The Project Gutenberg eBook of Motor Matt's Defiance; or, Around the Horn, by Stanley R. Matthews.

Issued Weekly. By subscription $2.50 per year. Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1909, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress,
Washington, D. C., by Street & Smith, 79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York, N. Y.

CHARACTERS THAT APPEAR IN THIS STORY.

Motor Matt, a lad who is at home with every variety of motor, and whose never-failing nerve serves to carry him through difficulties that would daunt any ordinary young fellow. Because of his daring as a racer with bicycle, motor-cycle and automobile he is known as "Mile-a-minute Matt." Motor-boats, air ships and submarines come naturally in his line, and consequently he lives in an atmosphere of adventure in following up his "hobby."

Carl Pretzel, a cheerful and rollicking German boy, stout of frame as well as of heart, who is led by a fortunate accident to link his fortunes with those of Motor Matt.

Dick Ferral, a young sea dog from Canada, with all a sailor's superstitions, but in spite of all that a royal chum, ready to stand by the friend of his choice through thick and thin.

John Henry Glennie, Ensign, U. S. N., representing the U. S. Government on board the Grampus during her long trip around South America.

Captain Enrique Sandoval, of the Chilian warship Salvadore, a sailor who has a faculty for gathering wrong opinions, and an equal facility for setting himself right and doing justice to those whom his mistaken ideas have wronged.

Captain Ichi, and other officers as well as the crew of the mysterious steamship which plays many parts and sails under many flags, the Sons of the Rising Sun, fanatic patriots of Young Japan, to whom nothing is considered valueless that benefits Nippon!

Garcia and his four comrades, escaped convicts from the penal settlement at Punta Arenas.

Gaines, Speake and Clackett, crew of the Grampus.

CHAPTER I.

"Then break out the Chilian ensign, lieutenant. My compliments to the officer of the deck, and tell him to double the lookout and have a sharp watch kept. If we raise a Chilian ship, haul down the flag, and run up the British flag; if a British ship is sighted, then haul German bunting to the gaff. In any other event, leave the Chilian flag flying. Eternal vigilance is the price of our success for our beloved country, lieutenant."

The swarthy little lieutenant withdrew, his slant eyes gleaming. A few minutes later he clattered to the bridge and repeated Captain Ichi's orders to the officer of the deck, then, descending, he walked to the door of the wireless room.

A young man in his shirt sleeves bent over a table, the wireless "receivers" pushed close to his ears and held there by his fingers. At sight of the lieutenant, whose lips he could see moving, although his stopped ears had not allowed him to hear the question, Kaneko removed the helmet.

"Nothing yet, lieutenant," said he. "I have been two hours getting the instrument to spark properly. A damp helix and a feeble motor were the cause; but now I am ready, and waiting."

The lieutenant turned away from the door and passed to the port rail. The steamer was standing off and on[Pg 2] the coast near the entrance to Magellan Strait. As the lieutenant peered landward, he surveyed the cape, and the long spit of low, sandy land stretching southward. He was somewhat familiar with the English coast, and this South American headland he likened to Berry Head, at the north of Torbay.

Turning from the rail, the lieutenant lifted his eyes to where the phosphor-bronze aërials swung between the mastheads, the wires of each "T" held rigidly apart by their wooden stretchers. A passionate look flamed into his yellow face and gleamed from his slant eyes.

"Come, honorable Hertzian waves," he murmured, with a queer gesture of appeal directed at the swinging wires; "give the Sons of the Rising Sun the telltale sparks, the beautiful blue sparks! Let them spell success for Nippon and disaster for the American submarine!"

Taking a little image from his pocket—the image of a sitting Buddha—the lieutenant placed it on the heaving deck and prostrated himself before it. Then, in low breath, he murmured his supplications to the senseless ebony. In the midst of his appeal, a stifled crashing sound came from the wireless room. Starting to his feet, the lieutenant caught up the little idol and returned it to his pocket. Exultation arose to his lips, for his upward-turning eyes saw a blue spark wavering at the ends of the aërials, and to his ears came the hiss and crackle of broken sound as the wires plunged back and forth with the roll of the ship.

The operator appeared in the door of the "station" and nodded. The lieutenant rushed aft to notify the captain.

Presently Captain Ichi arrived in the wireless room and sank into a chair by the table.

The operator shook his head respectfully and continued to listen and to pencil what he heard on a tab of paper. Finally he settled back in his chair.

"Then answer," was the calm reply. "Say this is the Salvadore and ask what Punta Arenas wants."

There was not a quiver in the captain's voice, and not a tremor in Kaneko's fingers as he caught the handle of the big key. Slowly but firmly he worked the key up and down. A blue spark exploded in the gap between the brass knobs of the discharging rods. Sounds like the explosion of firecrackers echoed through the room.

Throwing off his switch, Kaneko jerked the phones over his ears. The captain watched Kaneko's pencil moving over the white paper.

"Five convicts escaped from Punta Arenas last night in a sloop-rigged boat. Watch for them."

Kaneko sent the message. Five minutes, ten minutes, passed; then came the question:

"The United States submarine, in charge of one Matt King, is going around the Horn. Watch for her; pay her a visit if you can, and have the craft carefully looked over. The submarine Grampus is a marvel of her kind, and a long way ahead of any other under-water boat yet launched."

"Three days out from the River Plate," was the answer, "and must be well below Cape Virgins by now."

As the spark and sputter ceased, Kaneko jerked off his helmet. Captain Ichi had leaped to his feet, and now reached out to grip the operator's hand.

"For the present, Kaneko," he cried, "this is the Chilian war ship Salvadore, and we of the Young Samurai are in the Chilian naval service."

"The Grampus will be expecting a call from us," pursued the captain. "Who knows but the United States authorities have asked the Chilian government to have the Salvadore meet the submarine and escort her to Valparaiso, thus affording her protection from the Sons of the Rising Sun?"

"Exactly so, captain! We shall find the Grampus, and we shall prevent her from falling into the hands of the United States Government at Mare Island."

"We shall!" and a look of grim determination crossed the captain's face as he moved hurriedly toward the door.

Captain Ichi, pausing a moment, pulled a flag of his island empire from his pocket and pressed it to his lips. Just outside the door of the wireless room he met the lieutenant, repeating to him what had taken place in the "station." The lieutenant slapped his hands ecstatically.

"We will call on these Americans who are taking the submarine to Mare Island," said the lieutenant. "It is a rare chance to accomplish our work, Captain Ichi!"

"There could not be a better chance! If possible, the submarine must be destroyed in these southern waters. That, you know, will give us an opportunity to change the color of our vessel and continue our peaceful cruising toward Europe! Our government will never know that we were the ones who destroyed this menace to our beloved Nippon!"

"We should be heavily punished. Even if the United States found it out, their government would demand that we be hung."

"Harikari? Yes—perhaps that may be best, anyway. We have but one life to give for Nippon."

"And we have vowed to give it! Captain, may I be one of those who visit the Grampus?"

"I am sorry," said he, "but those who put off to the submarine must have straight eyes! This Motor Matt is one of the sharpest Americans I ever had anything to do with. Slant eyes, lieutenant, would prove that we are not Chilians. Only those who have such eyes can go in the boat."

The captain turned and made his way to the bridge. There were two lookouts at the masthead, each watching the surface of the ocean with powerful binoculars.

Captain Ichi gave the quartermaster his course and signaled the engine room for the best speed.

The steamer, flaunting her false colors, bore swiftly away to the southward and toward Cape Horn, bent upon an act of treachery which, to the misguided minds of officers and crew, seemed an act of the highest patriotism.

CHAPTER II.

"It ought to—providing there is anything for it to work with. When you talk by wireless, Dick, you know there has got to be a second instrument within reach of your Hertzian waves. Lucky we were able to pick up that wireless instrument in Buenos Ayres. Lucky, too, that Ensign Glennie knows how to use the key and to talk Spanish."

Just behind a bold headland to the north of Cape Virgins and within the mouth of the River Gallego, the submarine Grampus was anchored. The shore of the little bay lay steep to, the submarine being moored within a jump of the wooded bank.

Wires issued from the conning-tower hatch of the craft, crossed the stretch of water, and climbed a high tree that had been stripped of its branches. From the top of the tree hung the aërials. Below deck, in the periscope room, was the instrument, with John Henry Glennie, Ensign, U. S. N., waiting at the key.

"Are you sure, matey," went on Dick, "that that was the Jap steamer our lookout raised from the headland?"

"We can't be sure of anything where those Japs are concerned. The steamer was of about the same size, although differently painted. But, then, paint is cheap, and it sometimes makes a big difference in a boat's appearance. The suspicious circumstance is that, while she was passing the mouth of the Gallegos, she pulled down the cross of St. George and ran up the Chilian flag."

"And she had two wireless masts!" exclaimed Dick. "These Sons of the Rising Sun are wily chaps, but, seeing that we have come from Para, all down the eastern coast of South America without any trouble, I was beginning to think the Japs had given up, and that they were going to let us finish our long cruise without paying us any more attention."

"Remember what Mr. Brigham, the American consul at Para, told us, Dick—that these fanatical young Japs never turn back once they have set their hands to a piece of work. Our business is to get the Grampus around the Horn and into the hands of the commandant of the navy yard at Mare Island, and collect a hundred thousand dollars for Captain Nemo, Jr. The Sons of the Rising Sun came near winning while we were on the way from Port of Spain to Para, and the mere fact that we got the best of them isn't going to cause them to throw up their hands and haul off."[A]

"If there's a wireless machine on that steamer," observed Dick speculatively, "it doesn't seem to me that she can belong to the Japs."

"It was probably easier for the Japs to install a wireless apparatus than it was for us. Undoubtedly they had every part of the machine in the hold of their vessel when they left their own country. As for us, we had to pick up a second-hand instrument at Buenos Ayres. I don't know that wireless telegraphy is going to help us any; but there's a chance that it may, and we can't neglect any chance if we want to clip the claws of the dragon."

"Right-o, old ship! Brigham told us not to let any one know what ports we were to call at, or what course we were going to take. If that steamer belongs to the Japs, those aboard won't know whether we're going through Magellan Strait or around the Horn."

"Our orders," said Matt reflectively, "carry us around the Horn, but those orders were given when it was not known that the Sons of the Rising Sun were after us."

"It was a good scheme putting in here and sending a lookout up on top of that headland," and Dick peered up toward the high point where Speake was sitting with a glass to his eyes. "If you hadn't done that, you'd never have seen that steamer, or——"

"Strike me lucky!" he broke off, grabbing Matt's arm in a tense grip. "What does that mean?"

"It means," answered Matt excitedly, shaking off Dick's hand and hurrying toward the conning tower, "that Glennie is in communication with somebody. Stay here and watch, Dick, while I go below."

In the periscope room all was excitement. Clackett, Gaines, Carl, and Glennie were grouped about a table which, loaded with sending and receiving apparatus, completely filled one end of the chamber. Ensign Glennie, stripped to his shirt, was humped over the key, cramming the ear phone to the side of his head and listening breathlessly. Matt pushed close and looked on with deep interest.

"I can't make out," was the ensign's disappointed answer. "This old second-hand instrument don't seem to be keyed properly, or else we're out of the zone of the ether waves and only catch snatches of—— Ah!" he finished, jumping for the table again.

"I caught that," he said. "It was Spanish. 'This is the Chilian war ship Salvadore,' ran the message; 'what do you want?' It was clear as a bell, and was sent from [Pg 4]some 'station' fairly close. There comes the answer, and I can't make head or tail to it—the sending instrument is too far away."

"It must come from Punta Arenas, in the strait," averred Matt. "That's a Chilian settlement, and the station there is talking with the war ship."

"Or with that mysterious steamer that passed here a few hours ago," qualified Glennie.

"Py chimineddy!" muttered Carl. "Schust to t'ink dot all dose t'ings vas t'rown troo der air, und——"

"Then we'll get into communication with the boat. Ask if she's the Chilian war ship Salvadore."

The Spanish words ran crackling up the wires to the top of the tree and jumped off into space.

"Now give them this," said Matt: "'The United States submarine, in charge of one Matt King, is going around the Horn. Watch for her, pay her a visit, if you can, and have the craft carefully looked over. The submarine Grampus is a marvel of her kind, and a long way ahead of any other under-water boat yet launched.'"

"Vy, Matt, dot's a gifavay!" gasped Carl. "Prigham saidt dot ve vasn't to dell anypody vere ve're going."

A few minutes later Glennie translated into English the words that had come to his sharp ears.

"Tell them," said Matt resolutely, "that she's three days out from the River Plate, and may be well below Cape Virgins by this time."

"Ach, lisden!" whispered Carl. "Pelow Cape Firgins—und here ve are to der nort', in Gallegos Pay."

"They say they will watch for her," reported Glennie, after sending the message and getting the answer.

"Tell them, Glennie," said he, "to try and pick her up before she gets around the Horn."

"They say they'll try," announced Glennie presently. "Now," he finished, removing the ear phones, "I'd like to know what you're trying to do, Matt."

"It's a cinch, I think," replied Matt, "that you've been talking with that steamer that passed the headland, bound south, a few hours ago."

"She hauled down the British ensign and hauled up the Chilian flag as she passed."

"She says she's a Chilian war ship," went on Matt, "but she had no guns. If she's not a war ship, she's not Chilian; and if she's not Chilian, she's Japanese; and if she's Japanese, she belongs to the Sons of the Rising Sun, who are trying to lay a trap for us. Here's where we have a chance to clip the dragon's claws—and we've virtually accomplished it by wireless."

"Gaines," said he, "you and Clackett strip those wires off that tree and call Speake down from the top of the hill. Carl," he added, "you help Glennie clear these instruments out of the periscope room. They've served their purpose better than I ever dreamed they would when we took them aboard at Buenos Ayres."

Gaines and Clackett at once shinned up the iron ladder to carry out their orders. Carl and Glennie began carrying the wireless machine into the steel room abaft the periscope chamber. Meanwhile Matt was overhauling some charts, which he had spread out on top of the locker.

Dick, Speake, Clackett, and Gaines—the two latter with the coil of wire and the aërial points—came down into the periscope room before Matt was through.

"Get up the anchor and cast off the mooring ropes, old chap," Matt answered, getting to his feet. "If that boat we were talking with really belonged to the Japs, then she's hustling for the Horn to overtake us. While she's beating around the southern end of Terra del Fuego, we'll pass through the Strait of Magellan and reach away up the coast of Chili."

"Hoop-a-la!" exulted Carl. "Dot's der vay der king oof der modor poys fools der Chaps! Vile dey look for us von blace, den ve scoot out some odder blace!"

"You're aboard as the representative of the United States Government, Glennie," said Matt. "If we try to go around the Horn, there's no telling what will happen. A hundred thousand dollars is trembling in the balance, and ought we to take chances with it? It's for you to say."

Motor Matt had reasoned wisely; but the failure of their wireless instrument to catch the messages from Punta Arenas was to cause them a vast amount of trouble.

CHAPTER III.

Matt knew why the original orders given him by Captain Nemo, Jr., carried the Grampus around the Horn. For a vessel that depended on anything but sails for motive power rounding the Horn was no difficult matter. In those southern waters bad weather prevails, but it was possible for the submarine to dive downward and escape the gales and the rough seas. Magellan Strait, on the other hand, was difficult of navigation. Captain Nemo, Jr., had specified a course around the Horn in order to expose the Grampus to as little hazard as might be. He had not known, of course, that Matt and his friends were to be beset by such relentless foes as the Sons of the[Pg 5] Rising Sun. Matt preferred to risk the difficult passage of the strait rather than to take chances rounding the southern tip of the continent.

It would have been possible for him, of course, so to word his wireless message as to carry the mysterious steamer through the strait, leaving the Grampus free to take the course originally laid down for her. But that would have given the steamer the shortest course to the Pacific, and she could have been waiting in Smyth Channel, at the western end of the strait, when the submarine came picking her way among the islands. On the whole, it seemed to Matt better that he should send the mysterious steamer around the Horn, and so get ahead of her for the run up the Chilian coast.

