LITMIR.BIZ

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am Captain Tom Halstead, here at the Palace Hotel, awaiting your orders."

      "Is Dabson with you?"

      "Dawson, sir," Tom corrected. "Yes; Dawson is with me."

      "Then your whole crew is on hand?"

      "Yes, sir."

      "Good! Well, as the finishers are about through with their repair work on my boat we shall be ready to get you aboard without delay."

      "May I ask, sir, how big a boat – "

      "Captain, be at my office, all of you in uniform, at four o'clock exactly."

      "Very good, sir. Four o'clock."

      "Captain Halstead, punctuality is one of my failings," warned Joseph Baldwin's voice.

      "It's one of my studies, Mr. Baldwin."

      "Then, at four o'clock?"

      "Four o'clock, sharp, sir!"

      "Good-bye."

      Ting-ling-ling! Tom hung up the receiver.

      "Well," came an eager chorus. "What are we going to do?"

      "We're going to get into our club sailing uniforms," smiled Captain Tom, "and we're to be at Mr. Baldwin's office at four o'clock to the minute."

      "What sort of a boat – "

      "Cruising or racing – "

      "Coasting or sea-voy – "

      "You'll all of you have to cut out the questions," laughed Tom Halstead. "I've told you every blessed thing I've just learned over the 'phone. Fellows, I think our Mr. Baldwin is stingy – "

      "Stingy?" broke in Ab Perkins, with fine scorn. "And paying every one of us first-class salaries!"

      "Stingy of words," finished Captain Tom, calmly. "If our new employer keeps on as he has begun, we won't know anything he means to do until the time comes to do it. Then he'll give his complete orders in from six to eight words. That's the way it looks. Now, for your uniforms. Come along, Joe, and we'll get into ours. Mr. Baldwin, I omitted to tell you, did inform me – "

      Captain Tom paused, looking mysterious.

      "Told you what?" chorused Dick, Ab and Jed, eagerly.

      "That he's extremely partial to people who are punctual to the minute," finished Tom Halstead, making a sign that brought Joe along in his trail.

      Sailors are accustomed to quick dressing, as they are to quick work of all sorts. Hence the six motor boat boys, all looking decidedly neat and important in their uniforms and visored caps, were soon on their way to the elevator shaft. Soon afterwards they stepped from the Palace entrance to the street, making for the other side of Market Street at the first crossing.

      More than one swift pedestrian paused long enough to send a look back after these six trim, almost martial-looking young men, who walked in pairs and carried themselves like graduates of the Naval Academy.

      It was just five minutes before four o'clock when the sextette halted outside the Chronicle Building.

      "A couple of minutes to breathe," announced Halstead, watch in hand. Presently, he marched them into the corridor. Here, after a short wait, they stepped into one of the several elevators, leaving it a few floors from the street.

      "Sixty seconds yet to spare," whispered Captain Tom, smilingly, holding up his watch.

      Precisely at the dot of four o'clock the six motor boat boys filed in at the door of the Baldwin offices, after Halstead had turned the knob.

      In the outer office were several clerks, behind a railing. An office boy sat at a desk close by the gate of the railing.

      "Mr. Baldwin expects us at four," stated Tom to the boy. "Will you please tell him that Captain Halstead and party are here?"

      The boy disappeared. When he returned a briskly-moving man of fifty was at his heels. It was Joseph Baldwin, one of the rich men of the Pacific Coast, and one of its most daring promoters. He was a man who acted, ordinarily, as though the day were but five minutes long and crowded with business. Mr. Baldwin looked like a prosperous business man, though there was nothing foppish in his attire.

      "Captain Halstead?" he demanded, holding out a hand. The act was gracious enough, though hurried. In less than a minute Tom had presented his friends and all had been through the handshake.

      Back of Mr. Baldwin stood a clerk, holding his employer's hat.

      "I'm off for the day, Johnson," he announced. "Is the transportation at the door?"

      "Yes, sir. I just looked out of the window. Your transportation is ready."

      "Come along, Captain Halstead and gentlemen," directed Mr. Baldwin.

      Though he led them swiftly, another clerk had slipped out ahead of them, and now stood by the elevator shaft. A car was just stopping at the floor. Down the party whizzed. Mr. Baldwin led the boys to a street door, outside of which two automobile touring cars stood.

      "Captain, I want you and Dawson in the car with me. Let your friends follow in the other."

      Two tonneau doors closed with bangs. Off whizzed the cars. Speed laws did not appear to be made for the concern of a man like Joseph Baldwin. It seemed as though the cars had barely started when they ran out onto a dock not much to the westward of the ferry houses.

      A man in plain blue uniform and visored cap, wearing the insignia of a quartermaster, stood at the far end of the dock. He saluted as soon as he espied Joseph Baldwin hastening toward him.

      "I see you're on time, Bickson."

      "Yes, sir."

      By this time Mr. Baldwin was going down a short flight of steps to a landing stage. There lay moored a trim-looking sixteen-foot power tender.

      "Fall aboard," briefly directed Mr. Baldwin, and the motor boat boys, rather enjoying this systematized bustle, obeyed.

      Bickson, without waiting for orders, cast off, started the motor and sent the boat gliding out into the stream.

      "Quite a motor yacht that carries a quartermaster," observed Captain Halstead, with a smile.

      "I carry three," rejoined Mr. Baldwin, thrusting a cigar into his mouth and lighting it with a "blazer" match.

      In and out among the shipping the tender glided. Then, at last, Captain Tom caught sight of a graceful craft some hundred and twenty feet long. She looked like a miniature liner.

      "I wonder if I'll ever command a handsome craft like that?" thought the young motor boat skipper, with a brief pang of envy. "Jove! what a boat!"

      The next thing the motor boat boys knew they were running up alongside this hundred-and-twenty-footer. A young man of twenty-five or twenty-six, whose uniform proclaimed him to be a watch officer, stood at the top of a side gangway.

      "This can't be the boat – such a beauty!" gasped Tom Halstead, inwardly. Joe Dawson's eyes were full of wonder. Ab Perkins's lower jaw was hanging down in proof of his bewilderment. Dick Davis's face was flushing. Jed was staring. Only Jeff Randolph appeared indifferent.

      "How do you do, Mr. Costigan?" hailed Mr. Baldwin, leading the way up the side gangway. "Mr. Costigan, pay your respects to the new captain of the 'Panther.' Captain Halstead, Mr. Costigan, your third officer."

      If Mr. Costigan appeared astonished, Tom Halstead did not look less so. That he was really to command this big, handsome craft seemed to Tom like a dream. A moment before, when he had realized that the "Panther" was Mr. Baldwin's craft, the most the Maine boy had expected was that he and his companions would be allowed to stand watch in the engine room and on the bridge. But – captain!

      Third Officer Costigan, however, saluted in a most proper manner. Tom held out his hand cordially.

      "Presently, Mr. Costigan, I shall ask you to show me about this craft."

      "At your orders, sir," replied Costigan, again saluting his commanding officer, then making his way forward.

      "Here's

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