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wondering, sir, why you had to send all the way east for officers for the 'Panther'?"

      "Because I've had to get rid of two sets of officers," replied Mr. Baldwin, crisply. "One captain was too inquisitive, the other was incapable. Then I began to hear a good deal about your famous Motor Boat Club. That set me to corresponding with Delavan. He told me a lot more about you young men, and I couldn't get it out of my head that you were the sort of people I wanted."

      "You weren't afraid on account of our being so – well, youthful?"

      "I knew, if you'd suit Frank Delavan, you'd suit me. And I'm just as sure after having seen you all. Now, Captain Halstead, you'll be ready to sail at any time after seven this evening. That is the hour when my guests and I sit down to dinner aboard. At the time I'll give you your general sailing instructions. Remember, Mr. Costigan must be your pilot until you're out through the Golden Gate and clear of the coast."

      "Yes, sir," assented Halstead, rising. "Any further orders, sir?"

      "That is all, for the present, Captain."

      Tom Halstead left the owner's suite and walked forward, filled with a wonderful sense of elation. He passed the pilot house just in time to see Joe Dawson coming up forward.

      "Say, are we going to wake up, chum?" breathed young Dawson in his friend's ear.

      "I don't believe we'll have to," laughed the young skipper, happily. "We're all right, I'm pretty sure, if we don't do something that greatly displeases the boat's owner. Thanks to Mr. Delavan, the owner of this craft is willing to believe, at the start, that we're all that's good and wonderful. But come into my cabin, old fellow, if you have the time. We'll dine together to-night."

      Both motor boat boys sighed their supreme contentment as they dropped into arm-chairs facing each other. It was now so dark that Tom switched on the electric lights.

      "How are the engines, Joe?" asked Tom, dropping into his old, friendly manner.

      "Ready to start at a second's notice. And Jed's on duty there, waiting for the word."

      "Gasoline?"

      "Tanks bulging with it. Tom, this is a beautifully appointed boat below, and every store of every description is in place."

      "That's the kind of a man I'm pretty sure Mr. Baldwin is," nodded Halstead.

      Joe surveyed a row of speaking tubes that hung against the forward wall of the captain's room. He picked out one labeled "engine-room," pressing the button beneath it.

      "Hello, sir," came the quick response, in Jed Prentiss's unmistakable tones.

      "Hello, Mr. Prentiss," Joe returned. "How do you like it down there, on duty?"

      "It's perfect!" responded Jed, almost dreamily. "Everything here but my own personal steward. I ain't sure but what he'll blow in, in a minute, and ask me what I'll have for dinner."

      "Tell him we're scheduled to start at seven," suggested Halstead.

      "I can start in seven seconds, if I'm asked to," promised Prentiss. "Anyway, I can have the propellers turning fast before you can get the anchor up. Crackey! I forgot that I have to supply even the power for hoisting anchor."

      Twenty minutes later the two chums, who had begun their career by patching up an old steam launch down at the mouth of the Kennebec River, in Maine, were seated at table in the captain's cabin, doing justice to a meal that was but little short of sumptuous.

      The chief steward himself, a man named Parkinson, served the young captain and chief engineer. He hovered about, as attentive as any hotel waiter or private butler could have been.

      It was the second steward, however, who came in with the dessert for the two chief officers of the "Panther."

      "What has become of the other steward?" inquired the young captain.

      "Time for him, sir, to put on the finishing touches in the dining saloon," replied Collins, the second steward, who served also the junior officers and the crew.

      "If we eat like this at every meal, Joe," sighed Halstead, contentedly, when the second steward had removed the last of the things, "we'll have to devote all the rest of the time to exercising off extra flesh. Let's get out on deck."

      "All right. But I mean to be in the engine-room when the start is made."

      At the side gangway the chums stepped quickly past, to make way for half a dozen men who were coming up over the side, while Mr. Costigan stood respectfully by to receive them. They were guests of the owner just coming on board for the night's cruise. One of these newcomers went directly to Mr. Baldwin's suite.

      "Owner's compliments, sir," called Parkinson, softly, as he came hurrying after the young sailing master. "Mr. Baldwin wishes to see Captain Halstead on the jump, sir."

      The call had come for the brisk beginning of the strangest duties in which young Halstead had ever been employed.

      CHAPTER IV

      HALSTEAD IS LET INTO A SECRET

      "Captain Halstead, my friend, Mr. Jason Ross," announced Mr. Baldwin, crisply, as soon as the young skipper had closed the owner's door behind him.

      Mr. Ross was a man of forty-five, and looked like a man who might be of much importance in the financial world. Yet he was presented to Halstead, for on a yacht the captain is considered next in importance to the owner.

      Tom modestly greeted Mr. Ross.

      "Sit down, Captain," snapped out the owner, though not unkindly. "Now, I've got to take you into my confidence a bit. Delavan's word for you makes me feel that I can safely do it."

      Tom had only time to nod ere Mr. Baldwin went on, crisply:

      "My guests are on board, with one exception. In a way, the exception is the most important one of us all. He isn't so very important in himself, but Gaston Giddings, though a very weak, foolish young man, happened to succeed his father in the principal control and presidency of the Sheepmen's National Bank. Young Giddings and the funds his bank can supply are of the utmost importance to my associates and myself in some big enterprises we are putting through. Do I make myself clear?"

      "Wholly so, sir," Tom answered, quietly.

      "Now, Giddings, besides being several kinds of plain and ornamental fool – no, I won't quite say that, but this weak young man has one fearful fault for the head of a bank – "

      Joseph Baldwin paused in his rapid speech. He looked sharply at Mr. Ross an instant, then continued:

      "Oh, well, Frank Delavan told me I could trust you and Dawson with anything from my yacht to my reputation. You understand that what I'm telling you, Captain, is absolutely confidential?"

      "Of course, sir," responded Tom, quietly.

      "Well, then, within the last three months young Giddings has, in some way we can't understand, fallen a victim to the opium habit. The young man is all but totally wrecked by the vile drug. How, or why, he started, none of us can understand. You see, a good many of us older men, who were fast friends of his father, have tried to stand by the young man. Two of to-night's party are directors in the Sheepmen's Bank. We've tried to get the bank's funds placed in interests that we control, so that young Giddings couldn't go very far wrong, by not having enough money left in his charge to wreck the bank. You follow me?"

      "I – I think so, Mr. Baldwin."

      "Truth to tell," pursued the owner, "I had planned – my friends on board with me – to go out ostensibly for one night, but really to be gone for several days. One of our friends is a specialist in the opium habit – Dr. Gray. We had hoped, on this trip, to plan some financial enterprises that would use up, for the present, the dangerously large balance at the Sheepmen's Bank. At the same time we were going to try to force young Giddings to agree to heroic medical treatment in order to overcome his fearful vice."

      Tom Halstead remained silent, but attentive.

      "Now, at the last moment," pursued Mr. Baldwin, "we hear that Giddings was seen in a closed carriage, evidently headed for Chinatown, that vile Oriental section

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