The barometer had been falling rapidly all afternoon, and Matt was in a hurry to round Cape Virgins and find anchorage in Possession Bay, there to submerge to a good depth, avoid the storm, and pass the night. While in the strait they would have to do their navigating by daylight, and either sink to the bottom or tie up during the hours of darkness.

While the Grampus was still at the surface, Matt pushed through the hatch to get a look at the sky. Off to the south the heavens were black as the inside of a tar barrel, and through the heavy gloom ran vivid lines of lightning. The wind was high and constantly increasing, so that the waves were lashed furiously. But the rollers were long, and when the submarine crossed one high wave, she slid down the watery hill like a toboggan, ramming her sharp nose into the next comber, and flinging the scud high over the conning tower.

Our friends aboard the craft were hurled about at every angle, and it was necessary for those who had to remain at their posts to lash themselves securely in order to avoid being thrown against the machinery, or the steel plates of side or bulkhead.

Matt closed and secured the hatch, after which he slid down the ladder. Speake, tied to rings in the forward bulkhead of the periscope room, was watching the periscope and doing the steering. The floor underneath seemed to tumble around like the back of a rearing horse.

"We're getting it good an' proper, Matt," said Speake. "For exercise in ground an' lofty tumblin', a submarine in a seaway takes the banner."

"We'll submerge," said Matt, "but I'm in hopes we can get around Cape Virgins and into Possession Bay before the worst of it hits us."

The pounding of waves against the hull caused a dull roaring throughout the boat, almost deadening the "ay, ay" that came from Clackett.

Presently, as the ballast tanks slowly filled, the Grampus sank until only five feet of the periscope mast was out of water. The motion of the boat was perceptibly easier, but steering by periscope was difficult. Huge waves flung themselves at the ball that capped the mast and thus sponged out the view that should have been reflected on the mirror. Only at intervals could a view above the surface be obtained.

Matt called Dick and had him lash himself at the periscope table, thus leaving Speake free to attend to the wheel.

"Keelhaul me!" muttered Dick. "It's as black as your hat all around us. And lightning! I'm a Fiji if I ever saw it so sharp."

"I can see something off to starboard that looks as though it might be the cape."

"Well, after we once get around that we'll be in quieter waters and will submerge for the night. Keep your eyes peeled, Dick. This would be a bad time to collide with some steamer just leaving the strait."

Matt, braced on the locker, fell to examining the chart again. While he was at it, a yell of amazement and consternation came from Dick.

"An overturned boat," gasped Dick. "I saw it in a trough of the waves just as the periscope cleared—and there were men lashed to the bottom!"

Just then the periscope ball shook itself free of the waves, and the tumbling sea lay under Matt's eyes. As the darkness was lighted by a glare of lightning, the young motorist was thrilled by the vivid glimpse thus given him of the overturned boat. It was about a hundred feet away on the starboard side, and, at that moment, was being hurled high on the top of a comber. There were five dripping forms on the boat's bottom—Matt saw that much before another wave drenched the periscope ball.

"What're you going to try to do?" demanded Speake, as Matt began throwing coils of light, strong rope out of the locker.

"There are five men on that overturned boat," was the determined answer, "and we're going to save them."

"It's as much as your life is worth, Matt," returned Speake earnestly, "to bring the Grampus to the surface and venture out on deck."

"It's our duty to do what we can," said he. "We can't leave those five men to be washed into the sea and drowned."

"No more we can't," seconded Dick, likewise beginning to peel off his extra clothing. "Watch your old periscope yourself, Speake. I wouldn't give tuppence for those fellows' chances if we don't snatch 'em off."

At that moment Carl and Glennie came rolling into the periscope room. It took Matt only half a minute to tell them of the work that lay ahead.

"Dick and I will tie ropes around us and go on the deck," said Matt. "Glennie will stand in the tower and do the steering. Dick and I will each carry the spare ends of a couple of ropes with us, and the coils will be left down here in the periscope room. As soon as one of the[Pg 6] men makes fast to a rope, Carl and Speake will tail onto it and haul him aboard."

Clackett must have thought that a strange order, but he was there to obey, and the tone of Matt's voice told him clearly that instant compliance was wanted.

The splash of the turbines could be heard, and the Grampus began rising into rougher water.

"I'll go out first," said Matt, stepping to the ladder. "You follow me, Dick, and, Glennie, you come last."

Matt lingered a moment to pick up an iron wrench and secure it to the end of one of the ropes that was going aloft with him, and then made his way up the ladder.

By then the Grampus was rolling and pitching on the surface, and when Matt opened the hatch, a wave swept over his head, nearly smothering him and hurling him fiercely against the inner wall of the tower.

It looked like suicide to venture out into the waves that hurled themselves over the rounded deck of the submarine, but he watched his chances, got over the edge of the tower and crawled to the steel periscope mast. Just as he reached it, another wave flung itself over the boat. Had his arms not been around the mast, he would have been plucked bodily from the deck and swept into the sea.

As soon as the wave had passed, he tied his life line to the stout steel upright, and stood erect. Just then the submarine was riding a wave, and he saw the overturned boat to the north and on the port side—twice as far away as when he had first seen her through the periscope.

Dick was on the other side of the tower, lashing himself to the flagstaff, and Glennie was out of the hatch to the waist line.

Talking, at such a time, was impossible. Matt pointed in the direction of the overturned boat, and the faint tinkle of the motor-room bell below was heard as Glennie signaled for a turn on the port tack.

As the Grampus came around, she was rolled like a barrel, Matt, Glennie, and Dick, all three, being entirely submerged. But the stout craft was nothing more than a big air chamber, and so long as her plates held together she was practically unsinkable.

Righting herself, the submarine brought the three boys up out of the whirling maelstrom of water.

Matt looked behind. Glennie, dauntless and determined, still reared above the hatch, peering ahead and directing the course; and Dick, farther aft, was hauling at one of his spare lines, coiling it in his hand and making ready to cast as soon as the Grampus came close enough to the overturned boat.

CHAPTER IV.

The southern horizon had become almost a continuous glare of lightning. This was a help to the rescuers, otherwise the deep gloom that prevailed would have rendered it impossible for them to do anything. The thunder rolled heavily, and this, united with the splash and roar of the sea, lent an accompaniment to the scene well calculated to try the strongest nerves.

At times, Matt, Glennie, and Dick seemed to be adrift in the waste of waters with no substantial foothold under them. Rounded deck, and even the conning tower, were covered with the creaming waves. When they were not completely deluged, the stinging spray was hurled into their faces, temporarily blinding them.

Glennie, however, kept his wits about him. Dick and Carl had never liked the ensign, principally because his naval rank and his family pride seemed to have gone to his head, enlarging it. But the way Glennie hung to the conning tower, keeping his eyes in the direction of the overturned boat and his hands on the steering and signaling devices in the inner side of the tower, made a good deal of a hit with Dick.

By dexterous manœuvring, Glennie brought the Grampus to windward of the five men. He did not dare halt the submarine, for to try and hold her powerless in that rolling tumult would have invited disaster. Matt and Dick, understanding this, prepared to hurl their ropes as they came close to the other boat.

In some manner the five men had contrived to lash themselves to the keel of their boat. They saw how gallantly the king of the motor boys and his friends were trying to rescue them, and waved their arms encouragingly. They must have shouted, too, although their voices were lost in the bedlam of sounds that surrounded them.

Matt, being forward of the conning tower, came near the overturned boat first. He had his weighted rope coiled in his hand, but did not cast it immediately. He was holding back until the next wave should lift the submarine. At that time the five men would be in the trough, and this would give him a "downhill" cast.

Dick preferred not to wait. His line flew out, but was caught by the fierce wind and twisted from the hands that were stretched to grasp it.

The next moment the Grampus was lifted high, and Matt swung the wrench. The rope uncoiled in his hand, was caught by one of the men on the forward part of the wreck, and there was a cable stretched between the two boats. But what happened during the next minute was hardly expected.

As the submarine poised on the crest of the wave, her propeller was out of the water, and racing; then, as the wave rushed on, the Grampus fell away in the trough, rolling her deck plates under. The wreck was lifted, and the pull of the line and the motion of the sea threw it over almost on top of the submarine.

The wooden hulk struck the iron plates a tremendous blow. All three of the boys had a narrow escape. Had the Grampus delayed two seconds in taking the windward roll, they would have been crushed under the impact of the two grinding hulls.

The submarine, however, righted just in the nick of time. Two of the men on the wreck were thrown off. Glennie managed to catch one of them, and Dick laid hold of the other.

This left three still on the boat's bottom, with only Matt to deal with the situation. Quick to think, the king of the motor boys flung the second of the two ropes he had brought with him. It was caught, and two of the men fastened themselves to it. The other man had already lashed the first line about his waist.

As the Grampus plowed her way onward, placing a rapidly widening distance between herself and the wreck, the three men flung themselves into the water.

Glennie, although busy with his steering, with his signals to the engine room, and with his work of holding[Pg 7] the man he had grabbed from the wreck, contrived to let Carl and Speake know that they were to haul in on Matt's two lines.

While those in the periscope room were engaged in this, Glennie was passing his man down the hatch, and Dick was getting the other one forward.

By the time Dick's man had followed Glennie's, Carl and Speake had dragged the other three close to the submarine. A wave threw them with crushing force against the plates. One was rendered unconscious—Matt could not tell, in the lightning glare, but that he was killed. As his limp body slipped downward over the rounded deck plates, Matt jumped for it, and wrapped it in his arms.

A smother of water engulfed the Grampus. When she shook herself free, Glennie and Dick had the two men on the other line, and Matt was still clinging to the one he had rescued.

Glennie and Dick passed their half-drowned charges to the safe regions below, and Dick helped Matt with the last of the five unfortunates.

In some manner, the boys could never tell just how, they succeeded in getting the man below deck and in following him themselves. Matt, who was the last to leave, was so nearly fagged that he had not the strength to close the hatch. Carl bounded up the iron ladder, got the hatch in place, and slid down again.

Matt, Dick, and Glennie, utterly exhausted, were lying on the floor among those whom they had rescued. Water, which had entered the open hatch, was churning back and forth and splashing through scuppers into the tank room. Clackett had set a pump to work, and was ejecting the water as rapidly as possible.

"Were any of the port plates sprung by that collision with the wreck, Carl?" inquired Matt, rousing himself. "Did all this water come down the hatchway?"

"Efery pit oof id, Matt," declared Carl. "Clackett looked ofer der blates, und he say dot dey vas all righdt."

"Then submerge until the periscope ball is awash," went on Matt. "These poor fellows can't stand this knocking around."

The violent rolling and pitching of the boat was throwing the five men in every direction.

Carl communicated at once with Clackett, in the tank room, and the Grampus was soon riding easier, some ten feet under the surface.

"We're off Cape Virgins," announced Speake, once more at the steering wheel and with his eyes on the periscope.

Matt crawled to the locker and pulled out one of the charts. After a few moments' study of it he gave Speake the course.

"As soon as we get into Possession Bay," said Matt, "we'll be out of this gale. Be careful, Speake."

"It's hard to be careful, Matt, when you ain't able to see the surface more'n a third of the time," was the answer, "but I'll do the best I can. I think you fellows are entitled to a little rest after what you done on deck. Je-ru-sa-lem! but that was a plucky fight you made. I wouldn't have given the fag end o' nothin' for your chances of savin' those fellows—and not much more for your chances o' gettin' back yourselves."

One by one the rescued men began to recover. Carl had been working over the unconscious man, and when he opened his eyes he began to groan.

"He's hurt," announced Carl. "He vouldn't make a noise like dot oof he vasn't hurt."

Picking his way to the man's side, he and Carl lifted him and laid him on the locker. The man's groans redoubled as he was raised.

"It's his arm," announced Glennie, after a brief examination. "There's a fracture."

There was a chest in the torpedo room well stocked with everything necessary in the medicine line, also with lint, bandages, and splints. Selecting a set of splints and bandages, Matt returned to the periscope room.

Glennie and Carl had already stripped the water-soaked flannel shirt from the injured man, and Matt, Dick, and Glennie at once got busy.

It was a painful piece of work. While Glennie held the man down on the locker by the shoulders, Dick pulled at the arm, Matt pressing his hands about the fracture so that he might know when the bones got into place.

"There you are, Dick," said Matt suddenly. "Now hold it that way until I get it bound up."

Adjusting the splints, Matt wound them rapidly with bandages, and presently had the arm rigidly in the cast.

The work had required some time, and when it was finished, Speake turned from the periscope table.

"Here we are in Possession Bay, Matt," said he. "The chart shows twenty feet of water under us."

"All right," answered Matt. "Drop to the bottom, Speake, and then get busy and make us a little hot coffee. We all feel the need of a bracer, I guess."

Clackett could be heard opening the tanks, and the downward movement of the submarine became perceptible. The motor was stopped, and in a few minutes the boat touched bottom gently and came to a rest in undisturbed waters.

Speake went below to attend to getting the supper, and Clackett and Gaines, all agog with curiosity, came into the periscope room.

Matt was just preparing to give his attention to the rescued men, and to learn how they had come to be in their desperate plight. Glennie, in a few words, explained to Clackett and Gaines how the rescue had been effected.

CHAPTER V.

The five rescued men were swarthy and undersized. All were barefooted and bareheaded, and clad only in coarse linen shirts and dungaree trousers. They were a dejected-looking lot, and seemed hardly able to realize, as yet, that they had been saved.

The injured man was still lying on the locker, while his mates were sitting up around the sides of the periscope chamber and leaning back against the steel walls.

"Who are you?" inquired Matt, seating himself on one of the low stools with which the room was supplied.

Four pairs of eyes were turned on him blankly, then three pairs swerved to the largest and heaviest man of the lot, who appeared to be the leader.

Matt had picked up a little Spanish while he was in Arizona, but he did not feel that it was sufficient to enable him to hold an extended conversation with the rescued men.

"Unlimber your Spanish, Glennie," said he, "and translate it as you go along. I know something of the lingo, but not enough."

Thereupon the following passed between the ensign and the spokesman for the five, all being translated as the conversation proceeded:

"We come from Valparaiso, Chili, but have been at Sandy Point (Punta Arenas) in the strait for a week."

"We worked in the quicksilver mines, but left the mines to ship on a guano boat that was going to the Falklands."

"The guano boat proved unseaworthy. Her seams opened in the strait, and while we were feeling our way along toward Sandy Point her boilers blew up. Some of us got ashore and made our way to Sandy Point."

"There was no work for us in Sandy Point, so we hired a small sailboat and were going to the River Plate. The squall struck us, and our boat went over on her beam ends. The owner of the boat was swept into the sea and drowned, but we managed to get on the boat's bottom, and tied ourselves there. We had given ourselves up for lost when you came to our aid. We are grateful to all of you, señors."

There was no reason why Matt and his friends should not believe the Chilian's story, and they accepted it exactly as given.

"Tell them, Glennie," said Matt, "that we are not going into the Atlantic, but around into the Pacific. Ask them what they want to do."

Glennie gave the Chilians the substance of this, and their startled looks aroused Matt's surprise.

"They say," went on Glennie, repeating the spokesman's words, "that they do not want to go to Sandy Point or to any port in Chili. They want to know how far north we are going along the Pacific coast. If we are going as far as Peru they would like to travel with us."

"Dowse me!" muttered Dick. "We haven't room for them aboard. They'd only be under foot, say nothing of consuming our fresh air and making an inroad on the stores."

Glennie put the question, and all four of the Chilians began to expostulate excitedly, while the wounded man redoubled his groans. Finally, when the clamor died out, the spokesman answered as follows, his words being faithfully translated by Glennie:

"They say they were suspected of being mixed up in a Chilian revolution, and that if they are landed at any Chilian port they will be arrested and shot."

"Py shinks," grunted Carl, "I hope dot ve ain'd going to have somet'ing more to do mit refoludions. I hat enough oof dot oop in Cendral America."

