a few paces.
“Now, see here, Eph, remember that we don't
want any funny answers inside."?
"But Ulwin says-
“You listen to what I'm saying, Eph. I've
known you longer than Mr. Ulwin has. Just
remember that we're boys_b-o-y-s—boys. Not
one of us is quite eighteen yet. If we've gained
a little fame for five minutes, we mustn't begin
to imagine that we're eight feet high and on a


198
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
par with men forty years old. So be careful,
Eph. If anyone starts to have any fun with
you, come back at him a different way.”
“How?” whispered Eph.
“Look stupid.”
“What?!
“Look stupid.”
"I don't see much in that."
“Why, it's the funniest answer possible; and,
besides, it isn't fresh or forward.”
“How do you make that out?” Eph inquired.
“Why, Eph, boy, if you're half as famous as
you may think you are, then folks will know you
can't be stupid. So, if you pretend to be, you'll
have everyone guessing what you mean by look-
ing that way. On the other hand, if you look
stupid, and no one is surprised, then you'll dis-
cover that that's just the way the crowd had you
sized up in advance."
” nodded Eph, but it was plain that
Jack's almost direct command was not wholly
pleasing to Somers.
The two comrades now caught up with Ulwin
and Hal at the elevator.
“We'll go up to the reading room, first,” pro-
posed Lieutenant Ulwin. “That's where the
afternoon crowd is usually found.”
Anyone who had been looking for "color" or
pomp would have been disappointed. The only,
"I see,


200
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
99
since learned to accept the whole incident as a
good and deserved joke.
Now, McCrea stood wringing the hands of the
boys as though he had found long-lost friends.
“What are you doing these days?” McCrea
wanted to know. "Anything besides testing
new boats at Dunhaven?”
“You must greet them as comrades, McCrea,”
continued Lieutenant Ulwin.
“What? Cadets at Annapolis ?”
In this case McCrea wondered at their being
there, for cadets would be considered forward
who visited an officers' club.
“Benson is a lieutenant, his friends ensigns,"
replied Ulwin.
“Come, come!” laughed McCrea. “I'm easy
-these boys know that. But don't tell me
“Fact, though,” replied Ulwin. “They hold
special appointments, for some special duty or
other. I'm here, at the direction of the Navy
Department, to introduce these young brother
officers of ours, and to procure ten-day cards
for them.'
By this time the news had spread. A score of
officers, young or middle-aged, were crowding
about. Ulwin had his hands full introducing the
submarine boys. Yet they stood the ordeal well.
The habit of command, based on discipline, had
given these boys plenty of poise and self-pos-
-


FOR THE FLAG
201
session. Nor were any attempts made, at that
time, to have any good-humored fun with them.
Half a dozen officers representing foreign
navies were present. These, too, came in for in-
troductions. The foreigners were, mainly, mili-
tary or naval officers attached to foreign em-
bassies at Washington.
“By Jove, Benson, I've had it in mind, for
some time, that I wanted to meet you and grasp
your hand,” murmured Lieutenant Abercrom-
bie, of the British Navy, as he drew Lieutenant
Jack to one side. “By Jove, old fellow, I want
to meet you soon and have a good old talk all
by ourselves."
“That will be most agreeable to me," nodded
Jack, pleasantly.
“And your comrades, too,” added Abercrom-
bie. “You know, you're already known on the
other side. Fact, I assure you. Only the other
day I picked up a London magazine and read
quite an account of the doings of you three. I
was especially interested in an account of how
you three discovered a way of leaving a subma-
rine at the bottom and swimming to the surface;
then diving and re-entering the craft while she's
still on the bottom. But your method is a secret,
I suppose?”
“Yes,” smiled Jack. “At least, the Ameri.
can Navy alone shares the secret with us."


202
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
“Oh, I'm not asking it, you know, old fel-
low,” Lieutenant Abercrombie assured him.
"Is Mr. Benson here?” called a bell-boy, from
the doorway.
“Very much so," replied Lieutenant Ulwin,
dryly.
“May I give you a message, sir?" asked the
bell-boy, coming closer.
After excusing himself, Benson stepped aside
with the boy. Yet the latter spoke loudly enough
for several to overhear.
"There's a lady, downstairs at the door,
would like to see you, sir. She says it is very,
very important, sir."
“Did she give any name?” inquired aston-
ished Jack.
“No, sir; she begged you would overlook that,
sir, and just step down to the door for a few
moments."
“All right; I'll go," nodded Benson. "But
it looks queer.
Excusing himself to his host, Ulwin, and to
some of the officers with whom he had been chat-
ting, the leader of the submarine boys went
quickly to the coat-room for his hat, then de-
scended in the elevator.
“Vairee strange place, zis, for a lady to fol-
low a zhentleman—to hees club,” drawled a
French captain.


