LITMIR.BIZ

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came clicking into Joe Dawson’s watch-case receivers against his ears, a moment later. “Then I won’t bother you further. I trust you. But, oh, if you should fail! You don’t know what failure means – to me!”

      All this, of course, was clicked out in the dot and dash code of the Morse alphabet, but to Joe Dawson it was as plain as words spoken by the human voice.

      “You’re right, Mr. Seaton.” Joe’s busy right hand fingers clicked out the message on the sending key, while the electric waves sped from the aerials aloft outside. “We don’t know what ‘failure’ means. We won’t fail you. Good-bye.”

      Then Joe turned his attention to the “Constant.” The big Black B liner answered promptly. She was on the same course, and glad to know that the “Restless” was speeding over the sea to seek her.

      Having finished in raising the extended signal mast, and glancing into the motor room to see that the motors were running smoothly, Hank leaned against the raised deck top. The Long Island boy was hardly to be expected as a member of the crew of the “Restless” on this cruise, but he had wound up the summer season at East Hampton, and now, with idle September coming upon him, he had found the longing for the broad sea too powerful for him. Family conditions at home being satisfactory, he had promised himself this one month away from home, and was aboard as steward and general helper.

      “I wonder if our work for Mr. Seaton has started in earnest?” ventured Hank.

      “It has, for a few hours to-day, anyway,” smiled Captain Tom. “We’re cruising at full speed, and under orders from the man who chartered the ‘Restless’ for this month.”

      “But who can this Clodis be?”

      “I don’t know,” Tom Halstead admitted.

      “I wonder why Mr. Seaton is so mightily interested in him? What does Seaton mean by hinting at ruin and tragedies?”

      “Do you know what I think, Hank?” queried the young skipper, quietly.

      “What?”

      “I think it would be downright impudence on our part to get too inquisitive about the affairs of the man who employs us. We looked Mr. Seaton up, and found he had the reputation of being an honest man. That’s as much of his business as we have any right to want to know.”

      Hank colored, though he went on, in an argumentative way:

      “I s’pose that’s all true enough, Tom. Still, it’s human nature, when you smell a big mystery, to want to know the meaning of at least some of it. And I’m mighty curious, because I scent something unusually big in the air.”

      “So do I,” admitted the young skipper, giving the wheel another turn in order to hold the fast-moving boat to her course.

      “Then what–”

      “Hold on, Hank! Don’t be downright nosey. And, as for guessing–”

      “Why, Seaton as good as hints that there’s been a downright attempt to kill this man Clodis,” broke in Hank, who could not be repressed easily. “And Seaton is surely mightily worked up about it. And sending us out to take a passenger off a steamer bound for South America! Tom, do you s’pose that criminals are–”

      “Hank,” broke in the young skipper, half-severely, “there’s something squeaking on one of the motors. For goodness’ sake don’t let us break down on what we’ve been told is a life-and-death trip! Get below and see what’s wrong. Stand by to watch the performance of the motors.”

      Hank vanished, inwardly grumbling, for his curiosity was doing two hours’ work every minute.

      Captain Tom, after measuring on the chart, had figured on meeting the “Constant” in two hours and twenty minutes. Now, at every turn of the twin shafts the young skipper’s blood bounded with the desire to do his full duty in arriving on time. Yet there was not wanting pleasure, mixed with the anxiety. How good the fresh, salty air tasted, out here on the broad sea, with the low coast-line already nearly out of sight! Tom Halstead sniffed in breath after breath. His eyes danced as they beheld the spraying of white water cut and turned up by the boat’s fast prow. Oh, it was great to be out here on the deep, one hand guiding the course of one of the nimblest yachts afloat!

      Joe, as he came forward, felt this same wild exhilaration. Quiet, dutiful and law-abiding as both these Motor Boat Club boys were, there must have been much of the old Norseman Viking blood in their veins, for this swift dash over the rolling swell of the ocean was like a tonic to them both.

      “Say, isn’t it all grand?” demanded Joe, his cheeks glowing, as he paused on the bridge deck, taking in great whiffs of the purest air supplied to man.

      “Great!” admitted Skipper Tom, in a tone that was almost a cheer. Then he asked, gravely:

      “Any news?”

      “Mr. Seaton knows we have started, and expresses his pleasure. I’ve signaled the ‘Constant,’ and she’s still keeping to the same course, and will so continue.”

      “And the patient, Clodis?”

      “Still alive, Tom; but the ship’s surgeon offers no hope, and will be glad to have us take him onto the ‘Restless.’”

      “It must be something terrible to make Mr. Seaton so anxious about the man,” observed Tom, thoughtfully.

      “Yes,” nodded Joe. Then: “Say, Tom, I’ve just struck an easy scheme for connecting one of the armatures of the Morse register, aft, to a buzzer in the engine room. Then if I happen to be in the engine room when wireless messages are traveling through the air I shall know it.”

      In the next hour all three of the boys, though they did not talk much about it, were wondering about this tragedy of the deep sea that had called them into action. Though they could not as yet guess it, this present affair of theirs was but the start of a series of adventures more amazing than any they had ever dreamed of. Now, at the most, they were curious. Soon they were to know what it meant to be astounded; they were soon to know what it felt like to feel haunted, to find themselves assailed by dread after dread. Undoubtedly it was merciful for them that they could not, at this moment, peer behind the curtain of the immediate future.

      So, ignorant of what fate and destiny held in store for them, they were mainly intent, now, upon intercepting at the right point the big liner cruising swiftly southward.

      In another hour they made out smoke on the horizon where Skipper Tom judged the “Constant” to be. Later the spars of the steamship were visible through the marine glasses. Then the hull appeared. A few minutes later Captain Tom ran the “Restless” dashingly in alongside the great black hull of the liner, along whose starboard rail a hundred or more passengers had gathered.

      Turning the wheel over to Hank, Captain Tom Halstead snatched up the megaphone as the larger vessel slowed down.

      “‘Constant,’ ahoy!” bellowed the young skipper. “This is the yacht ‘Restless,’ sent to receive your injured passenger, Clodis.”

      “‘Restless’ ahoy!” came the response from the liner’s bridge. “We’ll lower our starboard side gangway, if you can come alongside safely.”

      The Motor Boat Club boys were at the threshold of their strangest, wildest succession of adventures!

      CHAPTER II

      SOME OF THE MYSTERY UNRAVELED

      “IF we can come alongside safely,” echoed Hank, disgustedly. “I’ll show ’em – and in a smooth swell of sea like this, too!”

      As the big steamship lay to, Hank steered in until Captain Tom, boathook in hand, made fast temporarily. Then Hank hurried up with a line with which he took a fast hitch.

      “Hey, there, you’ll pull away our side gangway,” roared down a mate, whose head and uniform cap showed over the rail above.

      “You don’t know us,” grinned Joe Dawson, quietly.

      By this time Tom Halstead was running lightly up the steps of the gangway. He

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