"We're not going to be caught in any more revolutions," declared Matt. "These Sons of the Rising Sun are giving us plenty to think about. I hadn't intended to stop at Punta Arenas, but we'll have to put in there long enough to leave these men. If they don't want to take chances in the town, we'll leave them outside. The injured man we'll take with us, and do our best to look after him. Tell them, Glennie, that that is all we can do."

"And it's right, too," declared Dick. "We can't run the risk of getting into trouble on account of the revolutionists when we've got so much at stake. Why didn't these Chilians explain about the revolution business at the first? It looks like they were keeping something back."

Glennie's announcement was received with black looks and hearty objurgations in the Spanish tongue, but gradually the four men settled down to a sulky attitude which did not look promising.

"They're a grateful lot, I must say!" scowled Dick. "Look at 'em, mates. And to think that we risked our lives to pull 'em in out of the wet!"

"It don't make any difference who they are, Dick," returned Matt. "In rescuing them we did only our duty, and that's something we can chalk up to our credit. We've got to work through the three hundred and sixty miles of this strait just as quick as we can. We've sent that other boat around the Horn, and if we don't reach Smyth Channel ahead of her, all our trouble will go for nothing. The fact that we shall have to lay up nights makes it all the more necessary for us to travel at top speed by day. All these men will go ashore at Punta Arenas—the injured man into the bargain. There must be a hospital in the town, and he can be better taken care of there than here."

Glennie repeated this ultimatum, and the looks of the spokesman underwent a change. The sullen expression faded from his swarthy face and he began speaking volubly.

"He says," reported Glennie, "that he is very sorry if he and his companions have put us to any extra trouble. They will go ashore at Punta Arenas—for they would rather be captured and shot, although they are innocent men, than to inconvenience us. If it hadn't been for us, he says, they would all have been dead men, anyway."

"That's the spirit," approved Matt, "although I don't think, if they are really innocent, that any harm will happen to them."

Just then Speake came in with tin plates heaped with food, and with tin cups of steaming coffee. He had to make several trips below, but finally all were supplied and fell to eating.

The Chilians devoured their food more like famished animals than human beings, casting aside the knives and forks and using their fingers, and gulping down the hot coffee as though it had been ice water.

"Vat a safeageness!" exclaimed Carl. "Dey act like dey don'd haf nodding to eat for a mont'."

Even the injured Chilian used his left hand and went at his food with the frantic haste shown by his comrades.

"They'll do," rumbled Dick. "You couldn't kill 'em with a meat axe. That chap on the locker has forgot all about his broken arm."

"We haven't any more," said Speake. "I cooked just enough and made an equal division all around."

Glennie explained to the Chilians, and once more they looked resentful; but, as before, their faces finally cleared and they resigned themselves to the situation. Matt emptied some of his food upon the plate of the injured Chilian, and without so much as a gracias (thank you) he devoured it with fierce celerity.

"We'll have to let them sleep in the steel room with you, Glennie," said Matt, when the meal was done and the eating utensils cleared away. "You've got a revolver and you can watch them. It may not be necessary to have a guard, but it will be just as well. Some one of us will keep awake in this room—Gaines can put in a two-hour watch, then call Speake. Speake can call Clackett, and Clackett can call Dick. I'll follow Dick, and by that time, I hope, it will be light enough so we can start through the strait. We must take advantage of every hour of daylight."

Matt's orders were immediately carried out. The four uninjured Chilians were shown into the room abaft the periscope chamber, and the injured man was left on the locker. Carl and Matt went down into the torpedo room, and Dick, Clackett, and Speake sprawled out in the tank room and motor room. Gaines, in pursuance of orders, went on guard in the periscope chamber.

Matt, being dog tired, was asleep almost as soon as he lay down on his blankets. Carl was tired himself, but he would have liked to talk a little, in spite of that. As Matt slipped off into slumber under his first remark, the Dutch boy had to go to sleep.

All was quiet in the boat, save for the ventilator fan humming softly in the motor room and sending fresh air throughout the steel hull.

No matter how wildly the gale howled over the surface of Possession Bay, thirty feet down in its depths all was quiet and serene.

When Matt was awakened, it was by a wild yell echoing weirdly through the vessel. At first he thought he had been dreaming, and he sat up, in the Stygian blackness of the torpedo room, and listened in bewilderment.

A moment more and he knew that what he had heard was not a dream. The boat, poised on the ocean bed, rocked with the frantic movements of some one in the periscope room.

"Give it up," answered Matt. "Switch on the light, Carl, so we can see what we're about."

Carl could be heard getting to his feet and groping for the electric switch. Presently the torpedo room was flooded with light and Matt rushed for the open door in the bulkhead.

Just as he reached it, a revolver exploded in the tank room, and a bullet whizzed past his head and struck the torpedo tube.

Matt paused only a moment. He knew that the Chilians were up to some rascally piece of work, and that it would stand him and his friends in hand to get busy without delay.

CHAPTER VI.

With a shout to Carl to follow, Matt plunged through the doorway, and was met with a terrific blow that threw him, half stunned, backward against Carl. Carl tripped over a box, grabbed at Matt to save himself, and both fell sprawling. Before they could get up four Chilians were upon them, holding them by main strength.

One of the Chilians had a rope. None of them answered Matt's question, but proceeded without delay to put lashings on his hands and feet. Carl was treated in a similar manner, and thus the two chums were rendered absolutely powerless to do anything for themselves, or for their friends. And where were their friends? they asked themselves.

As soon as Matt and Carl were secured, the leader of the treacherous Chilians left the torpedo room with one of the others.

"Here iss a fine keddle oof fish?" wheezed Carl. "Der nexdt dime vat ve see some fellers on der pottom oof a poat, py shinks ve vill leaf dem vere dey are. Ach, vat a lot oof sgoundrels!"

"Hello, there!" came the voice of Gaines from the tank room. "Did that bullet do you any damage, Matt?"

"Here, in the tank room, lashed hard and fast. We heard a noise, and Speake went up to investigate. He didn't come back. Those rascally Chilians have turned on us."

Just then Glennie entered the torpedo room. The big Chilian walked behind him with a revolver pressed to the back of the ensign's neck. Glennie's hands were bound.

"I ought to have kept awake, I suppose, but I was so deuced tired I dropped off and slept like a log. The big Chilian got my revolver while I slept, and then the four of them laid hold of me, kept me from giving an alarm, and got ropes on my wrists and ankles. After that they gagged me. Then one of them went out into the periscope room. Dick was on guard there, and the Chilian asked for a drink—making motions to let Dick know what he pretended to want. Dick couldn't tell him how to get the water, so he started to get it himself. He had hardly turned his back before the Chilian downed him with a cowardly blow from behind. He was tied and dragged into the steel room by two of the Chilians, the other two staying behind to deal with Speake, who came up to see what was going on. Speake was taken by surprise and captured, and then Clackett. Speake and Clackett were hauled neck and heels into the steel room. I wonder if you can imagine how I felt, lying there on the cot, bound and gagged, and able to look through the door and see what was going on?"

"I can imagine it, Glennie," said Matt. "We're in a fix, all right, but we're not going to let that discourage us. They've brought you down here to talk, I suppose, and to let us know what their plans are."

The leader of the Chilians had allowed Glennie to speak with Matt, inferring, no doubt, that he would explain how securely the Grampus had passed into the hands of him and his companions. Now, as Glennie faced him, the man began to speak.

"He says," translated Glennie, "that he and his friends do not intend to go to Sandy Point. They are determined that we shall take them to the River Plate."

"Meppy he iss," struck in Carl, glaring at the leader of the rascally Chilians, "aber ve're tedermined anodder vay."

"We won't do anything of that kind, Glennie," said Matt, "for the chances are we'd have trouble with that mysterious steamer. I wonder," he added, as a startling thought flashed through his mind, "if the Sons of the Rising Sun had anything to do with this?"

"It can't be possible," he answered. "From the little I have overheard passing between the Chilians, I believe that they are convicts. There's a penal settlement at Punta Arenas, and I feel sure the rascals escaped from there. That was a tall yarn they gave us—but they had to explain their situation on the bottom of that boat and to do it without exciting our suspicions."

"He says," the ensign went on, "that he intends to have you and one other run the boat."

"Ah!" exclaimed Matt. "Unless we run the boat they won't be able to carry out their plans. I believe I see a chance here to do something. We can at least take the boat to the surface—and when we get her there we'll not sink her again. If we're on the surface, we may have a chance to communicate with some vessel passing through the strait. Tell him, Glennie, that there will have to be three of us given our liberty, one to run the engine, one to run the tanks, and another to steer. I think that Dick, you, and I are the ones. You can steer and Dick will look after the tanks. Perhaps the three of us can get the better of these scoundrels."

"It's my chob to look afder der tanks," put in Carl. "Vy nod led me haf a handt in der scrimmage? I vould like, pedder as I can tell, to haf some mix-oops mit der sgoundrels."

Matt, however, did not change his plans. Carl was a good man in a set-to, if there should be one, but he was apt to lose his head.

Glennie repeated Matt's words to the Chilian, and the latter's face cleared as if by magic. No doubt he thought that he and his comrades were to have their own way on the Grampus.

"He says all right, Matt," said Glennie, "but he warns us that if we try to do anything more than obey orders he will shoot. He and his comrades are determined to reach the River Plate, and are willing to give up their lives trying to do so."

The Chilian gave an order to the three men with him, and the ropes were taken off the ensign's hands. The three Chilians then led him out of the room.

When they were gone, the leader himself cut the cords that bound Matt. Presenting the revolver, he motioned sternly for Matt to rise and proceed through the door.

Matt did not intend to rebel just then. He was anxious to get the Grampus to the surface; then, after that, he and his two friends could do whatever they thought best.

The Chilians were playing a desperate game; and the fact that they were obliged to rely on their prisoners for running the boat made it all the more hazardous.

The young motorist proceeded forthwith to the engine room. Kneeling behind him, his captor continued to keep him covered with the weapon.

Presently Dick, followed by another Chilian armed with a harpoon that belonged on the boat, appeared in the tank room.

"Keep your offing, you loafing longshore scuttler!" cried Dick angrily as the Chilian touched him with the sharp point of the harpoon. "You're the swab I saved from the wreck, and I wish now I had let you go to the sharks. Matt, old ship, what do you think of this?"

"Never mind, Dick, what I think of it," answered Matt. "We'll get the Grampus to the top of the water; then, if they want her sunk again, you'll find there's something wrong with the ballast tanks. There'll be three of us free, and perhaps we can do something."

"The first thing you do," spoke up Gaines, "cut me loose. That will make four of us—only one apiece."

The leader of the Chilians said something fiercely. Undoubtedly it was a command for silence.

"Quiet now, fellows!" warned Matt. "Pretend that you are scared to death and go ahead with your work."

"Clackett and Speake are locked in the steel room. Two Chilians are watching me like cats watching a mouse. One of them has the key to the room."

Matt and his chums had the advantage of being able to talk among themselves without their captors understanding a word. On the other hand, Glennie could hear what the Chilians were talking about and communicate it to Matt and his chums.

"Empty the tanks, Dick," called Matt, getting the engine to running preparatory to switching the power into the propeller.

Dick was a good all-round hand. He had made it his business to learn the engine so that he could relieve Gaines, and he had also learned how to use the turbines, the compressed air, to load and fire torpedoes, to steer, and everything else connected with the operating of the submarine.

The turbines got to work with a splash, and the Grampus began slowly to rise. The two Chilians watched operations with considerable curiosity, although they did not fail to give their closest attention to Matt and Dick.

"Great Scott!" exclaimed Glennie, through the tube, "we almost came up under a canoe with——"

Matt did not hear the rest. Just at that instant there[Pg 11] was a fierce yell from Carl. Matt whirled just in time to see the Dutch boy flinging himself on the Chilian with the harpoon.

The Chilian, watching Dick, had his back to the door of the torpedo room, and this gave Carl his chance to make an attack.

CHAPTER VII.

How Carl had managed to release himself Matt did not know, and he was too busy, just then, to spare time to ask. The leader of the Chilians, leaning out into the narrow passage, lifted the revolver with the intention of firing it at Carl. The position of the fighters did not give the man the chance he wanted—but it did give Matt an opportunity of which he was not slow to take advantage.

While the face of the Chilian was turned, the young motorist leaped at him and clasped him about the neck with his arms. There was no head room in the passage between the engine room and the tank room. In order to get through it a person had to go down on his hands and knees and creep.

Matt caught the leader of the Chilians just where a step downward led from the passage into the engine room—the farthest point aft in the boat.

The swarthy rascal gave vent to a yell, shouting something to the two men above. As Matt pulled him backward and downward, Dick rushed forward and lent his aid.

"Fine-o!" panted Dick, gripping the hand that held the revolver and wrenching the weapon away. "We're turning the tables quicker than I ever thought we'd be able to do. It's a main lucky thing Carl was left in the torpedo room. Quiet, you treacherous swab!" Dick added to the fiercely battling Chilian. "Stop your fighting or I'll put a bullet into you."

"Give me the revolver, Dick," said Matt, "and I'll take care of him. You go and lend Carl a hand."

Carl was having a hard time of it. The Chilian was not large, but hard labor in the penal settlement of Punta Arenas had developed his muscles.

Carl, at the bottom of the hatchway leading up to the periscope room, was doing his utmost to bear the Chilian down in the passage leading to the tank room. He was on the rascal's back, throttling him with his hands, and trying to force him forward.

The man, holding the harpoon point up, was jabbing with it over his shoulder. It was a dangerous instrument, and if Carl had been struck fairly with the lance-like point, he would surely have been badly hurt.

"You t'ought you hat got der pest oof Modor Matt, hey?" Carl was whooping as he continued compressing his fingers about the brown throat and gave no attention to the harpoon. "Vell, you got some more t'oughts coming. I peen Modor Matt's chum, und I vas a rekular horned ven I got my mad oop—a yellow chacket mit some stingers, yah, so! Vy don'd you fall mit yourseluf? Vy don'd——"

The Chilian, so to speak, had got the range. He was breathing in choking gasps, but he still had strength enough to stand upright, and he was preparing for a backward thrust with the harpoon, which might have won the day for him had not Dick interfered.

At the critical moment Dick seized the fellow's arm and wrenched it so severely that the harpoon fell clanging to the steel floor. The next instant the boys had the Chilian down.

"Get a rope, Carl!" puffed Dick. "I can hold him while you're doing it. Better get two ropes—one for Matt to use."

Carl darted into the torpedo room, and was soon back with the ropes. They were the same ones that had been used to secure him and Matt.

"Durn aboudt iss fair blay," chuckled Carl. "Der ropes ve use on dem vas de vones dey use on us! Ach, vat a habbiness!"

The man was quickly bound, and Carl and Dick crept on to where Matt was threatening the leader of the treacherous clique with the firearm.

"You and Carl can take care of the fellow, Dick," said Matt. "I'll leave you and go up to the periscope room. There's no telling what's been going on there."

"Slant away, matey," said Dick. "Carl and I can handle this dago, with ground to spare."

Matt waited for no more, but crawled back to the ladder and hurried to the periscope chamber. What he saw from the door alarmed him. Glennie was lying on the floor, and the two other Chilians were nowhere to be seen.

Glennie lifted himself on one elbow and gave the young motorist a bewildered look; then abruptly his brain cleared and he realized what had taken place.

"All right, Matt," said he. "As soon as that row was turned on below I was knocked over. Cæsar, what a thump I got!" Glennie sat up and lifted both hands to the back of his head. "What's going on?" he asked.

"We've captured the two villains who were below with us," Matt answered. "What has become of the other two?"

"Hello, out there!" came the voice of Speake. "What's all the excitement about?"

"As soon as I find the key." Matt turned to Glennie. "Who did you say had the key?" he asked.

"One of the two who were here with me," said Glennie. "They must have gone up on deck."

Matt sprang to the iron ladder and mounted swiftly to the hatch. The hatch was open and the morning sun was streaming down. The moment he got his head through the opening, he saw a sight that still further increased his alarm.