FOR THE FLAG
203
One or two of the others laughed, imagining
that this was some flirtation in which the subma-
rine boy had been engaged. But Eph flared up
a bit, looking very red, as he muttered:
“It's only fair to tell you, gentlemen, that
we submarine boys don't appreciate jokes at
the expense of the finest fellow who ever lived-
Mr. Jack Benson !"
“Good boy!” murmured Hal.
Yet, when an hour had slipped by, and Benson
had not returned, even his loyal comrades be-
gan to wonder a good deal. From that frame of
mind they passed on, at the end of another hour,
to worry.
CHAPTER XX
THE GIRL IN THE CAB
A
S Jack reached the door of the United
Service Club he found no one at the
doorway.
“That's strange," he muttered.
But in another moment he looked down the
street. A hundred feet away stood a closed cab.
From it a woman leaned, beckoning slightly.
Had she been veiled, Jack would have been
instantly suspicious.
But her face showed, and it was a young,
fresh, pretty and wholesome looking face.


FOR THE FLAG
205
Jack hesitated. He did not like the look of
the adventure. Yet, on the other hand, it was
hard to see harm or danger in it. The young
woman was evidently, as he had at first guessed,
a lady.
“Then you do not feel able to tell me, here,
what you wish to speak with me about?” he in-
quired.
“I shall begin as soon as we start on our
drive," she promised. “Oh, please do not re-
fuse me.
You cannot imagine how much is at
stake for me!”
Though Jack Benson felt the peculiarity of
the request from a stranger, he was unable to
see how harm could result from his being kind.
“Very good, then," he agreed. “I will do
my best by listening to you."
After he had entered the cab, and had taken
the seat, beside her, the young woman turned to
look at him keenly.
Jack, for his part, saw that she was rather
better dressed than the average. He'imagined
her to be the daughter of a family in comfortable
circumstances.
“You do not know who I am, of course?" she
began.
“No, madam.”
“But you do know one in whom I am much
interested,” she continued.


206
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
For some reason that he could not explain to
himself, Jack Benson began to feel very uncom-
fortable under the witching battery of her hand-
some eyes.
“Who is he?" inquired the submarine boy.
"You know him as
She paused, as though stricken with sudden
reluctance.
“Well?”
“The name by which you know him is Mil-
lard."
Had Jack Benson been lashed at that instant
with a whip he could not have been more
astounded.
"Who?" he cried. “What? That in
Fam-
He checked himself abruptly.
“It was kind of you to stop as you did,” the
young woman declared, gratefully. “The man
whom you know as Millard is my promised hus-
band."
“I'm sor-I mean, I'm astonished,” sputtered
Jack Benson.
Then he turned to take another keen look into
her face.
“What do you want to say to me about Mil-
lard?” he demanded.
"I ask you, I beg you—to aid him to escape
from Washington—from the country. Yet, to


FOR THE FLAG
207
do that, all he needs is to get safely out of the
District of Columbia. You know that he is here
in Washington, or I would not have told you as
much."
“Does Millard find it so very difficult to get
out of Washington?” queried Jack, grimly.
“If he did not, Mr. Benson, believe me I would
never come to the enemy to beseech mercy.
Probably I am not telling you anything you do
not already know,” she went on, rather bitterly,
“but every avenue of escape from Washington
is blocked by Secret Service men. It is not so
difficult to hide in the city, but to get out of it is
impossible-to-day!”
“Madam,” Jack answered, softly, “it would
be my desire to give you every bit of aid and
comfort possible. However, what you ask is
simply impossible. For one thing, it would be
in direct defiance of my-
“Oath” he was about to add, but checked him-
self. On account of their knowing that he was
to be sought at the United Service Club it was
possible—even likely—that the enemy knew of
his actual connection with the Navy. Yet, Ben-
son did not propose to supply the other side with
any gratis information. So he added:
Contrary to my duty as an American. I am
loyal to the Flag, madam,” the boy continued.
know the nature of Millard's offense?'
riDo you


208
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
“No-0-0-0; that is, not exactly.'
“Do you wish me to tell you?”
“Why-he-he-told me it was some dispute
over international affairs,” stammered the
young woman.
“Do you feel yourself a loyal American?”
asked Jack, looking at her curiously.
“Yes!” she answered, without an instant's
hesitation, looking straight into his eyes, almost
defiantly.
“And you love this man, Millard?”
“Yes!" Yet her declaration was not so em-
phatic as it would have been a few moments be-
fore.
Jack Benson sighed.
“Would you love a man who had betrayed his
country's flag ?” he asked, presently, in a very
low voice.
“Has Don-has the man you know as Millard
offered to do that?"
It was not suspicion, but incredulity that rang
in her voice.
Jack Benson knew, now, that he was dealing
with a woman who knew herself to be a patriot
-a lover of her country.
"I don't know that I have any right to say
anything,"
" Jack answered, evasively. “Mr.
Millard is a civil engineer, isn't he?”
“Yes, and a mechanical engineer, too,” the


