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      The Dreadnought Boys on Battle Practice

       CHAPTER I.

      A RED-HOT STOVE AND DESTINY

      "Isn't it a dandy picture – the real thing – just as I've always imagined it. Herc!"

      Ned Strong wheeled from the gaudily colored lithograph he had been admiring, and turned to a red-headed youth of about his own age – almost eighteen – who stood beside him in the postoffice and general store at Lambs' Corners, a remote village in the Catskill mountains.

      "It's purty as a yearling colt," responded the lad addressed, examining once more, with an important air of criticism, the poster in question. The lithograph had been tacked up only the day before, but by this time half the boys in the neighboring country had examined it.

      The poster represented a stalwart, barefooted jackie, in Uncle Sam's natty uniform, standing on the flying-bridge of a battleship and "wig-wagging" the commanding officer's messages. The bright-red signal flag, with its white center, which he wielded, made a vivid splash of color. In the background a graphically depicted sea, flecked with "whitecaps," was pictured. As a whole, the design was one well calculated to catch the attention of all wholesome, adventurous lads, particularly two, who, like our new acquaintances, had never seen any water but the Hudson River. Indeed, as that majestic stream lay twenty miles from their home, they had only set eyes on that at long intervals.

      "Look how that ship seems to ride that sea – as if those racing waves didn't bother her a bit," went on Ned, dwelling on the details of the poster, which was issued to every postoffice in the land by the Bureau of Navigation.

      "And look at the sailor," urged Herc Taylor, Ned's cousin. Herc had been christened Hercules by his parents, who, like Ned's, had died in his infancy, but Herc he had always been and was likely to remain.

      "What's he waving at – sea-cows?"

      "See here, Herc Taylor, this is serious. Wouldn't working for Uncle Sam in a uniform like that on a first-class fighting-ship suit you better than doing chores? How would a life on the ocean wave appeal to you, eh?" inquired Ned, with rather a mischievous twinkle in his blue eyes.

      "First-rate," rejoined Herc. "It makes me think of those sea stories – those you are so fond of reading, Ned, 'Frank on a Gunboat,' and the rest."

      "I guess a modern Dreadnought is a whole lot different to the vessels on board which Frank fought," smiled Ned; "but I must admit that that picture has put some queer notions into my head, too."

      "For instance, what?" demanded Herc, in whose eyes there was a glimmer which would have said plain as a pike-staff to those who knew him that the red-headed lad had come to some sort of determination.

      "For instance, that I'd like to be a sailor for Uncle Sam, and work my way up, like some of those admirals and naval heroes we've read about!" exclaimed Ned, with considerable animation.

      "Shake!" cried Herc; "that's what I've been thinking of ever since I saw that picture – "

      "Which was ten minutes ago," put in Ned.

      "Never mind; you haven't been looking at it any longer, and I can see that you are as hard hit by the idea of joining the navy as I am," briskly interrupted Herc.

      "I don't know but what you are right, Herc," rejoined Ned thoughtfully. "I've been thinking that if we go on as we are, we will be doing the same old round of duties on grandpa's farm ten years from now, just as we are doing to-day. Things don't change much in the country, as you know, while in the navy – "

      Ned stopped, but his glowing face and sparkling eyes finished the speech for him.

      "While in the navy, bing! bang! – Promotion. – Fire the guns! – Target! – Good shot! – First mate! – Medal! – Introduction to the president. – Up in the fighting-top. – Down in a submarine. – Bottom of the sea. – Top of the mast – whoop!" exploded Herc, in a way that he had when he was excited. It was for all the world like listening to the detonations of an exploding package of firecrackers.

      "Well, the poster here does say that there are a lot of good chances for promotion," soberly put in Ned, who had been examining the text below the lithograph with some attention, while Herc had been exploding. "I've a good mind to try it, Herc," he concluded suddenly.

      "Count me in on that, too," heartily rejoined his cousin, giving a few impromptu steps of what he declared was a sailor's hornpipe; "and when we're both admirals we'll come back here and astonish the natives – including Hank Harkins."

      "Who said Hank Harkins?" growled a harsh voice from the rear of the store, for the postoffice was tucked away in one corner of the Lambs' Corners Emporium, in which, it was the boast of its proprietor, you could buy anything from a needle to a gang-plow.

      As the words reached the boys' ears, a tall, hulking youth, of about their own age – shouldered his way through the knot of loungers gathered about the stove – for it was December, and cold.

      "I'll thank you two to keep my name out of your conversation," growled the newcomer, as he lurched up to the cousins.

      "Oh, we'd not use it unless we had to," rejoined Herc, facing round, his red hair seeming to bristle like the hackles on the back of an angry dog. "Since you were mean enough to persuade your father to post his land against us so that we could not take the short cut to the store, we are not likely to want to discuss your points, – good or otherwise – promiscuous."

      "See here, Herc Taylor," glowered Hank, who had considerable reputation in the village as a bully, and had sustained his renown as a hard fighter and wrestler in many a tough contest, "I don't know what you mean by promiscuous – "

      "No, I didn't think you would," grinned Herc cheerfully.

      "But I want to tell you here and now, that if I have any more of your impudence, I'm going to lick you, and lick you good," concluded the bully; his enmity to the two boys, who lived on an adjoining farm to his father's, not at all allayed by Herc's aggressive tone and evident contempt.

      "And I want to tell you that we don't want anything to do with you," retorted Herc; "we're mighty particular about our company."

      "You young whelp, I'll have to teach you some manners," grated Hank angrily, edging up threateningly toward the red-headed youth, who, for his part, did not budge the fraction of an inch.

      "You'll be a teacher who never studied then," retorted Herc hotly, as he turned away to join Ned, who had been regarding the disputants with narrowed eyes, but had said nothing so far. He knew Hank Harkins for a bully, and believed him to be a coward at heart, but he had no wish to get into a fistic argument with him in a public place like Goggins' store and postoffice.

      But by this time a number of the loungers about the stove had become attracted by the raised tones of Hank and Herc and crowded around the two; and Hank, nothing loth to having an audience, proceeded to give Herc what he elegantly termed a "tongue-lashing."

      "So far as posting our farm went," he sputtered vindictively, "you know why that was done, to keep you two from pot-hunting over it. Killing every rabbit you could and pulling down walls to get them out. Why," exclaimed Hank, turning to the auditors who stood with gaping mouths in various interested postures, "those two fellows made a hole in our south wall that let our whole herd of milch cows through, and – "

      He stopped short at a sudden interruption.

      "That's a lie." The words came from Ned Strong.

      "Yes, you know it is. You pulled down that wall yourself and then to escape getting in trouble with your father you blamed us for it," snapped Herc.

      The bully's face twitched. He grew pale with anger and his rage was none the less because he knew Herc's charges to be true.

      "Call me a liar, will you?" he gritted out, springing at Ned with considerable agility, considering his hulking frame and general appearance of clumsy strength.

      "Take that!"

      Smack!

      The bully's big hand landed fair on Ned's cheek, bruising it and raising an angry crimson mark.

      Unwilling

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