At least a dozen canoes were in the bay, arranged in a circle at a good safe distance from the Grampus. The boats were constructed of rough planks rudely tied together with the sinews of animals. There were four warriors in each canoe; small, fierce little men wearing cloaks of the sea otter and with faces like those of baboons. The warriors were armed with bows and arrows,[Pg 12] and in each canoe the small fighters had their bows in hand with an arrow laid to the string.

Matt recalled what Glennie had said just before Carl made his attack on the Chilian with the harpoon. Evidently this flock of canoes had been in the bay, the warriors intent upon some nefarious expedition, when the Grampus lifted herself to the surface of the water.

This apparition, emerging from the depths of the bay, must have filled the superstitious natives with panic. They had fled, Matt reasoned, but had plucked up heart when the monster had failed to attack them and had drawn closer.

In grim silence the warriors surveyed the youth. They made no attempt to attack, but watched with glittering eyes, their steel-pointed arrows ready.

"That's a layout for you!" came the voice of Glennie from below. He was looking into the periscope, and had as good a view of the canoes and warriors as Matt had himself. "Don't let them get a whack at you, Matt," the ensign cautioned. "They're a treacherous lot of savages, and many a good ship they have coaxed to her doom by lighting fires on shore in stormy weather. It was those false beacons that gave their land the name of Terra del Fuego—the Land of Fire."

"I thought the country was named that because of the habit the natives have of carrying fire with them to keep them warm."

"No use debating that question now. What I'd like to know is where have those other Chilians gone?"

"Can't you see them? They're beyond the canoes in a boat of their own, and pulling ashore."

The periscope ball, being fifteen feet above the deck of the Grampus, afforded Glennie a wider view than Matt had from the top of the tower. Matt climbed higher up the ladder and looked shoreward over the heads of the savages in the canoes.

He saw the two Chilians. They were in one of the rough boats and getting hastily toward the shore of the bay.

"How do you suppose they ever managed to get that canoe and pass through the circle of Fuegans?" asked Glennie. "Why, the savages are not even chasing them!"

"Probably," guessed Matt, "the Fuegans thought the Chilians were visitors from the bottom of the sea, inasmuch as they came out of the boat, and were afraid to molest them. But we're not going to let the scoundrels get away so easy as all that."

Stepping back down the ladder until his fingers could touch the steering device and the bell pushes, Matt rang for full speed ahead.

The jingle of the bell reached the Fuegans, and perhaps gave them the idea that this monster of the deep was making ready to do battle with them. Dropping their bows, they seized their paddles and shot their canoes to a safer distance.

The churning of the propeller still further alarmed the savages, and when the submarine headed shoreward, pointing straight for one segment of the canoe-draw circle, there was a wild scramble among the boats to get out of the way.

The Chilians, looking over their shoulders and seeing the Grampus pursuing them, redoubled their efforts to get away. But they would not have succeeded had not the Fuegans unexpectedly changed their tactics.

"Come down, Matt!" shouted Glennie. "If you don't they'll put one of those arrows through you! It's a wonder that one missed."

Matt needed no second bidding. Emboldened by the attack of the first savage, all the others prepared to launch their shafts.

As Matt dropped into the tower and closed and secured the hatch, a veritable cloud of arrows came pecking at tower and deck, some of them gliding off into space, and some of them splintering and breaking upon the tough steel.

Matt continued to remain in the tower, his eyes at the lunettes and his hand on the steering device.

Any further attempt to chase the escaping Chilians was only a waste of time. Even if the Grampus overhauled them it would have been impossible for those aboard to get out on deck and effect a capture. Their canoe might have been run down and destroyed, but that would merely have thrown the convicts into the water, where they would have been drowned or pierced with the sharp-pointed Fuegan arrows. Rather than have the Chilians slain, Matt chose to let them get ashore and take their chances on dry land.

The Fuegans, however, had no intention of giving up their attack. When Matt vanished below the conning-tower hatch, they divined instantly that he was afraid of their arrows. He could be no god of the ocean's depths if a Fuegan arrow frightened him. Reasoning in this primitive fashion, the savages gave vent to loud cries and urged their canoes toward the submarine from all sides.

CHAPTER VIII.

With an armor of steel between him and the arrows, Matt could laugh at the puny efforts of the Fuegans to do any harm. With his eyes at the lunettes, he guided the Grampus toward the outlet of the bay.

The savage ardor of the Fuegans increased as they saw the monster apparently running away. Closer and closer they drew their circle of boats, two in each small craft using the paddles and the other two continuing to discharge their arrows. The canoes on the side toward which the submarine was making did not give way an inch, but continued to come boldly on. Two warriors in each leaped to their feet and hurled taunts at the frightened leviathan, letting their arrows fly directly against the bow. In a few moments the Grampus was upon one of these canoes, staving it in and tossing its splintered pieces to right and left.

Four Fuegans were in the water. They were canoe Indians, however, and as much at home in the water as on dry land. Swimming away, they were picked up by some of their comrades in the other canoes.

Meanwhile, three canoes had managed to come alongside. Some of their occupants clambered to the deck of the Grampus and began stabbing at the plates with the points of their arrows. Fearing they might come to the tower and damage the lunettes, Matt ordered a ten-foot submergence.

As the submarine began to sink, the Fuegans flung themselves from the deck—and that was the last Matt saw of them.

"Take the wheel below, Glennie," called the young motorist. "We'll travel a short distance submerged and see if we can't leave those troublesome little fellows behind."

Glennie went to his work and Matt descended. Ten minutes later the Grampus again sought the surface, and a look from the conning tower showed that the savages had been left out of sight around a point of land.

"Here is our course, Glennie," said Matt, laying a chart on the periscope table, and running his finger along the route they were to take; "through the first and second narrows, and so on to Cape Negro. I've got to leave you to do the steering for a time while I open the door and release Clackett and Speake. One of those two Chilians got away with the key, and, for all the good it can do us, it might as well be in the bottom of the ocean."

Matt went below. Dick was at the motor and Carl was in the tank room with Gaines. The latter had been released and was keeping a watchful eye on the two Chilian prisoners.

"The other two Chilians got away," replied Matt, "and we were attacked by a lot of Fuegans in canoes. But their attack didn't amount to much."

"Dose fellers," and Carl nodded to the prisoners, "vas in der vay. Vy nod take dem oop to dot shdeel shamper, Matt?"

"That will be all right, Carl, just as soon as I can get the steel chamber opened. Just now it's locked, and the key is somewhere in the pocket of one of the escaped Chilians. I've got to break the lock in order to let Speake and Clackett out."

Matt went on to the torpedo room, opened a tool box and possessed himself of a hammer and cold chisel. With these he was not long in smashing the lock on the door of the steel room. Speake and Clackett rushed out.

"Jumpin' jerushy!" exclaimed Clackett disgustedly. "We didn't cut much of a figure in the recapture of the boat, Matt."

"We didn't need you," answered Matt. "Carl turned the trick. Once the rest of us got started there was no stopping us. Two of the rascals we rescued got away, but the other two are nicely tied down in the tank room. You fellows had better go down and relieve Dick and Carl, so they can bring up the prisoners. Or, better still, Speake, you might let Gaines take the motor, Clackett the tanks, and you get something for us to eat. We don't want to neglect our appetites during all this excitement."

"I'm hungry myself," replied Speake, following Clackett out of the room, "and I'll not be long getting our whack ready."

"Get every ounce of power out of the motor down there," called Matt. "We've already lost a couple of hours—and we didn't have any time to waste."

Matt took a look at the periscope. They were gliding past the low, sandy shores of Patagonia, on one hand, and the rugged mountains of Terra del Fuego on the other, headed for the Narrows.

"We ought to be at Punta Arenas late this afternoon," said Glennie, "providing we keep up this rate of speed. Shall we put in there?"

"We might as well pass the night there, Glennie," answered Matt. "There's danger in it, but we've got to land these prisoners."

"Where's the danger?" asked Glennie. "Our worst enemies are sailing around the Horn; we're well to the north of them and are due in the Pacific before they are."

"You forget one important point: The Japs have a wireless outfit aboard, and there is another station at Punta Arenas. Suppose the news is flashed out that the submarine Grampus is in the harbor? What's to prevent the Japs from picking it up?"

"That's so," muttered Glennie. "I hadn't thought of that, but it isn't much that gets away from you, Matt."

"I've got a big responsibility on my shoulders and can't afford to let anything get away from me. Even if the news did reach the Japs that we're in the harbor at Sandy Point, headed west, we'd still be ahead of them and their steamer. But they're so full of wily tricks they might hatch up something to make us trouble."

"I'm mighty glad they're going around the Horn, and not us," said Glennie. "You were wise when you made that change in the programme, Matt."

At that moment, Dick and Carl came dragging the leader of the escaped convicts into the periscope room. The fellow began to talk as soon as he saw Glennie.

"Pay attention to him, Glennie," said Matt, taking the wheel out of the ensign's hand, "and let us know what he's saying."

"He's making threats," observed Glennie, "and his talk's not worth listening to."

"Why, he says that if we turn him over to the authorities at Sandy Point he'll make us more trouble than we can take care of."

"The duffin' old jailbird!" exclaimed Dick angrily. "Tell him that if he talks too much like that we'll toss him overboard, tied as he is."

"I vish, py shinks," cried Carl, "dot I could dalk Spinnish so I could tell dis feller vat I t'ink oof him!"

When both men had been brought up from below and put into the steel room, Speake had breakfast ready. It was ten o'clock, and rather a late hour for breakfast aboard the Grampus.

Some attempt was made, while the boys were eating, to get some information from the wounded Chilian, but he would not say a word. He ate with his usual heartiness, however, and when the meal was finished, Dick went into the prison chamber and supplied the other Chilians.

No boats were passed, and hour after hour drifted by with the motor singing its song of speed, and the Grampus just "humping herself" through the strait.

Matt kept to the steering himself. He had made a long study of the chart and felt that he was more competent than any of the others to keep the submarine out of danger.

At Cape Negro the scenery began to change, and for the better. The low brushwood became good-sized trees, and there was some character to the shores the submarine was passing.

"It was just our luck to fall in with a bunch of convicts—that is the way our luck has been running ever since we left Port of Spain," grumbled Speake.

"Avast dere a leedle, Shpeake!" warned Carl. "Don'd go finding some fault mit our luck. Ditn't ve got der poat pack from dem confict fellers? Dot vasn't a pad luck, you bed you!"

"We're making it up, Speake," said Matt. "By the way, Carl," and he turned his eyes on his Dutch pard, "how did you get those ropes off your hands down there in the torpedo room?"

"I vas some foxy fellers, you bed my life," chuckled Carl. "Ven you shkipped oudt, I t'inks, py shiminy, dot I vill make some surbrises. Der dool shest hat its gorner in der shmall oof my pack, und I rupped der ropes oop und down der gorner ondil I rupped dem in doo. Den I vas retty, und you saw vat I dit. Some shtar blays, eh?"

"One of the finest things you ever did, matey," averred Dick, "and you've done a lot of things that stand pretty high on the record."

"T'anks," said Carl. "I ain'd von oof der pragging kindt, aber you bed somet'ing for nodding I'm a hot von ven I durn meinseluf loose. Now——"

"Hardly. The Jap boat wasn't a war ship. This isn't the same steamer, but an armor-clad. Run up the hatchway, Dick, and hail her. We can turn our prisoners over to the captain and won't have to go ashore at Punta Arenas."

CHAPTER IX.

The Grampus was between Elizabeth Island and the island of Santa Madalena when the war ship was sighted. She was headed eastward, and by the time Dick got the hatch opened and looked out, the distance between the two boats had rapidly narrowed.

There was a good deal of excitement on the deck of the war ship. Officers were crowding the bridge and sailors were pressing against the rail, forward. Several of the officers had glasses to their eyes and were studying the submarine with ill-concealed curiosity.

The waters of the strait were as smooth as a pond, and it was possible for the Grampus to come close alongside the larger vessel.

"Can't savvy your lingo," roared Dick, making a trumpet of his hands. "Haven't you got any one aboard who can talk English?"

"What ship is that?" cried an officer, so heavily embroidered with gold lace, brass buttons, and epaulettes that Dick was sure he must be the captain.

Dick signaled the engine room for just enough speed to give the submarine steerageway.

"We're under water so much," said Dick, in answer to the officer's question, "that we can't fly our colors."

"I'd like to send a man aboard of her to look her over," said the captain. "Come closer alongside and heave to."

"We can't allow you to look her over," said Dick. "There are improvements on this boat that no other nation is going to get hold of."

Dick was not very tactful. Whenever he wanted to make a point, he took the shortest way to it. His answer seemed to anger the officer.

"You're talking to a captain in the Chilian navy," cried the officer, an ostrich plume in his hat quivering with the wrath that shook his body. "If I want to look that boat over I'll do it. Who's your captain?"

"Better let me come up and talk with him, Dick," said Matt, who, at the foot of the iron ladder, had heard all that had passed between his chum and the captain of the war ship.

"I am in charge of this boat, captain," Matt called up to the commander of the war ship, "but there is a representative of the United States Navy with us, and his orders are that the boat is not to undergo inspection. I am sorry, but, you see, this boat has virtually been purchased by the United States Government."

"If you're in charge," came from the man on the war ship's bridge, "then come up here—I want to talk with you."

"I shall be glad to do so," Matt answered, "but, first, we have some prisoners we should like to turn over to you."

"Yes, captain. Their boat had overturned and we picked them off the craft's bottom not far from Cape Virgins during the storm late yesterday afternoon."

"Good enough! We were looking for those men. Come up close under our lee and we'll send down a rope for the prisoners and a sea ladder for you."

"Better drop a bosun's chair, captain," suggested Dick. "One of the men has a broken arm."

The officer turned and gave some directions. While these were being carried out, the Grampus was manœuvred around the stern of the war ship and up under the lee. As they passed the stern, Matt and Dick saw the war ship's name. It was the Salvadore.

"That other ship, we talked with by wireless," commented Dick, "wasn't the Salvadore, by a long shot."

As soon as the Grampus was close in, on the lee side of the larger vessel, a bosun's chair and a sea ladder were in readiness. Dick went below to help bring up the prisoners.

The leader came bellowing and roaring his wrath. He[Pg 15] fought against being placed in the bosun's chair, and a rope was flung down from the steamer's rail. Dick caught the end of the rope and it was tied around the Chilian's body, under the arms. The rascal was still howling as he was snatched aloft and dragged to the war ship's deck.

Another rope was sent down for the second uninjured prisoner. He went up quietly, but with a stern face and glittering eyes.

The man with the broken arm made no struggle, but silently took his place in the bosun's chair. When he had been safely lifted over the war ship's rail, the captain leaned over and called down:

Matt explained how the two missing convicts had got away. Just as he finished, a junior officer stepped to the captain's side, touched his arm, and said something in a low tone.

"Now you come up," called the captain, beckoning to Matt; "I want to talk with you."

"You vould t'ink dot brass-plated feller owned der eart'," remarked Carl. "Ve vas free American cidizens, py shinks, und he don'd got some pitzness shpeaking to us like vat he dit."

The sailors on the war ship gave the rope ladder a heave that sent it close enough for Matt to catch it. Gripping the iron rungs, Matt allowed himself to swing from the submarine's deck. He was jarred a little as he struck the armored side of the war ship, but he went on up to the rail quickly and easily.

An officer said something to him and took him by the arm. Leading him aft, they entered a passageway at the break in the poop, walked along it a few steps, and then turned in at an open door.

Two men, who were armed with muskets and looked like marines, stepped on each side of Matt as he entered.

Dick, Glennie, and Carl, down on the deck of the Grampus, had watched Matt vanish over the rail with anything but easy minds.

"Me, neider," added Carl. "Dot feller in der brass drimmings shpeaks like ve vas togs. He iss some Shmard Alecs, I bed you."

"Then why didn't you say so?" he demanded sharply. "You're an officer in the United States Navy, and these Chilian swabs wouldn't dare lay a finger on you. What did you let Matt go for, when you could have gone just as well?"