210
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
this spirited young woman. It was not neces-
sary.
But she became insistent.
“Mr. Benson,” she cried, "this has gone too
far not to have a full explanation. Has—has Mr.
Millard done aught to betray the United States ?
For that matter, how could he?"
“Madam,” Benson replied, gravely, “no Cen-
tral American republic would want charts of
our fortified harbors, or notes concerning the
fortifications, the harbor mines, and so on, for
the very simple reason that no Central American
republic would ever be equal to the task of at-
tempting to invade the United States."
“Did Mr. Millard steal such plans—make such
notes?"
She hissed the question sharply, her face now
deathly white.
"That is the charge against him," Jack
nodded.
“Did he do it?"
“I caught him at it, opposite Fort Craven,"
young Benson answered.
A low, smothered cry escaped the girl. Her
head rested against the side of the carriage as
though her brain were reeling. But at length
she spoke.
“You—you would not deceive me,” she fal-
tered. “Yet tell me more."
-


FOR THE FLAG
211
1
me,',
“I can't," answered Jack, with a shake
of his head. “Further than that, I cannot
go.
“Oh, I see,” she nodded, “and I do not blame
you. You feel that, whatever you told me,
would tell him. But I wouldn't!"
Though the girl's face was still fearfully pal-
lid, her eyes, as she turned to gaze into the sub-
marine boy's face, flashed with a new fire.
Then, after a brief pause:
“Whatever he is, or has done, I am an Ameri-
can,
” she added, quietly.
"This has been a miserable fifteen minutes for
responded Jack Benson. “I have been
torn between the impulse to mind my own busi-
ness, and the fear that you may be throwing
yourself away on a man whom you would
promptly learn to despise."
“I shall never give Donald Graves another
thought as a lover," the girl rejoined, promptly.
“Nor shall I shelter him. I am going to him
now!"
“Then you have an appointment with him?
You know where to find him?"
“Yes," replied the girl, looking at the subma-
rine boy rather queerly. “Do you care to go
with me to meet Donald Graves—the one you
knew as Millard ? But I am stupid, or worse.
That would be to run you into needless danger-


212
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
for such a man as I now know Donald Graves
to be would be desperate.
“I am not afraid of him," retorted Jack,
quietly. “If you fear only for me, I beg you
to take me to him!”
CHAPTER XXI
DAISY HUSTON DECIDES FOR THE FLAG
"I"
T is a somewhat lonely place, on the out-
skirts of the city,” warned the girl.
“Mr. Graves had thought that, if no
other chance offered, he might possibly get away
by leaving that house and taking to the country
roads. For he knows that, if he takes a train
at any point, he won't ride five miles before he'll
find himself in the clutches of a Secret Service
man. Oh, he knows how well the trains and
the steamboats will be watched. He dreads,
even, that the country roads will be watched.”
“I don't know anything about the Secret
Service lines that are out," Jack confessed,
honestly. “Yet I imagine that every possible
precaution has been taken to capture Millard-
or Graves."
“You do not know my name," cried the girl,
as though struck by a sudden thought. “Mr.
Benson, you have been wrapped in so much mys-
-
-


FOR THE FLAG
213
tery, so much deceit, so much lying and treachery
that I won't even have you guess whether I am
telling you the truth. Here is my card-case.
Take out a card for yourself."
The request was so much like a command that
Benson obeyed. On the card, in Old English
script, he read:
“Miss Daisy Huston."
“I thank you, Miss Huston," he acknowleged,
gravely, handing back her card-case.
“Will you signal the driver to stop?” she re-
quested. They were now driving through the
western part of Washington.
When the driver found himself signaled he
reined up, then came to the cab door.
“You know where to go?” she said.
“Yes,” nodded the man.
“Drive there, then.",
The driver whipped up his horses to a better
speed, the vehicle bowling along now.
“I very much fear that I am running you into
danger," declared Daisy Huston, soberly. “Mr.
Benson, if you decide to leave the cab, or to have
me take you back to the center of the city, I shall
not imagine you to be lacking in courage.
“I cannot be in any greater danger than you
are, Miss Huston," Benson ventured, with a
smile.
“Oh, it is much different in my case," argued


214
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
the girl. “Donald Graves would not attack a
woman, especially the woman he had professed
to love."
“Miss Huston, do you feel like discussing this
matter any further?” hazarded the young act-
ing naval lieutenant.
“Yes; as much as you wish.”
“I confess to being a bit curious."
"About what?"
“Did Millard—Graves, I mean, have any great
reason to need money? More, I mean, than he
could earn by honest work?"
“Yes,” admitted Miss Daisy. “My mother
is dead. Under her will I inherit a considerable
little fortune when I am twenty-five. But it is
solely on condition that I have my father's per-
mission to marry
the man of
my
choice. I could
remain single until twenty-five, but I am only
nineteen, and Mr. Graves complained that it
would be an eternity to wait."
“Then your father did not approve Millard ?
I am going to call him that because the other
name is unfamiliar."
“My father feared that Donald was a fortune-
hunter. He said he would be satisfied if Donald
could show that he were rich in his own name."
“So, then, Graves, or Millard, hit
upon
the
plan of stealing our harbor fortification secrets
and selling them to another government,” said


FOR THE FLAG
215
Jack, meditatingly. “Yet I am puzzled to un-
derstand how he found the chance. There are
no foreigners openly engaged in buying our
national secrets."
"I think I can explain all that, though it will
be but guess-work,” replied Daisy Huston,
thoughtfully. “My father was for some years
minister to Sweden. He is still well acquainted
among foreign diplomats here in Washington.
Some of them are often at our house. Donald
must have met one there who tempted him, or
pointed the way to a fortune. Yes; I am cer-
tain that must be the answer."
“Did—but perhaps you don't like my asking
such questions?”
“No; I do not mind—now,” replied Daisy
Huston. “I began to feel as though I had been
an innocent party to Donald Graves's wrong-
doing. When I went to try to see you, this
afternoon, I supposed only that Donald had got-
ten into trouble through some filibustering ex-
pedition to Central America. I did not look
upon that as so serious, you see. But selling the
national secrets is quite another matter," she
added, bitterly. “I shall never care for the man
again. I have wrenched him from my heart in
these last few minutes. So you may ask me any
questions that will help to clear up the matter."
"Thank you, Miss Huston. Then did Graves,


216
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
or Millard, as I call him, express any hope of
becoming suddenly well to do?”
“Yes; and now I can understand how he has
lied to me. He let me believe that he hoped to
profit through mining concessions to Ameri-
cans that would follow the overthrow of one of
the petty despots in Central America."
“Yet Millard has been away from Washing-
ton much, has he not?”
“Most of the time during the last four
months. He generally managed to get over here
for one day out of the seven; sometimes two
days at a time.
“I believe the whole matter is becoming rather
clear in my mind. I do not mind telling you,
Miss Huston, how I first came to know the fel-
low. He was over at our shipyard in Dun-
haven, trying to get employment on the con-
struction of submarine boats. But something
in his manner made us suspect him, and he didn't
get near the secrets of any of our boats."
There was one other thing, however, that Ben-
son felt he would like to have cleared up. So
he inquired:
“How did you know that I was at the United
Service Club? Did Millard know? Did he tell
you to go there?”
“He guessed where you might be. He asked
me to drive to the club first; if you were not
-
-


FOR THE FLAG
217
there, then I was to drive to the Arlington.
Failing to find you at either place, I was to go
back to the hotel in the evening. In the event
of my finding you at the hotel I was to see you
in the ladies' parlor. But, oh! What can you
think of me, Mr. Benson, to have come to you
on such an errand–on a mission to save a be-
trayer of his Flag?”
“You came innocently, Miss Huston; that is
all that I can understand. And your whole at-
titude, since you discovered the truth, has been
that of a loyal American girl who would crush
her heart, even, for her country's honor.”
“It isn't going to be as hard as you think, per-
haps,” she smiled, bitterly, “to cast the man out
of my heart. The man that I now know Don-
ald Graves to be never was in my
heart. There
is no room, there, for a traitor."
She glanced out of the cab at the scene through
which they were passing. Jack Benson looked
at the same time.
“I am terribly uneasy, she confessed.
“Perhaps, even now, Mr. Benson, you had much
better leave this carriage and let me go forward
alone. I am a woman, and therefore safe.
But I fear-yes, actually fear for your life when
he finds out!”
“Don't be at all uneasy about me, Miss Hus-
ton,” begged Jack, with cool confidence. "I


220
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
a smile of cool disdain that the look in her eyes
heightened.
“Don't lie to me any more, Donald Graves,”
commanded the girl, steadily, “and don't de-
ceive yourself. Both tasks, I know, will be hard
for a' man so vile that he'd sell his country's
Flag!”
Millard stared at her in growing horror. Then
anger rushed to his face.
“Daisy !” he gasped. “Have you betrayed
me? Have you brought Benson here as an
enemy?”
Daisy did not answer her former lover. She
continued to gaze at him with an irony of ex-
pression that sent the hot blood mounting to his
head.
“Can't you speak?” he demanded. “Then,
Benson, why don't you talk?”
“Because,” replied Jack, “I am waiting for
Miss Huston to say to you all, or as little, as she
cares to say.
“Speak, then!” commanded Millard, turning
imperiously to the girl.
“And my command to you," retorted the girl,
Wis different. Silence! Never again address
me, you traitor to your Flag!”
Millard was swift to realize the fulness of
the girl's contempt. He knew that everything
between them was over.
>
/