"Hold your luff, Ferral," answered Glennie, reddening. "You didn't think I stayed off that war ship because I was afraid, did you?"

"I'm a Fiji if I know why you stayed off," scowled Dick. "That dago captain is hot because he couldn't come aboard the Grampus——"

The dislike Dick had for Glennie was increased by a vague alarm for Matt, and the ensign and Matt's sailor chum were never nearer an open rupture than at that moment. Dick's fists had clinched, and a dangerous gleam had leaped into Glennie's eyes.

Carl, to his great credit be it stated, interfered. He had as little liking for Glennie as Dick had, but he saw the folly of quarreling under the eyes of the Salvadore's sailors.

"Dot vill do you, Tick!" growled Carl. "You vant dose tagos to t'ink Modor Madd's friendts vas a punch oof yaps? Keep shdill mit yourseluf; und you, Glennie, nodding more schust now, oof you blease."

Glennie turned and walked to the base of the conning tower. There he sat down moodily and watched the war ship, hoping every moment to see Matt reappear.

"I don't like that swab a little bit," muttered Dick to Carl. "There's something wrong with his top-hamper. Do you recollect the time he came aboard the Grampus, Carl? How he laid it down that we were all to 'mister' him?"

"Nod so pad as dot. He's a prave feller—you saidt dot yourseluf ven he vas heluping you und Matt safe dose fellers on der poat."

"Of course he's got nerve, but he spoils it all with that way of his. Why didn't he put in his oar, while that cock of the walk up there was ordering Matt around?"

"He knowed pedder as to inderfere mit Matt's pitzness, same as you und me. Modor Matt knows vat he's got to do, und chenerally, you bed you, he does id. Nicht wahr?"

Dick remained silent. He was not acting at all like himself, but was angry because something had not been said or done to keep Matt off the Salvadore.

Half an hour passed, with the war ship and the submarine lying alongside of each other. At the end of that time another officer, who could not talk English quite so fluently as the captain, thrust his head over the rail.

"He iss arrest'," was the calm answer. "You know more w'en you get to Punta Arenas!"

Dick said a good many wild and unreasonable things, then, but no one on the war ship paid any attention to him. Carl said quite a few things, too, but, strange as it may seem, he had himself under better control than Dick.

The war ship got under headway again, put about and started westward along the strait. There was nothing for the Grampus to do but to follow.

CHAPTER X.

Matt, supposing that the actions of the two marines was a mere formality, made no comment. The captain sat in a chair before a desk, smoking a cigar and scowling at him. He did not ask Matt to sit down.

"Captain Nemo, Jr., of Philadelphia," Matt answered, a little resentful because of the captain's curt manner.

He and his chums had captured the convicts and had thus performed a good deed for the Chilian government. It seemed to Matt as though he was entitled to a little more courtesy.

"Captain Nemo, Jr.," muttered the captain. "Carramba! A fictitious name. There is a story about a Captain Nemo. Why do you talk to me like that?"

"So I may report this conversation to the naval officer aboard the Grampus. He will enter it in his log, which, at the end of this cruise, will be submitted to the navy department of our government."

"So!" he snapped. "You think me afraid? Ah, ha! I am Captain Enrique Sandoval, of the Chilian war ship Salvadore. Report it. What is it to me? Now, if you please, have you a wireless telegraph instrument aboard the submarine?"

Matt had no intention of telling this Captain Sandoval about his trouble with the Sons of the Rising Sun.

"Si, and mine, too, as you will find. Yesterday, this war ship was in Smyth Channel. Her wireless machine was out of commission and could not be used. The station at Punta Arenas kept calling for me. You answered! You replied that your boat was the Salvadore! You took the message about the escaped convicts from the air. Why? Because you wanted to find them, take them aboard, and help them escape! Carramba!"

Matt was astounded. Captain Sandoval punctuated his words by jabbing a long forefinger into the air, but Matt hardly saw the finger, or the wildly triumphant look on the captain's face.

"That is not true, Captain Sandoval," said Matt, his face flaming indignantly. "If we were trying to keep the convicts out of your hands, why should we turn them over to you, here in the strait?"

"Garcia told me," went on the captain. "He and his men were to pay you money to take them to the River Plate. You took them off the sailboat, and then you lost your courage and came westward along the strait to leave them at Punta Arenas."

"I shall tell you what I think," answered Matt. "What you say is worse than foolish. Who is this Garcia?"

"He is the leader of the convicts—the one who planned the escape. I say you helped them, because you thought they would give you money."

"Oh, splash!" exclaimed Matt disgustedly. "I'm going, but this insult shall be reported to our state department."

"Your state department!" sneered Captain Sandoval. "When you try to help Chilian convicts escape, you put yourself out of the protection of your state department."

Matt stepped to the door. Two muskets dropped across the opening in front of him. The king of the motor boys whirled around and drew himself up to his full height.

"What does this mean, Captain Sandoval?" he asked crisply. "Am I not to be allowed to leave this ship?"

"You are piling up a lot of trouble for yourself, Captain Sandoval," said he coolly. "You're a reasonable man, or ought to be, as captain of a war ship, but is there any sense in arresting me on such a ridiculous charge as the one you have just mentioned?"

The captain's talk was so outrageously nonsensical that Matt, in spite of his desperate situation, could not help but find some amusement in his preposterous assertions.

"You, over your wireless machine, claimed to be the war ship Salvadore. That is enough, more than enough, to cause your arrest."

Captain Sandoval, for reasons of his own, chose to take the word of the convict, Garcia, in preference to Matt's. Garcia had made his threats that, if Matt persisted in turning him over to the Chilian authorities, he would make trouble for the Grampus. This, undoubtedly, was what the convict was now trying to do.

Garcia had been the first one sent aboard. He had at once told his false story to one of the petty officers, who, in turn, had carried it to the captain.

As for the wireless part of it, the machine on the Grampus had not been strong enough either to receive messages from Punta Arenas, or to send them there. Punta Arenas had heard the Japanese boat talking. The Japs had claimed to be the war ship for nothing else than to receive a possible message regarding the whereabouts of the Grampus.

But Matt could not explain the case of the Sons of the Rising Sun to Captain Sandoval. Sandoval might attempt to get into communication with the Japanese boat, either to confirm Matt's story, or for some other purpose. The result would be that the Sons of the Rising Sun would learn that they had been tricked, and that the submarine was in Magellan Strait. Then, if the Grampus was held any length of time in Punta Arenas, pending an investigation, the Japanese boat would have time to get around to Smyth Channel before Matt and his friends could reach the Pacific.

The young motorist took a look ahead, and held his peace regarding his Jap enemies.

"You are making a big mistake, Captain Sandoval," said Matt quietly. "I shall appeal to the American consul at Punta Arenas."

A few minutes later, the wounded Chilian was brought in by two marines. This was the man Matt had taken such a desperate risk to save at the time the five convicts were taken from the overturned boat.

Here, then, was a friend where Matt had least expected to find one. For some time the convict talked, the captain listening incredulously. When he had done, the captain ordered him away.

"The fellow says," observed the captain, to Matt, "that Garcia speaks lies, nothing but lies. But this fellow wants to help you, for he says you saved his life."

"If you delay the Grampus at Punta Arenas," went on Matt, "our government will hear of it and will make trouble for you and your government."

"I do my duty," answered the officer, patting his gold-laced chest; "Captain Enrique Sandoval always does his duty. It is not for you to tell me what I must do."

"No, not to the jail. The house of the harbor master will do. You will be kept there until the convict, Garcia's, story is looked into."

"I shall not stay in Punta Arenas more than a day, at most!" declared Matt. "The submarine must be taken into the Pacific and up the coast without delay."

"We shall see," said Captain Sandoval, pulling at his mustache and shrugging his shoulders.

"We shall see," repeated Matt, "if the American consul, when appealed to by the naval officer aboard the Grampus, has any power to undo this outrage."

The captain waved his hand to the marines and gave them an order. The guards stepped to Matt's side, motioned for him to stand up, and led him off to a small room opening upon the same passage that led to the captain's quarters. Here Matt was locked in, and presently he heard muffled orders, a jingling of bells, and the Salvadore began putting about for the run back to Sandy Point.

CHAPTER XI.

It was dark when the submarine arrived off the town, and those aboard her could not have taken in the city's appearance even if their curiosity had prompted them. All the way in from the point where they had met the war ship those on the Grampus had been holding a council of war.

Why had Matt been arrested? Why was he being taken to Punta Arenas? What was to be done with him there? How long would the Grampus be delayed? Would the Japanese steamer have time to round the Horn and[Pg 18] reach the other end of the strait before the submarine pushed her nose into the Pacific?

These were some of the questions canvassed by those aboard the Grampus. No one was very much worried over Matt's safety, for they all felt that the Chilian authorities would not dare go to any desperate length with him. The worst that could happen would be the delay to the Grampus—but that was likely to be grievous enough if the Jap steamer was in a position to take advantage of it.

"I shall go ashore," declared Glennie, "just as soon as the Grampus reaches the town, and lay the matter before the American consul."

"Our boat sails under the American flag," said Glennie, "and the logical man for us is the American consul."

"Vere iss it for me to go?" piped up Carl. "I vant to do somet'ing for my bard, Modor Matt."

"You, and all the rest of the submarine's crew," said Dick, "will stay on board and watch the boat. If any one tries to come aboard, close the hatch and sink to the bottom. I guess they won't go after you in diving suits."

On reaching the town, the Salvadore took up her berth a cable's length off the wharf. The submarine, being of light draught, lay to alongside the wharf, and Dick and Glennie went ashore. As soon as they had landed, Carl, who was left in nominal command, backed off for half a cable's length and let go the anchors. It was arranged that a sharp whistle from the shore was to bring the Grampus back to that particular part of the wharf as soon as the mud hooks could be lifted. All on board were to keep awake and remain ready, at a moment's warning, to assume their duties.

When this arrangement was made, none of those concerned in it had the remotest idea of the importance it was to hold in the progress of events. It went to prove that carefully laid plans are always best, even when an excess of care does not seem essential.

Neither Dick nor Glennie knew where their respective consuls were to be found. Happening to meet a soldier from the garrison, however, he directed them.

Having secured their bearings, Dick and Glennie separated. For this Dick was not sorry. The ensign had a number of little mannerisms, entirely unaffected, although they did not seem so, which Dick was far from admiring. Then, again, Dick Ferral had been an apprentice seaman in His British Majesty's navy, and Glennie was a commissioned officer. The fact that Glennie held his commission in the United States and not in the British navy did not seem to lessen the breach that lies between the forecastle and the quarter deck. At least, it did not in Dick's estimation.

Dick was not long in finding the vice-consul's house—and not much longer in discovering that the vice-consul was out of town for a week, having taken a horseback journey into the interior. His affairs, meanwhile, had been left in the hands of the German consul.

"I'll be shot," grumbled Dick, to himself, as he came away from the vice-consul's door, "if I call on any Dutchman. I guess it's up to Mr. Glennie, so here's hoping that he puts his conceit in his pocket and gets the United States consul to do something."

Dick, loitering back along the street, suddenly came face to face with Glennie, who struck into the thoroughfare Dick was following from a crossroad.

"Why, well. What did the consul promise to do? And, if he promised anything, why isn't he along with you to do something? You don't want to have Matt spend the night in the war ship's bally old brig, do you?"

"I had hard luck," said Glennie disappointedly. "The American consul has taken a horseback ride into the country and won't be back for a week. He left his affairs in the hands of the German consul."

"Keelhaul me!" growled Dick. "That's just what I was told at the British vice-consul's. That's all we have here now is a vice-consul. He left his business with the German consul, too. I wonder if those two fellows went into the country together?"

"Call on the Dutchman. I'd rather be flogged than do it, for Carl's about the only Dutchman I ever saw who was worth knowing. But I'll go, if it's going to help Matt."

Having agreed on their course, the two boys set off to follow it. A sailor gave them their directions, from which it appeared that the consul they were looking for lived on the other side of the city, not far from the shore. As the easiest way of reaching his house, Dick and Glennie returned to the wharf and followed it for a short distance. It had been their original intention to keep along the wharf until they reached a point opposite the square of houses containing the German's residence, but something occurred to interfere with their designs.

Just as they were abreast of the spot where the Chilian war ship was anchored, they heard a splash of oars.

"A boat's coming ashore," said Dick. "Let's draw back and watch. If the captain's in the boat we'll tackle[Pg 19] him and make him tell us something about Matt. It's no more than fair that we should be told what Matt's been arrested for."

"Just the place," assented Dick, and, in a few moments, they were screened from sight and watching the approaching boat.

The launch hove alongside the wharf and five figures could be seen climbing up on the old timbers. Just who the persons were the darkness made it impossible for Dick and Glennie to discover. Their ears, however, soon gave them the knowledge that their eyes could not yield.

"It's Matt!" he whispered hoarsely. "By glory, they've brought my old raggie ashore!"

"You will not go to the American consul's to-night," an authoritative voice answered the young motorist.

"There will be trouble over this, Captain Sandoval," went on Matt, "if you don't take me to my country's representative."

"Because the American consul is not in the town. He has gone away for a week. When he comes back, you may see him."

Some words in Spanish followed, evidently an order to those who accompanied the captain and Matt.

"Stop!" commanded Matt. "Before you take me to the house of the harbor master, I have another demand to make."

"We are wasting too much time over your demands," replied the captain sternly. "The harbor master may have gone to bed if we wait too long. I do not wish to put him to any inconvenience."

"His convenience is as nothing compared to mine. If the American consul is not in town, then I ask you to take me to the British consul."

"As it happens, amigo," said he, "the British consul left town with the American. Neither will be back here for a week."

"You have disputed my word too much, already," snapped the captain, "and I will bear no more."

"If necessary," cried the captain, "I will have the marines carry you. Forward, I say."

"I shall allow you to talk with no one but me—and the harbor master. In a week you may see your consul."

"I tell you I can't stay here in Punta Arenas for a week. The submarine must leave Sandy Point in the morning."

Motor Matt had borne patiently with Captain Sandoval, but now his patience seemed to have given out.

"Captain Sandoval," he cried, "I defy you to go ahead and do your worst; and, at the same time, I warn you that the more trouble you make me the more you are making for yourself. I can't understand what you are trying to do, for your excuse for arresting me and taking me away from the submarine is as unreasonable as it is foolish. If——"

"Yes," was the calm response, "and defy you, at the same time. Now go ahead and let's see how far your crazy ideas will carry you."

The captain, in a tone that bespoke his fierce anger, gave orders for a third time to the marines who were with him.

"I believe you're right," answered Glennie, carefully watching the direction taken by the dark forms.

"What of it?" repeated Dick. "Say, Glennie, if you're the right sort, now's the time to show it."

"Do you want to see the Grampus held up for a week in this blooming place at the south end of Nowhere?"

"Well, that's what will happen, sure as fate, if those fellows take Matt to a lockup. Neither the American consul, nor the British vice-consul, will be back for a week, or——"

"Ten to one he'll play safe, and make us wait until the American consul gets back. Now we know Matt hasn't done a thing that calls for this sort of treatment. It's an outrage. But that's not the worst. The delay to the Grampus may throw us into the hands of those Sons of the Rising Sun, and that might prove the destruction of the submarine. Everything hangs on us, right here and now. Matt has given his defiance to the captain of the war ship. Let's match him, and go him one better by giving defiance to all the powers of Chili, naval and military."

"Why, by laying for that blooming lot of swabs and taking Matt away from them by main force! Are you with me? In other words, John Henry Glennie, are you a man or just an imitation of one with a uniform and a commission in the United States Navy?"

Dick Ferral certainly was on his mettle! His proposition almost took Glennie's breath; but, notwithstanding, there was a taunt in the last words which did not escape the sensitive ensign.

"By Jupiter!" he exclaimed. "It's a wild, impossible piece of work, but I'm with you!"

CHAPTER XII.