FOR THE FLAG
221
“Come, come, then, girl!” he uttered, harshly.
“It is time for you to be gone! Step to the
cab and get away from here, for I would spare
you what is to follow—my reckoning with Ben-
son!”
He clapped his hands. The door opened, and
four men stepped out. Their type was not hard
to determine. They were of the scum of human-
ity-ready for any desperate deed.
CHAPTER XXII
"COM
THE PART OF ABERCROMBIE, R. N.
OME, girl, you must go!" commanded
Millard, harshly.
“I will not,” she replied, coldly,
“until my escort is ready to go with me.”
“He will not go with you,” replied Millard,
significantly. “And you must not remain.
What is to be done here is no thing for a dainty
woman to see.”
“Mr. Benson;" appealed the girl, “will you
enter the cab first?"
“If he does, the cab will not leave,” sneered
Millard.
All this while the four men who had just come
from the house were stealthily grouping them-
selves. Jack watched them alertly. He did not


222
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
intend to be taken unawares, yet he hesitated to
draw his pistol while Miss Huston was there.
“Go, girl!” Millard ordered again.
“I have told you, already, that I shall go only
when Mr. Benson gives the word and accom-
panies me," replied the girl, white but courage-
dus.
“Then we won't waste more time,” laughed
the wretch, harshly. “Since you will stay, then
you must be a witness of what you have
brought on my worst foe! Close in, men-get
him!'
As the men sprang to obey, and Jack dodged
nimbly back, Daisy Huston uttered a piercing
scream. The next thing she did was wholly
natural. Under the intense strain of her feel-
ings the girl fainted.
“Take her!” nodded Millard, to the driver,
who was plainly one of the desperate lot.
"Take her from here as fast as you can.
The driver, ready for his work, snatched up
the girl's light form.
“Have a care what you do—all of you!”
cried Jack Benson, warningly, and now, in his
hand, the revolver gleamed.
But one of the wretches, darting in at Jack's
right, from behind, aimed a blow with a cudgel
at the weapon. He struck it from the young
lieutenant's hand.


FOR THE FLAG
223
head, and sprang
Down to the ground it fell, but Lieutenant
Benson was as quick as thought, now.
He bent over, snatching up the weapon, then
ducked away from a follow-up blow at his own
back.
“You first, then, Millard!” cried the young
acting naval officer.
Full of purpose, Lieutenant Jack pressed the
trigger. It stuck. No report followed. That
blow from the cudgel had jammed the cylinder.
Having dropped the senseless form of Daisy
Huston in the cab the driver sprang to the box,
lashing the horses, just as Lieutenant Benson
discovered the uselessness of his weapon as a
firearm.
Then, indeed, young Benson knew that this
must be a fight to the very death. Yet he was
a naval officer at heart, as much as by special
appointment. At a time like this he held life
cheaply.
The first man to get within reach was laid
flat by a blow with the butt of Jack's revolver.
Instantly young Benson wheeled, to strike at
another pressing foe. Instead, he received a
glancing though painful blow on his own left
shoulder. Ere the assailant could recover, how-
ever, Benson leaped at him and would have
felled him had not Millard himself leaped in,
striking up the young naval officer's arm.


FOR THE FLAG
225
lard, hoarsely. "I'll take the position of at-
tack in front. Down him!'
“Guess which way I'm going to heave this.
stone!” cried Jack, tauntingly, as he half-
wheeled, so as to watch those trying to steal a
march in his rear.
"Bosh! You can soon stop that, men!”
jeered Millard, suddenly. “Fall back and get
a fistful of stones. Rain them in on the
youngster at a safe distance. One of you will
soon hit him and send him down!"
Young Benson gasped inwardly with dismay,
though his face did not blanch. Millard's fol-
lowers drew back to obey.
Yes! These fellows could throw small stones
from a much greater distance than the young
lieutenant could hurl the large one. They had
but to keep up this fire for a few seconds when
one of them was certain to hit him in the head,
putting him out of the fight.
Jack Benson dropped the big stone, though he
stood over it. Like a flash his revolver came
out again. Aiming at Millard, the young naval
officer made frantic efforts to make the cylinder
revolve. But the weapon proved to be hope-
lessly jammed.
“Now, keep on volleying the youngster with
stones until you have him down and wholly
out!” yelled Millard, hoarsely.
15-The Submarine Boys for the Flag.


226
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
The air seemed filled with stones. Jack
hopped about as nimbly as possible, dodging all
he could. Yet one part of his body after
another was hit.
Rat-a-tat-tat! Jack hardly comprehended
what this new noise meant when it grew in
volume. Then a horseman rode into the yard
at a charge.
“One down!” yelled the rider, with savage
glee, as he drove his mount squarely against one
of the wretches, bowling him over and under-
foot.
Hardly seeming to veer, the rider made for
another fellow, and barely missed him.
Just a second later, so it seemed, this valiant
rider hauled the horse on its haunches, and
swung back, heading for another wretch.
Millard leaped at the horseman, a stone in his
uplifted fist.
But Jack Benson saw him, and a well-planted
blow sent Millard to the ground.
“Bully good of you, Benson, old chap!”
called a hearty voice. Then the horseman
spurred forward, running down another of Ben-
son's late assailants. The two remaining bolted
as fast as they could go.
“Mr. Abercrombie!” cried Lieutenant Jack.
“Yes, it's I; and jolly glad I got here in good
time," laughed the British naval officer, whom



37
TL
"One Down!" Yelled the Rider.
227





FOR THE FLAG
229
this brief rollicking battle had made as gleeful
as a boy.
“But how on earth did you happen to turn
up?” asked Jack, a feeling of mystery coming
over him after he had glanced at Millard and
had made sure that the latter would "sleep" for
some time to come.
“Why, I was out for my afternoon canter,
dear old fellow," bubbled Lieutenant Aber-
crombie, R. N. “I was coming down the road
at a hard trot, don't you know, when a cab rolled
by. A young woman—and a deuced pretty one
-thrust her head out and shrieked at me. What
could I do? It was deuced extraordinary, and
I had to do something quickly, so I rode along-
side the cab and told the driver to hold up. I
must have looked unusually menacing, don't you
know, for, by Jove, the fellow obeyed me. Then
I reached up and yanked him down off the cab.
The fellow really started to blackguard me,
while the young woman was shouting some-
thing at me at the same time. I had to silence
the fellow, don't you know, so I could under-
stand the young lady.
So I struck him over
the head with the butt of my riding whip. My
word, I must have hit the blackguard hard, for
he just curled up and lay down. The young
lady sprang out of the cab and begged me to
hurry down here. She looked able to take care


230
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
of herself, so I just left my revolver with her,
and, by Jove, here I am-and deuced glad of
it.
'Pon my word, Benson, dear old fellow,
all the luck seemed to be running against
you."
--
“It was,” Jack admitted, dryly. “But now
I've got the man I came after. I've got to keep
him, too,” added Lieutenant Benson, gravely.
As he spoke, the submarine boy drew a pair
of handcuffs from an inner pocket.
“By Jove, do naval youngsters in this coun-
try carry such jewelry?” murmured Lieutenant
Abercrombie, R. N.
“They do, I guess, when they're engaged on
work like mine at present,” smiled Lieutenant
Jack, United States Navy.
“Now, then, by Jove, I think I'd better go
back to the young lady,” suddenly decided Aber-
crombie, for Millard still showed no signs of re-
covering his senses. One of the other two men
who had been ridden down now recovered
enough to begin to crawl away furtively.
“Do you want that chap?” asked Abercrom-
bie.
"I have no facilities for keeping him a pris-
oner," Jack answered. “For that matter, I
guess he's nothing but a hired tough. The
Washington police can find and take care of him
at their convenience."


234
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
stand that I'm helping," hinted the British
officer.
“That's mighty good of you," murmured
Jack. “Then we can do it easily.”
Daisy Huston had stepped from the cab.
She stood regarding the scowling captive.
“I'm glad I know you, Donald; glad I found
you out in time," she said, quietly, gazing hard
at him.
“I thought you a friend,” Millard retorted,
bitterly. “Great Heavens, Daisy, if you had
been on my side through thick and thin, in good
report and ill, I could have defied all these idiots
in Washington. What an ally you would have
been! But you chose to be an enemy.”
“An enemy to my country's enemies, yes,"
replied the girl, steadily.
“Do you hate me, Daisy?”
“I don't know,” the girl answered, thought-
fully. “Do you hate me,
Donald
Graves?"
“I wish I knew,' uttered the man. "But it's
hard to turn love like mine into hate at a mo-
ment's notice. Daisy, the nights are coming
when you'll wake up with a frightened start, and
sob as you remember how you turned me over
to-
“To the officers of the country that you have
done your best to betray,” broke in the girl,
now,


FOR THE FLAG
235
firmly. “No, no, Donald! Do not imagine that
I shall shed any tears for you, seen or unseen.
Mr. Benson, I am ready, if you wish to place—
your-your-prisoner in the cab beside me."
“It seems like a beastly outrage to do it,” mut-
tered Jack, full of misgivings.
“Not at all,” declared the girl, steadily. “I
am glad to see this man on his way to the bar
of justice.
Jack assisted Daisy Huston, with the utmost
deference, to a seat inside the vehicle. Then
he turned to motion to handcuffed Millard-or
Graves-that he was to take the seat beside the
woman he had hoped to make his wife.
“I'll ride close alongside, to make sure there's
no unpleasant conduct toward Miss Huston,”
volunteered Mr. Abercrombie.
Jack Benson again climbed to the cab box.
“You know I have the pistol,” muttered Jack,
showing the driver the weapon. “There's no
need to ride through the town with the weapon
in my hand. But, if you try to cut up any tan-
trums, you may be sure you'll find your own
wrists inside of handcuffs."
“I know when I ain't got no show at all,”
growled the sullen driver.
“Drive ahead, then-into Washington, and
straight to police headquarters.
Lieutenant Abercrombie, R. N., jogged his