Ensign Glennie was as brave and gallant an officer as ever left Annapolis, but he was taught to look at such enterprises as Dick had broached in a sane and logical manner. This desperate measure, viewed in that light, seemed the height of reckless folly.

Matt had four guards—the captain of the war ship and three marines. The captain was armed—probably with the sword alone—but the marines certainly had muskets.

Here, then, was the situation: He and Ferral, with only their two hands for weapons—Glennie had left his revolver on the submarine—were to attack four armed men in the attempt to rescue Matt!

Even if fortune was kind to them, and they were able, in some manner, to get Matt away from his guards, there was a barracks full of soldiers within sound of the captain's voice; and how could Matt, and Dick, and Glennie run the gantlet of the whole town?

But Glennie had given his word, and he would stand to it, no matter what the cost. It was a matter of pride with him to meet any plan Dick Ferral might propose.

The ensign did not think, for a minute, that there was anything unjust in taking Matt by force away from the captain of the war ship. A mistake had been made by the captain, but there was no time to let the blunder be rectified by the ordinary course of events. As Dick had said, the fate of the Grampus might depend on her leaving Punta Arenas the next morning.

Matt and his guards had landed at quite a distance from the pile of timbers behind which Dick and Glennie were lying concealed. The path from the wharf led past the end of the pile, and it had not been difficult to discover that the approaching party was following the path.

The party was close, very close, as the two youths knelt near the ends of the timbers, listening to the crunch of footsteps and prepared for their reckless work.

"Nothing but to jump out at 'em with our fists," whispered Dick. "As soon as Matt knows what's up, he'll help. And say, he's got a 'right' that could put any one of that outfit to sleep!"

"I hope none of us will be put to sleep while we're getting Matt in shape to use his 'right.'"

In that critical moment Glennie thought how much better off he and Dick would have been, and how much more certain of success, if they had brought Speake and Clackett along with them. But it was too late to think of what might have been. Dick and Glennie were face to face with the emergency, and must, alone and unaided, deal out the desperate measures themselves.

The crunching footsteps approached. Glennie caught a glimmer of starlight on a musket barrel, and saw dimly two marines marching ahead, followed by Matt, with a uniformed figure and another marine bringing up the rear.

His voice was loud enough to arouse the town. Dick made it so purposely. He aimed to startle the guards—to hold them panic-stricken, if possible, until Matt could be apprised of conditions and help in the resulting battle.

In this Dick was entirely successful. Every member of the party jumped, even Matt.

"It's Dick and Glennie, Matt!" cried the young sailor. "Get into it, old ship! Everything hangs on our success!"

Dick, while he spoke, was plunging at one of the marines. Glennie leaped at another. Matt, quick to realize what was afoot, turned on the third. Captain Sandoval drew his sword.

Before the sword could be used, Matt whirled about, the marine's musket in his hands. Clash! The sword[Pg 21] struck the musket barrel and Matt, by a dexterous jerk, flung the blade a dozen feet away into the darkness.

Captain Sandoval, thus suddenly unarmed, set his face toward the barracks and ran with all his speed, shouting at every jump for the soldiers.

"Don't hurt anybody!" panted Matt. "Don't make this a serious matter instead of a—a farce!"

"It will be a mighty serious matter if we don't get you down to the Grampus in short order," puffed Glennie.

He had toppled over the marine whom he had chosen for an antagonist and was struggling to get his musket; but the marine, agile as a monkey, rolled out from under the ensign's gripping fingers, bounded erect, and made off into the gloom like an antelope.

A blow, and then a grab and a jerk, all judiciously given, had placed Ferral in possession of the weapon belonging to the other marine. Those who were unarmed had rushed away on the track of the captain. The one who had retained his musket, however, paused somewhere among the shadows and began to fire.

"Cut for it!" shouted Dick. "Don't let any grass grow under you! This way, Matt."

Dick started for the wharf, pointing so as to reach it at the nearest point to the submarine. Matt and Glennie pushed after him—three fleeing streaks rushing for the water front of Punta Arenas with the clamor of alarmed soldiers awaking frantic echoes around the barracks.

The marine, emboldened by the sounds from the barracks, pursued the fugitives, firing as he came. His bullets, launched while he was running, went wide of their targets.

"But the Grampus—it will take time for those aboard to get up the anchors and to come to the wharf for us!"

Stumbling over the litter that had been scattered from the wharf, the three fugitives reeled and sprawled their way through the darkness. Even a fall, if it was in the right direction, was a distinct help.

Dick, being in the lead, was the first to reach that part of the wharf nearest the Grampus. The boat, looking like a black blot on the water, was tantalizingly out of reach.

"Pull up your mud hooks and come to the wharf!" shouted Dick. "Matt's with us—and we're defying the whole town. Everybody in the place is tight at our heels."

"Himmelblitzen!" cried Carl. "Der anchors vas coming oop alretty, aber id dakes a leedle time——"

The marine blazed away again. Carl, interrupted in the midst of his remarks, gave a hollow gurgle.

"Vat a safageness!" he exclaimed, "aber pulleds vat don'd hit don'd amoundt to nodding."

"Start the motor!" called Matt. "If the anchors are clear they can be carried this way while the chain is being taken in."

The jingler could be heard answering Carl's pressure on the push button. The propeller began to churn the water, but the boat did not move.

"They're sticking to the bottom!" groaned Dick. "Oh, what a beastly run of luck!"

"We can't wait here until that outfit comes within rifle shot," declared Glennie. "We've got to get behind the iron walls of the submarine."

Splash! The ensign was in the water. Then there were two more splashes as Matt and Dick followed.

CHAPTER XIII.

Carl fell over the top of the conning tower, descended the rounded deck with one hand clinging to a wire guy, and reached out over the water.

"Schust a leedle vay farder, bard!" he cried encouragingly. "Shvim a leedle fasder! Der fellers on shore iss pooty glose!"

Glennie was first to clasp Carl's outstretched hand, and, with its assistance, to reach the deck; then Glennie, dripping wet, laid hold of another guy and bent down to give a hand to Matt. Carl assisted Dick up the sloping deck at the same time.

By then the soldiers were almost upon the wharf. Sudden flares lit the night, and each flare meant the explosion of a gun.

"Quick!" cried Matt, "get below. We're in the right, but those fellows don't know it yet."

Carl pushed Dick toward the conning tower. The sailor was loath to be the first to seek safety, but hesitation[Pg 22] on his part only blocked the way for the others. Down Dick went, Carl close after him. Then Glennie took a dive through the hatch, and had no more than cleared the way before Matt followed.

Flashes were shooting up in the darkness all along the wharf. Leaden hail pattered on the steel sides of the Grampus, but the stout iron merely gave a ringing laugh and flung the softer metal off.

An unexpected event happened just as Matt ducked below the hatch. The propeller, working against the pull of the anchors, suddenly took a grip and hurled the Grampus ahead.

Carl had set the rudder for a move toward the wharf. It was in that direction, therefore, that the boat plunged, thus carrying those aboard nearer their enemies. Matt grabbed the tower steering device just in time to turn the craft. So narrow was the margin that the rounded side of the hull brushed the wharf timbers as the boat swept by.

This gave the soldiers a chance to do some shooting at close range; it likewise gave them a chance—for the fraction of a minute—to jump aboard, but no one improved the opportunity. Another minute and the submarine was headed out into the strait.

"Stop the engine, Gaines!" he called through the tube. "Fill the tanks, Clackett!" he added.

"Hooray!" came from Clackett as the splash of water echoed from the filling tanks. "It's good to hear your voice again, Matt. How far down are we going?"

The bottom was reached at forty feet. Clackett announced the depth as the Grampus came to a rest.

"We're forty feet from all the military and naval forces of Punta Arenas," said Glennie.

"But it's forty feet of water," added Dick, "and, even if those ashore knew where we were, it would puzzle them some to get at us."

"We're safe enough," said Matt. "In the early morning we'll rise until we show just the periscope ball and will start for the Pacific. Now that there's nothing particular for all hands to do, let's be comfortable and find out how it all happened."

"I know that, of course. If I hadn't been held a prisoner by Captain Sandoval, there wouldn't have been any need of you and Glennie taking all those chances to rescue me. What I mean is, what suggested such an audacious proceeding?"

"Why, when you landed from the war ship, you stood up there on the wharf and defied this Captain Sandoval. It was Motor Matt's defiance that suggested to me a plan that was a little more comprehensive. You had defied Sandoval, so why couldn't the three of us defy all the Chilians in the town? Well, we did, didn't we? And we got clear with whole skins, every one of us."

"You had as big a finger in the pie as any one," said he, "and you took the foolhardy risk like a whole man. I like you better this minute, John Glennie, than I ever thought I could. Toss us your fin!"

Glennie looked surprised, then a pleased look crossed his face and he reached forward and caught the young sailor's hand.

"If I've won your friendship by that piece of work, then I've had a double gain," said he.

"Vat in der vorld," chimed in Carl, "dit dose fellers shpeak to you like you vas a tog for? Und arrest you und keep you apoardt der var ship? I hat id all fixed oop in my mindt to put a dorpeto indo dot gruiser oof she ditn't led you go."

"It isn't very clear to me yet," answered Matt, "what I was made a prisoner for. Garcia started the trouble for me——"

"Yes, and he carried out his threat as soon as he got on the deck of the war ship. He told one of the officers that he had hired me to take him and his friends out of that sailboat in the Grampus, and that I had lost my courage and was heading for Sandy Point with them."

"You don't mean to say that this Captain Sandoval believed that?" cried Glennie.

"He professed to," answered Matt. "I was to be held in Punta Arenas until Garcia's yarn could be verified, which, the captain said, might take a week or two. The American consul, and the British consul, the captain also told me, were both out of town for a week——"

"Which is a fact," spoke up Glennie. "Dick and I went ashore to see the two consuls, and were informed, at their residences, that they had gone into the interior for a week."

"The light might shine through the lunettes and be reflected up to the surface," was Matt's answer. "I just happened to think of it."

"There was something else that Captain Sandoval told me," went on Matt, "which had to do with the Jap steamer."

"Why, at the time we were doing our wireless work from Gallegos Bay, the war ship Salvadore's wireless apparatus was not working. Sandoval discovered, from the station at Punta Arenas, that, at that very time, the station was communicating with a ship which claimed to be the Salvadore."

"Yes. You see, our second-hand machine wasn't powerful enough to communicate with Punta Arenas nor to receive messages from there; but the Jap steamer was closer, and so we exchanged messages with her. But the Japs were able to communicate with the Punta Arenas station, and the Chilians thought it was us. At least, that is what Captain Sandoval said. I couldn't explain without getting us into more trouble with the Sons of the Rising Sun, so I kept quiet."

Matt cut short the general comment by declaring that he was tired, that they were perfectly safe from pursuit, and that he was going to sleep.

All the rest were of the same mind, and presently the echoes of the excited voices had died out, and only sounds of deep and peaceful breathing disturbed the silence that reigned within the Grampus.

Matt was astir at five o'clock the next morning, and went around waking his friends.

"We must get an early start," he explained, "so all take your stations quietly. We are still off the town, remember, and we shall have to come close enough to the surface so that our periscope ball will be free of the water and show us the course. If the red ball should be seen as it glides over the water, we might have trouble, so we must proceed as warily as we can."

With Matt at the wheel and the periscope table, Gaines and Dick in the motor room, Carl and Clackett in the tank room, and Speake working at his electric stove in the torpedo room, the ballast tanks were slowly freed of a part of their watery load. Matt, watching the periscope, signaled to Clackett to stop unloading the tanks just as the reflected image of the surface appeared in the mirror.

"The Salvadore is within twenty fathoms of us," replied Matt, "but everything is quiet. Full speed ahead, Gaines," he added. "We'll not come to the surface until we're several miles nearer Smyth Channel."

With all the machinery working smoothly, the Grampus glided as softly as a huge fish away from the dangerous port of Punta Arenas, the red periscope ball alone showing, and flashing a crimson trail in the direction of the Pacific.

CHAPTER XIV.

When safely beyond Punta Arenas, the Grampus arose to the surface and rode as high as completely empty ballast tanks would let her. The higher she was in the water the more speed she would develop—and speed was the one crying need at that time.

Luck had favored the chums in Punta Arenas, and all were hoping that the good fortune would hold until they passed the western end of the strait. But in this they were destined to be disappointed.

With everything working perfectly they passed Port Famine, and, a little later, the southernmost point of South America that enters the strait—Cape Froward. Here the weather usually changes, but it did not change for Motor Matt and his friends. They had, what was rare in those waters, a fair day, which, so far as the barometer could foretell, was likely to hold.

But after passing Cape Froward, and while Mount Sarmiento's snowy crown was still visible in the distance, the motor developed a serious complaint. It refused absolutely to run, and the trouble was too much for Gaines and Dick. Matt had to go down and give the machinery his personal attention.

The batteries were not working properly. Matt replaced some of the cells. That, however, did not remedy the matter. Further examination developed carburetter trouble, and, as the examination continued, one ill after another showed itself until it seemed as though every part of the motor had gone into a decline.

Matt, of course, remedied the matter, but it took hours of time and made it impossible for the Grampus to glide into the waters of the Pacific that day.

After supper, smothering their disappointment as best they could, the submarine descended to the bottom according to her usual fashion, and her crew had supper together in the periscope chamber.

"How long does it take a good fast steamer to sail around the Horn?" asked Speake.

"About a year, I guess," grinned Dick. "It would depend on the number of sails the steamer had. Probably she could steam around in two or three days."

"From that," spoke up Clackett, "I should infer that the Jap boat has had time to get somewhere near the end of the strait and lay for us?"

"It's hard to tell where the Jap steamer is," said Matt. "We've done the best we can, so let's not borrow any trouble. Our periscope ball is a pretty small thing for the crew of the steamer to see. We could pass within a mile of the Japs and they'd never know we were anywhere in their vicinity."

"We'll get through, somehow, mates," averred Dick cheerfully. "After we pulled off that little game in Punta Arenas, I'm beginning to think there isn't anything we can't do."

"There'll be more accidents," said Gaines seriously. "Something else will happen to the machinery. I've noticed always that motor troubles come in pairs."

"Why, Gaines," laughed Matt, "our last motor troubles came in bunches of a dozen! Every part of the motor seemed to have developed a weakness."

"They all came at the same time," continued Gaines, with superstitious firmness. "There'll be something else, you mark what I'm saying."

The following morning there was another early start. Everything went swimmingly for several hours; then, on rounding a particularly bold headland, Speake, who was in the conning tower, steering, saw something which nearly caused him to fall off the ladder.

Matt and Glennie both sprang to the periscope, drawn there by a quick jump on account of the wild alarm that throbbed in Speake's voice.

English Reach lay ahead of the Grampus, and there, out across the surface of the water, quietly and expectantly waiting, was the Jap steamer!

Speake had been on the lookout, on the crest of the hill at Gallego Bay, at the time the steamer had been raised the other time. He recognized her on the instant.

There was a Chilian flag flying, and from a swift movement of men over the steamer's decks it was certain that the Grampus had been seen.

"They see us now," said Matt, "but they won't in a minute. Clackett," he called through the tank-room tube, "we'll go down the usual depth for periscope work."

Matt's voice was calm and steady, in spite of the fact that the thing for which he had planned in Gallegos Bay—namely, the avoiding of the steamer—had failed.

Minutes passed without bringing the usual swish of water filling the ballast tanks. Through the periscope Matt could see that the Japs were lowering a boat. Speake had come down into the periscope room, closing the hatch behind him in preparation for a dive. He stood with his hand on the wheel and looking over Matt's shoulder.

Matt ran down to give his personal attention to the matter. For a few minutes he struggled with the valves, but all to no purpose.

"I told you something else would happen," called Gaines from the motor room. "That's what it is—tank trouble."

"And just when we need the tanks," said Matt. "That Jap boat is close by, and we ought to be under the surface."

Matt, seeing a way whereby he thought the valve trouble might be remedied, was just beginning a new line of attack when Glennie called frantically through the tube:

"Do something, Matt! One boat is on its way to us from the steamer, and another is dropped into the water. If you can't do anything down there, then come up here."

Matt turned to Dick, explained to him what his new idea was regarding the valve trouble, asked him to work along that line, and then hurried up to the periscope room.

"If we try to run," said he, "the Jap steamer will catch us, and if we don't run, the rowboats will be on top of us. If we can't dive, Matt, we're in another kind of a hole."

"Don't lose your nerve, Speake," said Matt. "Go down and see if you can help Dick. Glennie will go up into the tower and steer. I'm for the deck to watch and see how matters progress."

"I'm for der teck, too!" declared Carl, who happened, at that moment, to be in the periscope room.

He had a keen scent for trouble, and always tried hard to be around whenever any was going to happen.

Without paying much attention to Carl, Matt opened the locker and took out the submarine's copy of the Stars and Stripes.

"If the Sons of the Rising Sun try any of their old tactics," said Matt, "I'll make it plain that it's a ship carrying Old Glory."

"What do they care for any flag?" demanded Glennie. "Why, they're flying the Chilian flag now, and every man of them is got up in Chilian naval uniform. It's hard to tell them from the real thing, at a distance, too."

Matt ran up the ladder, gained the deck, and bent the flag to the halyards. Presently he had it flying, and drew back from the staff to look at the approaching boats.

Carl was on the after deck. In order, perhaps, to make himself look more nautical, the Dutch boy had crowded himself into sailor clothes. They were too big for him, up and down, and too small the other way.

Glennie, braced in the top of the conning tower, was running the boat from that position.

The first boat that had put off from the steamer, and consequently the nearest one to the submarine, contained an officer and two sailors.

They were rigged out in genuine Chilian style, and Matt had to admit to himself that the imitation was admirable—so admirable, in fact, that he would have been deceived had he not had prior knowledge of the identity of the steamer.

The submarine's motor was doing her best, but the craft had to follow the contour of the coast, and this threw her nearer and nearer the first of the approaching rowboats.

"We'll try and keep ourselves out of harm until our diving gear is put in shape, Glennie," Matt answered. "After that we'll drop away and leave our Jap friends up above."

"Don't cross that bridge until you get to it, Carl. If the Stars and Stripes can't protect us on a peaceable cruise, then the Sons of the Rising Sun are taking long chances and running big risks."

A hail came from across the water. The officer in the nearest boat was standing and trumpeting through his hands.

"Spanish!" exclaimed Glennie. "They're not overlooking many details, those Japs. They want to know what boat this is, Matt."

"Just as if they didn't know!" muttered Matt. "Tell them, Glennie. Then ask them what boat they're from."

"He says," reported Glennie, "that he's Captain Sandoval, of the Chilian war ship Salvadore, and, he says further, that he has been requested by his government to meet us at the Pacific end of the strait and give us safe conduct to Valparaiso."

"Talk about nerve!" murmured Matt. "We've seen Sandoval, and Sandoval's ship, the Salvadore, and we know what sort of a bold game our friends, the Japs, are playing. Ask him how he knew we were coming through the strait."

"He replies," pursued Glennie, "that our government communicated with his, and requested that a Chilian gunboat protect the Grampus from Jap miscreants known as Sons of the Rising Sun."

"Continued displays of nerve," murmured Matt, "and of the monumental order. Tell him we don't want his safe conduct, and to sheer away from us."

"Just tell him we know he's a Jap, and that we left the Salvadore and Captain Sandoval at Punta Arenas."

There was no waiting on the part of the Japs in the rowboat for Matt's words to be translated into Spanish. The Japs took the words as they fell from the lips of the king of the motor boys, dropped their mask, and the sailors fell to with their oars.

"Stave in their boat, Glennie!" called Matt, his eyes flashing. "I hate to do it, but it's all we can do to avoid trouble. The sailors in the other boat will pick up these when they drop in the water."

"Dot's der dicket!" chirruped Carl, who had been shaking his fists at the Japs and taunting them with various epithets. "Sink der poat! Den, afder dot, sink der odder poat; und vind oop by drowing a dorpeto indo der shdeamer. Make some cleanoops vile you vas aboudt id."

Glennie so manœuvred the Grampus that her sharp prow struck the rowboat broadside on. Instead of staving the boat, however, the Grampus ran under her, the forward part of the small boat's keel sliding over the deck. All the Japs were hurled into the water.

The Grampus flung onward. Matt started ahead to clear the rowboat off the deck, but, before he could reach her, she had cleared herself.

The speed of the submarine and the drag of the rowboat had accomplished the work.

Glennie turned in the tower and cast a glance rearward. A war ship was just rounding the headland, enveloping the top of the uplift in a dense cloud of black smoke.

"Anyhow," said Matt, "we're saved from the Sons of the Rising Sun. Look at them! That rowboat is hardly taking the necessary time to pick up the Japs we knocked into the water, she's so anxious to get back to the steamer."

"I don'd know vich gifs me der mosdt colt chills," cried Carl, "der Sons oof der Rising Sun oder der fellers on der Salfatore!"

CHAPTER XV.

"It looks," remarked Matt, "as though we were between two fires. However, of the two enemies, I had rather fall into the hands of Sandoval. He certainly has no destructive designs on the Grampus."

"The war ship is heading up for us," remarked Glennie. "It's a wonder they don't open on us with some of their small calibre guns."

"Vatch der Chaps," chuckled Carl. "Der Sons oof der Rising Sun acts schust like dey vas aboudt do set. Ach, du lieber, how dey row pack py der shdeamer!"

"They're pulling down the Chilian flag," laughed Matt. "They don't intend to have Sandoval see that."

"But what's the reason the war ship is coming for us, and acting so peaceably?" queried Glennie.

"I don't know, Glennie, but I wouldn't trust Sandoval the length of a lead line. I wish we could dive! Call down and ask Dick what he and Clackett are doing, if anything."

"They haven't found the trouble yet," said Glennie, lifting his head out of the tower.

"'Communicate with you,'" repeated Matt. "That sounds rather mild—for Sandoval. Get us alongside, Glennie."

As the submarine came along on the lee side of the war vessel, the big ship slowed her pace. Presently both craft were jogging along as companionably as a lad and his lass going to market.

"Señor," called Sandoval through a megaphone, "I beg your pardon ten thousand times."

"Vat's dot?" muttered Carl, with bulging eyes. "Can I pelieve vat I hear? Ten t'ousant dimes he pegs Modor Matt's bardon. For vy?"

"Because of the little mistake. I made it. When Captain Enrique Sandoval makes a mistake he admits it like a man."

"Why, this, that your wireless instrument was not the one that claimed the submarine was my war ship."

"By a ruse, which I thought of myself. Early last evening I sent out calls, through the Salvadore's wireless instrument, for the Salvadore. You see? My ship was calling for herself. The call was answered by a ship which claimed she was the Salvadore, Captain Sandoval commanding."

Matt was amazed, not so much by what the captain had found out as by the fact that he had had sense enough to think of such a ruse.

"How did you know, captain," returned Matt, "that I did not answer that second call as you accused me of answering that other one?"

"Carramba! You would not have been so foolish. There is a ship somewhere in these waters that is trying to make others think she is the Salvadore. Where is she?"

"Yonder," said Matt, pointing to the Japanese steamer. "That is the vessel that claims to be the Salvadore. One of her officers told me that was her name, and that her captain was Enrique Sandoval."

Sandoval whirled about on his bridge and picked up a pair of binoculars. For several moments he studied the steamer.

"She was flying the Chilian flag when we first sighted her," he went on to Matt through the megaphone, "and now she's flying a piece of German bunting."

"Car-r-ramba! I will make her trouble. I will pursue her and take her to Punta Arenas while the conduct of her officers and crew is being looked into. It will be easy for the real Salvadore to overtake the counterfeit. Adios, señor, and good luck to you!"

"For a time, yes. The injured convict told me that Garcia was not telling the truth. I did not believe, even then. It was only when the other convict supported the one with the broken arm that I believed. Garcia had two against him. What better proof could you want?"

"You are not out of patience with us for what my friends did in helping me escape from you?"

"No! It was a gr-r-rand fight! You and your two friends worsted me, Captain Enrique Sandoval, and three marines. Of course, had I been armed with my pistol, the result would have been vastly different. Yet you escaped, after bidding defiance to all the Chilian authorities in Punta Arenas. Ah, marvelous! I am filled with admiration for your disregard of life. All Punta Arenas is talking about it. No one was killed, no one was even hurt, and yet you were rescued. I am glad it was so. How would I have felt had I been compelled to face you in your prison room at the harbor master's house, and admitted that I had made a mistake? What could I have said to his excellency, the American consul? I should have perished of shame and mortification. I have your pardon, señor?"

"You have," said Matt, very gravely but with a mischievous twinkle in his gray eye. "We are friends, captain?"

The smoke of the Jap steamer was vanishing rapidly to southward. The Salvadore, a few minutes after the captain ceased speaking, turned her bow on the other tack and started in pursuit.

"It shows," replied the ensign, "how fortune changes when you least expect it. I was counting, first, on losing the Grampus; then, when the war ship showed up, I was thinking only that we should have to return to Punta[Pg 27] Arenas. And now here we are, safe on the high seas, with not even the Japs to molest us!"

Some one called from the periscope room. Glennie bent down to hear what was said.

"It's Dick," said Glennie, looking toward Matt with a smile. "The tank valves are fixed, and he wants to know if we are ready to dive."

"Tell him no," answered Matt, "and add that, if the valves had been in shape, when we first sighted the Jap steamer, we would have dived and would have missed the biggest chance that has come our way since we left Port of Spain—the chance to make a friend out of an enemy, and to set our new-made friend against our implacable foes, the Sons of the Rising Sun."

"Dick says he can't understand it," said Glennie, "and wants you to come down and make it clear."

"Ve ditn't got no fighdt oudt oof dot," remarked Carl, with a disappointed air, "so ve mighdt as vell go pelow und shday dere. It looks like dere vouldn't be any fighding any more for anypody."

CHAPTER XVI.

It was a jovial crowd that the submarine carried into Smyth Channel, practically free of the strait and ready to reach out along the coast up the western edge of two continents.

Speake was serving dinner, and all were in the periscope room with the exception of Gaines and Clackett, who had to be on duty below. But Gaines and Clackett were listening at their speaking tubes and hearing all that was taking place in the chamber overhead.

"These experiences of ours, during the last few days," said Glennie, "prove that luck wears as many disguises as those Japs."

"Dot vas some deep talk," said Carl; "so deep, py shinks, dot I can't onderstand id."

"Oh, I don'd know," said Carl easily. "Who vas id got loose mit himseluf in der beriscope room und got pack der Grampus from der gonficts? Leedle Carl, I bed you. A feller vat vas t'ick-headed couldn't do dot. Hey, Matt?"

"You're right, Carl," laughed Matt. "It took a pretty bright fellow to do that; and your brightness flashed up at just the right time."

"And then flashed out again," said Dick, with a wink at Matt, "and we haven't seen it since."

"Vell, meppy," observed Carl. "Anyvay, subbose Glennie oxblains vat he means ven he say dot luck vears so many tisguises as der Chaps. I nefer see luck but in two vays—von iss goot luck, und der odder iss pad luck. I can shpot dose fellers so far as I can see dem."

"Well, was meeting those convicts good luck or bad for Motor Matt and the rest of the motor boys?"

"Vat a foolish kvestion!" muttered Carl. "It vas pad luck righdt from der chump off. Ditn't Modor Matt, und you, und Tick come pooty near going off der poat drying to ged dose fellers? Vas dot goot luck?"

"Well," went on Glennie, "what was it when Captain Sandoval made up with Motor Matt and went after the Japs' steamer, thereby leaving us free to proceed north without having anything to fear from the Sons of the Rising Sun?"

"Dot kvestion iss more foolish as der odder," said Carl disgustedly; "dot vas goot luck."

"Now, wait a minute, Carl," proceeded Glennie. "I want to change your views on the subject of luck. If we had not taken the convicts aboard we should not have delivered them to Captain Sandoval; and——"

"Und oof ve hatn't telivered dem to Santoval," continued Carl, taking up the theme, "Matt vouldn't have gone on der poat und got indo drouple."

"And if Matt hadn't got into trouble, we should not have put in at Punta Arenas; and if we hadn't stopped there, we wouldn't have got Matt away from Sandoval; and if Sandoval hadn't been trying to test Matt's story about the convicts, he wouldn't have come after us when we fled from Punta Arenas; and if he hadn't found us and made his peace with Matt, he wouldn't now be chasing the Sons of the Rising Sun or——"

"Ach, himmelblitzen!" groaned Carl, clapping his fingers over his ears, "shdop it! You vill haf me grazier as a pedpug."

"Well, you see, don't you, that helping the convicts, which you called bad luck, really resulted in bringing us in touch with Captain Sandoval, who is now our friend and doing his utmost to overhaul the Japs. He will keep the Sons of the Rising Sun so busy that they won't have any chance to follow us up the coast."

"You've run the bell with your remarks, Glennie," said Dick. "We can't always tell whether things are happening to us for the better or for the worse. But, taking 'em full and by, they usually pan out what's best for us."

"My little scheme for gaining time on the Japs by sending them around the Horn didn't work," put in Matt.

"It was a clever scheme, all right," declared Glennie, "and it would have worked if the motor hadn't balked on us and compelled us to lose a day."

"We've given the Sons of the Rising Sun something to think about," said Dick. "Keelhaul me if I don't think they'll just about throw up their hands and quit after this."

"If Sandoval gets them," returned Glennie, "he'll keep them in Punta Arenas until we reach Mare Island."

"There's no doubt about his getting them, old ship!" exclaimed Dick. "The war ship is a faster boat than the steamer."

"But Sandoval hasn't the cunning nor the brains that the leader of those Japs has!"

"That may be, but it doesn't take much cunning or brains for a straight-away race. The fastest boat will win, and I'm banking on the Salvadore. You don't mean to say, matey, that you're expecting to meet the Young Samurai somewhere up the coast?"

"I'm not expecting it, Dick," answered Matt, "but I'm not going to let anything surprise me. The things you least expect are the things those Japs are certain to do."

"I hope like anyt'ing dot der resdt oof dis gruise don'd vas going to be some Suntay-school bicnics," piped Carl grewsomely. "I vould like to haf a leedle chincher shdill lefdt in der expetition."

"I guess we'll have ginger enough left, Carl," said Glennie, "even if we don't have anything more to do with the Sons of the Rising Sun."

"Where's our next port of call, matey?" queried Dick, directing the question at Matt.

"You know what Brigham said we were to do when we mentioned any place where we were to put in with the Grampus?" laughed Matt.

"He said," replied Glennie, "that we ought to go down in the deepest part of the ocean and then whisper it."

"He meant," said Matt, "that the Japs were full of guile, and that the plans we least expected them to overhear would be the very ones they discovered. We came down the east coast of the continent from Brazil and the River Plate, and laid in at Gallego Bay. If we hadn't done that, we shouldn't have discovered that the Japs were following us, their boat newly painted and two wireless masts on her deck. Those lads had their wits about them when they did that wireless work; and it was only an accident that enabled us to catch their messages, and answer them, putting them on a wrong tack."

"I was trying to emphasize Mr. Brigham's advice of keeping such matters to ourselves."

"But it isn't necessary, now that the Sons of the Rising Sun are out of the running."

"Possibly it isn't. Well, we shall have to have more gasoline about the time we reach Valparaiso. You can draw your own inferences from that."

"That means," said Dick, "that we put in at Valparaiso. That will do, fine. I've been there a lot of times, and I'm a Fiji if I wouldn't like to renew some old acquaintance among the Chilians and the English colony. Let's lay over a day or two, Matt, when we get there, and not just paddle ashore, get the gasoline, and put to sea again."

"How long we stay in the place, Dick," returned Matt, "will have to depend on circumstances. We've got to make good, you know, by delivering the Grampus safely at Mare Island Navy Yard."