FOR THE FLAG
237
forward, raising his hat, to take charge of the
young lady.
“Come along, Millard,” called Jack Benson,
quietly, and the prisoner got out, while the Brit-
ish officer stepped down the street with his fair
companion to find another carriage in which she
could return home.
Inside Jack marched his prisoner up to the
railing in one of the rooms. The young naval
officer at once produced his credentials and dis-
played them to the police official in charge.
“Now, with your permission, sir," Jack went
on, courteously, “I will use your telephone, and
inform the Navy Department of the prisoner
who awaits their action here."
Five minutes later this had been done. Ben-
son turned to Lieutenant Abercrombie, saying:
“I must apologize for not having thought to
return your revolver as soon as we entered."
“I would beg you to keep the weapon, dear
old fellow, if it would be of any use to you,”
replied the British officer.
And now Hal and Eph found chance to ex-
plain that they, worried by Jack Benson's dis-
appearance, had at last started down to head-
quarters to see if they could learn of any mis-
hap to him, or of any other explanation for his
long absence.
“Well, it's all over now," muttered Hal.


238
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
“Millard-or Graves-or whatever other name
the fellow may be using at this moment—is safe
in a cell downstairs."
“We thought, once before, that we had him
bottled up safely,” chuckled Lieutenant Jack.
“Mr. Abercrombie, how am I ever going to ex-
press my thanks to you?”
“I should feel extremely insulted, dear old fel-
low, if you thought it necessary to thank me,”
retorted the Briton, heartily.
“It will be dark, soon,” interposed Lieutenant
Ulwin. “I suggest that the best thing any of
us can do is to turn toward the club. I feel cer-
tain that the chef will have a famous dinner
there to-night.'
“We haven't any evening clothes, either citi-
zen or uniform, in Washington," interposed
Jack Benson, who knew something of the form-
alities of the service during the dinner hour.
“Come, just the same,” begged Ulwin. "The
members don't expect too much of fellows who
are traveling.”
Jack was glad of the walk, because it helped
to take the stiffness out of the knee that had
been struck.
“You let the cab driver go, did you?” asked
Eph, as the submarine boys walked along to-
gether.
“Yes,” nodded Jack. “I had no orders con-


FOR THE FLAG
241
the honor and dignity of being officers in the
German service."
“Very likely we do not, Captain,” Jack re-
turned, with a bow. “And it is absolutely cer-
tain that we shall never find out from experi-
ence."
Lieutenant Jack excused himself, turning to
seek his friends. As Benson entered the read-
ing room once more he came upon Eph and
another whose face was decidedly familiar. It
was the Chevalier d'Ouray.
“Just in time, Jack,” nodded Eph. “Tell the
Chev. for me, please as he doesn't seem to un-
derstand my talk, that we wouldn't even give
the slightest consideration to his idea that we
should enter the French naval service in the sub-
marine division."
“It is quite hopeless, Chevalier," laughed
Jack Benson, shaking his head. “The honor is
quite enough to turn our heads, but we can serve
only the United States."
The Chevalier d'Ouray made a low bow, then
turned away, for others were approaching.
"Where is Hal?" asked Jack.
“Crickety! Look at him over there, talking
to that little Japanese," muttered Eph, inclining
his head toward a corner.
Hal and a Japanese were talking earnestly.
At any rate, the little brown man was. Hal was
16-The Submarine Boys for the Flag -


242
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
1
listening, occasionally shaking his head. Then
Hastings happened to espy his chums. He
turned to the Japanese, to take his leave, but
the little brown man followed him across the
floor, still talking in low tones.
“Captain Nakasura has been trying to inter-
est me in the idea that we three go over to
Japan, under a three years' contract, to act as
instructors and advisers in submarine work,”
Hal told his comrades.
“And I have high hope that you will see mat-
ter same as I do,” smiled the Japanese attaché
persistently.
“We shan't,” Jack declared, shaking his head,
emphatically. “Captain, you are the third,
representing also the third nation, that has just
approached us on this matter. We shall serve
no other country than our own."
“But my government,”' urged the Japanese
officer, “will make you most handsome offer."
“Do you remember the day when we were
leaving Dunhaven, and you tried to overtake
us in a gasoline launch ?” asked Jack, with a
smile.
“Yes; very well," admitted Nakasura.
“Do you remember that we hoisted the signal,
N. D.? That meant 'nothing doing,' Captain.
Our answer is the same, and will be, to-morrow
and the next year.


244
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
want us, no other government can have us. We
stand by our own Flag.”
“Eh? What is this?” muttered Lieutenant
Ulwin, coming unexpectedly upon the pair.
“Foreign government competing for you lads,
Benson? This won't do!”
“Which is what I have just had the honor of
telling Mr. Abercrombie,” smiled Jack, earn-
estly.
CHAPTER XXIV
THEIR LIVES DEEDED TO THE FLAG
S
ECRETARY SANDERS, Secretary of the
Navy, looked up at the three young men
who stood in line at the right-hand side
of his desk.
It was two days later; two days during which
Jack, Hal and Eph had had little to do except
roam about Washington and see all the sights
of the National Capital. This they had varied
by dropping in at the United Service Club.
“Gentlemen,” remarked the Secretary of the
Navy, "you have not yet been relieved of your
detail to the gunboat ‘Sudbury.'
“It's coming now," thought each of the three
boys to himself, with a great wave of dismay.
“We are to be no longer of the Navy.'
“I will give instructions at once," continued


FOR THE FLAG
245
Secretary Sanders, “to have orders issued re-
lieving you from that duty.'
“Yes; it has come, "muttered Jack, drearily,
to himself. “Our service with the Navy is
over."
“Gentlemen,” and now, for a few seconds,
the voice of the Secretary seemed far away in-
deed, “I am sensible of all you have done for
your country, and above all, of the zeal you
have shown. Besides, I have in mind the fact
that you have made yourselves among the most
expert of all handlers of submarine torpedo
boats. If it can be arranged, I wish to keep all
three of you actively in the United States
Navy."
Jack Benson looked up with a gasp. His com-
rades were not less astounded.
“I am aware,” Mr. Sanders went on, “that
we could not expect you to enlist as mere ap-
prentices. In your own particular field of sub-
marine work you are amply fitted to hold offi-
cers' commissions. Yet, under the law, you
cannot be granted commissions until you are
twenty-one years of age. None of you are quite
eighteen.
“Therefore, it has occurred to me that you
can be appointed, specially, with rank, command
and pay, until you are twenty-one. The Presi-
dent agrees with me in what I have to offer.


FOR THE FLAG
247
“What do you say to that, Mr. Farnum?” in-
quired the Secretary.
From behind a screen stepped Jacob Farnum,
the Dunhaven shipbuilder.
“Why, see here, boys,” began Farnum, a
broad smile on his face, “I received a long wire
from Mr. Sanders yesterday. Dave Pollard and
I talked this thing over, and we decided that
the Pollard boat is now an assured success.
You have put the boats where we can now build
and run them without you. You are more
needed in the Navy. Now, Dave and I both urge
you to go where we know your hearts are-into
the Navy. And you will go with all our best
wishes. The government needs you, now, to
handle the boats that we build up at Dunhaven,
and to train war-crews for those boats. There
is only one objection to your entering the Navy,
boys. You will have to pass upon our boats.
We know you will do that honestly and fear-
lessly; yet there are many who would sneer at
having boats passed on for the government by
young officers who hold stock in our concern.
Now, the amount of stock that each of you holds
has been growing steadily with each new suc-
cess that you have won for us, which if you
enter the Navy you should not own. So Dave
and I offer you ten thousand dollars each for
the shares that you hold. It is a fair valuation.”


248
THE SUBMARINE BOYS
“I know it is, if you offer it,- Mr. Farnum,"
Jack Benson replied, with feeling.
“Then you'll accept, and take your very
heart's-wish—the Navy-all of you?” asked
Mr. Farnum.
“I accept both your offer, Mr. Farnum, and
the greater offer of the Secretary of the Navy,"
replied Jack, his eyes becoming misty.
“I accept,” murmured Hal.
“So do I," from Eph.
“Then, sir,” declared Jacob Farnum, turn-
ing to the Secretary of the Navy, “the Flag is
richer by three magnificent young followers!”
*
*
*
*
*
Here we must leave the submarine boys for
the present, for these events happened hardly
later than yesterday, and there are no new ad--
ventures yet to chronicle.
Donald Graves—Millard—received a severe
sentence in the penitentiary. He is still serving
the sentence, of course. Gray, his accomplice,
who attempted to spirit the drawings outside of
the United States, is now likewise serving a
term.
The trial was a swift, nearly secret one.
Daisy Huston was not dragged into the case at
all. In one respect the trial failed. Neither
culprit could be forced to tell for which foreign
government the dastardly work had been at-


FOR THE FLAG
249
tempted. The “Spitfire” returned to Dun-
haven, and was later sold to the government,
with several other boats. Williamson became
the new Pollard captain.
Several foreign governments were deeply dis-
appointed over not being able to secure the serv-
ices of the submarine boys.
But Jack, Hal and Eph could be happy no-
where except under their own Flag.
They are now accepted most cordially by all
their brother officers, young and old, in the
United States Navy.
For the most part, so far, the duties of our
young officers have been aboard the different
boats purchased from the Pollard Company.
Yet, for the sake of practice and change, they
have been, at times, detailed aboard other
classes of craft in the Navy.
We shall now encounter our young acting
naval officers in one of their new fields of special
work, in the next volume of this series, which is
published under the title: -“THE SUBMARINE
BOYS AND THE SMUGGLERS; Or, Breaking Up
the New Jersey Customs Frauds."
Here we
shall find our talented lads engaged in doing
some of their finest work for Uncle Sam's Gov-
ernment, and under circumstances that will de-
light every reader.
[THE END.]








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