"Well, I guess we've nothing but plain sailing ahead of us," said Dick. "You won't have to set a pattern of defiance for the rest of us again, or use our wireless apparatus to send a disguised Jap steamer around the Horn."

"I don't agree with you there," said Glennie. "By coming through the strait you took the most dangerous passage, and it will count more as a test of the submarine's capabilities than rounding the Horn."

"I agree with you on that point, Glennie," returned Matt, "and I am glad you take that view of a case that was practically forced upon us by the Sons of the Rising Sun."

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THE SPIDER WATER.

Not officially: I don't pretend to say that. You might travel the West from fresh water to salt without ever locating the Spider Water, by map or by name.

But if you should happen anywhere in the West to sit among a gang of bridge carpenters, or get to confidence with a bridge foreman; or find the springy side of a road master's heart—then you might hear all you want about the Spider Water; maybe more.

The Sioux named it; and, whatever their faults, no man with sense ever attempted to improve on their names for things—whether birds, or braves, or winds, or waters; they know.

Unfortunately our managers hadn't always sense, and one of them countenanced a shameful change in the name of Spider Water. Some idiot dubbed it the Big Sandy; and the Big Sandy it is to this day on map and in folder. But not in the heart of the Sioux or the lingo of trackmen.

It was the only stream our bridge engineers could never manage. Bridge after bridge they threw across it—and into it. One auditor at Omaha, given to asthma and statistics, estimated, between spells, that the Spider Water had cost us more than all the other watercourses together from the Missouri to the Sierras.

Then came to the West End a masterful man, a Scotchman, pawky and hard. Brodie was his name, an Edinburgh man, with no end of degrees and master of every one. A great engineer, Brodie, but the Spider Water took a fall even out of him. It swept out a Howe truss bridge for Brodie almost before he got his bag opened.

Then Brodie tried—not to make friends with the Spider, for nobody could do that—but to get acquainted with it. For this he went to its oldest neighbors, the Sioux. Brodie spent weeks and weeks, summers, up the Spider Water, hunting. And with the Sioux he talked the Spider Water and drank fire water. That was Brodie's shame, the fire water.

But he was pawky, and he chinned unceasingly the braves and the medicine men about the uncommonly queer creek that took the bridges so fast. The river that month in and month out couldn't squeeze up water enough for a pollywog to bathe in, and then, of a sudden, and for a few days, would rage like the Missouri, and leave our bewildered rails hung up either side in the wind.

Brodie talked cloudbursts up country; for the floods came, times, under clear skies—and the Sioux sulked in silence. He suggested an unsuspected inlet from some mountain stream which, maybe, times, sent its stormwater over a low divide into the Spider—and the red men shrugged their faces.

Finally they told him the Indian legend about the Spider Water; took him away up where once a party of Pawnees had camped in the dust of the river bed to surprise the Sioux; and told Brodie how the Spider—more sudden than buck, fleeter than pony—had come down in the night and ambushed the Pawnees with a flood. And so well that next morning there wasn't enough material in sight for a ghost dance.

They took Brodie himself out into the ratty bed, and when he said heap dry, and said no water, they laughed, Indian-wise, and pointed to the sand. Scooping little wells with their hands, they showed him the rising and the filling; water where the instant before was no water; and a bigger fool than Brodie could see the water was all there, only underground.

"But when did it rise?" asked Brodie. "When the chinook spoke," said the Sioux. "And why?" persisted Brodie. "Because the Spider woke," answered the Sioux. And Brodie went out of the camp of the Sioux wondering.

And he planned a new bridge which should stand the chinook and the Spider and all evil spirits. And full seven year it lasted; and then the fire water spoke for the wicked Scotchman, and he himself went out into the night.

And after he died, miserable wreck of a man, the Spider woke and took his pawky bridge and tied up the main line for two weeks and set us crazy, for it cost us our grip on the California fast freight business. But at that time Healey was superintendent of bridges on the West End.

His father was a section foreman. When Healey was a mere kid, he got into Brodie's office doing errands. But whenever he saw a draughtsman at work he hung over the table till they kicked him downstairs. Then, by and by, Healey got himself an old table and part of a cake of India ink, and with some cursing from Brodie became a draughtsman, and one day head draughtsman in Brodie's office. Healey was no college man; Healey was a Brodie man. Single mind on single mind—concentration absolute. Mathematics, drawing, bridges, brains—that was Healey. All that Brodie knew, Healey had from him, and Brodie, who hated even himself, showed still a light in the wreck by moulding Healey to his work. For one day, said Brodie in his heart, this boy shall be master of these bridges. When I am dust he will be here what I might have been—this Irish boy—and they will say he was Brodie's boy. And better than any of these doughheads they send me out he shall be, if he was made engineer by a drunkard. And Healey was better, far, far better than the doughheads, better than the graduates, better than Brodie—and to Healey came the time to wrestle with the Spider.

Stronger than any man he was, before or since, for the work. All Brodie knew, all the Indians knew, all that a life's experience, eating, living, watching, sleeping with the big river, had taught him, that Healey knew. And when Brodie's bridge went out, Healey was ready with his new bridge for the Spider Water, which should be better than Brodie's, just as he was better than Brodie. A bridge like Brodie's, with the fire water, as it were, left out. And after the temporary structure was thrown over the stream, Healey's plans for a Howe truss, two-pier, two-abutment, three-span, pneumatic caisson bridge to span the Spider Water were submitted to headquarters.

But the cost! The directors jumped the table when they saw the figures. Our directors talked economy for the road and for themselves studied piracy. So Healey couldn't get the money for his new bridge, and was forced to build a cheap one which must, he knew, go some time. But the[Pg 30] dream of his life, this we all knew—the Sioux would have said the Spider knew—was to build a final bridge over the Spider Water, a bridge to throttle it for all time.

It was the one subject on which you would get a rise out of Healey any time, day or night, the two-pier, two-abutment, three-span, pneumatic caisson Spider bridge. He would talk Spider bridge to a Chinaman. His bridge foreman, Ed Peeto, a staving big one-eyed French-Canadian, had but two ideas in life. One was Healey, the other the Spider bridge. And after many moons our pirate directors were thrown out, and a great and public-spirited man took control of our system, and when Ed Peeto heard it he kicked his little water spaniel in a frenzy of delight. "Now, Sport, old boy," he exclaimed riotously, "we'll get the bridge!" And after much effort by Healey, seconded by Bucks, superintendent of the division, and by Callahan, assistant, the new president did consent to put up the money for the good bridge. The wire flashed the word to the West End. Everybody at the wickiup, as we called the old division headquarters, was glad; but Healey rejoiced, Ed Peeto burned red fire, and his little dog Sport ate rattlesnakes.

There was a good bridge needed at one other point, the Peace River, a treacherous water, and Healey had told the new management that if they would give him a pneumatic caisson bridge there, he would guarantee the worst stretch on the system against tie-up disasters for a generation; and they had said go ahead; and Ed Peeto went fairly savage with responsibility and strutted around the wickiup like a Cyclops.

Early in the summer, Healey very quiet, and Peeto very profane, with all their traps and belongings, moved into construction headquarters at the Spider, and the first airlock ever sunk west of the Missouri closed over the heads of tall Healey and big Ed Peeto. Like a swarm of ants the bridge workers cast the refuse up out of the Spider bed. The blowpipes never slept, night and day the sand streamed from below, and Healey's caissons sank like armed cruisers foot by foot toward the bed-rock. When the masonry was crowding high-water mark, Healey and Peeto ran back to Medicine Bend to get acquainted with their families. Peeto was so deaf he couldn't hear himself sing, and Healey was as ragged and ratty as the old depot; but both were immensely happy.

Next morning, Sunday, they all sat up in Buck's office reading letters and smoking.

"Hello," growled Bucks, chucking a nine-inch official manila under the table, "here's a general order—Number Fourteen."

The boys drew their briars like one. Bucks read a lot of stuff that didn't touch our end, then he reached this paragraph:

"Well, well, well," murmured Healey, opening his eyes, "here's promotions right and left." Bucks read on:

"You're let out!" stormed Peeto. Healey nodded. The bridge foreman dashed his pipe at the stove, jumped up, stamped across to the window, and was like to have sworn the glass out before Healey spoke.

"I'm glad we're up with the Spider job, Bucks," said he. "When they get the Peace River work in, the division will run itself for a year."

"Healey," said Bucks, "I don't need to tell you what I think of it, do I? It's a shame. But it's what I've said for a year—nobody will ever know what Omaha is going to do next." Healey rose to his feet. "Where you going?"

"Ed, will you get those staybolts and chuck them into the baggage car for me when Two pulls in? I'm going over to the house for a minute."

They knew what that meant. He was going over to tell the folks he wouldn't be home for Sunday as he expected—as the children expected. Going to tell the wife—the old man—that he was out. Out of the railroad system he had given his life to help build up and to make what it was. Out of the position he had climbed to by studying like a hermit and working like a hobo. Out—without criticism or reason or allegation. Simply, like a dog, out.

Bucks and Callahan looked down on the departing train soon afterward, and saw Healey climbing into the smoker. Every minute he had before the new order beheaded him he spent at the Spider. One thing he meant to make sure of—that they shouldn't beat him out of the finish of the Spider bridge as he had planned it. One monument Healey meant to have; one he has.

After he let go on the West End, Healey wanted to look up something East. But Bucks told him frankly it would be difficult to get a place without a regular engineer's degree. It seemed as if there was no place for Healey but just the mountains, and after a time finding nothing, and Bucks losing a roadmaster, Healey—Callahan urging—agreed to take the little job and stay with his old superintendent. It was a big drop, but Healey took it.

Agnew meantime had stopped all construction work not too far along to discontinue. The bridge at the Spider was fortunately beyond his mandate; it was finished to a rivet as Healey had planned it. But the Peace River bridge was caught in the air, and Healey's great caissons gave way to piles, and the cost came down from a hundred to seventy-five thousand dollars. Incidentally it was breathed from headquarters that the day for extravagant appropriations on the West End was passed.

That year we had no winter till spring, and no spring till summer; and it was a spring of snow and a summer of water. The mountains were lost in snow even after Easter. When the snow let up, and it was no longer a matter of keeping the track clear, it was a matter of lashing it to the right-of-way to keep it from swimming clear. Healey caught it worse than anybody. He knew Bucks looked to him for the track, and he worked like two men, for that was his way in a pinch. He strained every nerve making ready for the time the mountain snows should go out.

There was nobody easy on the West End. Healey least of all, for that spring, ahead of the suns, ahead of the thaws, ahead of the waters, came a going out that unsettled the oldest calculator in the wickiup. Brodie's old friends began coming out of the up-country, out of the Spider Valley. Over the Eagle Pass and through the Peace Cañon came the Sioux in parties and camps and tribes. And Bucks stayed them and talked with them. But the Sioux did not talk, they grunted—and traveled. After Bucks Healey tried, for the braves knew him and would listen. But when he accused them of fixing for a fight, they denied and turned their faces to the mountains. They stretched their arms straight out under their blankets like stringers, and put their palms downward and muttered to Healey, "Plenty snow."

"I reckon they're lying," growled Bucks listening. Healey made no comment; only looked at the buried mountains.

Now the Spider wakes regularly twice; at all other times irregularly. Once in April; that is the foothills water. Once in June; that is the mountain water.

Now came an April without any rise; nothing rose but the snow, and May opened bleaker than April; even the trackmen walked with set faces. The dirtiest half-breed on the line knew now what the mountains held.

Section gangs were doubled, night walkers put on. Bypasses were opened, bridge crews strengthened, everything buckled for grief. Gullies began to race, culverts to choke, creeks to tumble, rivers to madden. From the Muddy to the Summit the water courses swelled and boiled; all but the Spider; the big river slept. Through May and into June the Spider slept. But Healey was there at the wickiup, with one eye always running over all the line and one eye turned always to the Spider, where two men and two, night and day, watched the lazy surface water trickle over and through the vagabond bed between Healey's monumental piers. Never an hour did the operating department lose the track. East and west of us everywhere railroads clamored in despair. The flood swept from the Rockies to the Alleghanies. Our trains never missed a trip; our schedules were unbroken; our people laughed; we got the business, dead loads of it! Our treasury flowed over; and Healey watched, and the Spider slept. But when May turned soft and hot into June, with every ditch bellying and the mountains still buried, it put us all thinking hard. It was the season for floods.

BEAVER IN PERIL OF EXTINCTION IN MICHIGAN.

Unless the State lawmaking body intervenes with protective legislation, there will be a great slaughter of beavers in Upper Michigan less than a year hence. The law which prohibits killing the little fur-bearing animals expires with the close of January, 1910.

For more than eight years beavers have been protected, and that they have thrived is shown by the fact that large colonies are to be found on many streams in different portions of the peninsula.

Whether the animals are worthy of continued protection is a question concerning which divergent views are held. From a humanitarian standpoint most persons doubtless would be sorry to see the closed season abolished. It is the opinion of lumbermen, however, that beavers are a nuisance. This is because of the work of the animals in building dams. The streams obstructed in this manner, the water is often backed up and extensive areas are flooded, interfering with the log drives and frequently resulting in considerable property loss.

The dams in most cases are amazingly well constructed. Marvelous ingenuity is shown by the builders, and so systematically are the operations carried on that the work accomplished is almost beyond belief.

Last fall when the water in Dead River fell to such a low stage that it was hardly possible to keep Marquette's municipal electric plant in commission, investigation resulted in the discovery that the stream was dammed at more than a score of places. Large reservoirs had thus been created. The obstructions were the work of beavers, good-sized colonies of which were domiciled at every point where the river was found to be blocked.

So stanchly constructed were the dams that the use of dynamite was necessary to destroy them. It was found that trees as large as ten inches in diameter had been utilized, and in almost every instance the timber had been cut into four-foot lengths. Firmly set into place and plastered with mud, the logs formed a substantial barrier, and, augmented with small sticks and brush, they were successful in backing up the river until at one point the stream was more than a mile in width.

However, although the beavers occasion material havoc of this sort, they do not want for friends who would resent such action as would leave the animals open to wholesale slaughter. It is pointed out that, while the beavers have multiplied greatly the last few years and are now very plentiful, as the result of the imposition of the closed season, it would require only a few months' work to exterminate the animals entirely.

Choice beaver skins, such as are procurable in upper Michigan, are in demand from furriers, and it is unquestioned that with the expiration of the present statutory protection, waters frequented by the little animals would witness a swift and sanguinary onslaught by scores of trappers.

RARE CAGE BIRDS.

Lovers of cage birds have hitherto confined their attention chiefly to the canary, the parrot, and the mocking bird. Now, however, there is a tendency to acquire rare varieties and dealers are preparing to meet this novel demand.

The bulbul is among the feathered pets now in demand in this country. "A few bulbuls have been hitherto brought from India," said a bird dealer. "These have not included, however, the bulbul of Persia, the Oriental counterpart of the European nightingale, but gifted with a richer, sweeter, and more plaintive song."

The hill minas of India sometimes eclipse parrots in their lingual abilities, yet very few have been imported into the United States. They now retail at $17 apiece. Japanese robins, sometimes called Pekin nightingales by English aviculturists, are peculiarly colored—dark and greenish, with distinctive yellow and orange on breast, bill, and wings. They are easy to keep, possess a sweet and musical song, and have a song period lasting ten months.

The skill of Japanese breeders is also shown in several varieties of cage birds that are coming into notice in this country. A pure white variety and a buff-and-white variety of one species—the Japanese nun, also known as bengelee or mannikin—bear testimony to the assiduity of the Japanese fanciers. Nuns are small birds of different species, such as the black-headed and tri-colored nuns, the spice bird or chestnut finch, and others. Most of them have more or less dark brown in the coloring.

Cage birds from Africa are notable for beauty of plumage rather than song. The African weaver, in addition to attractive coloring, offers a striking exhibition of his skill in the art that has given him his name. At nesting time, if furnished with worsted or other suitable material, the birds will weave this in and out of the wires of their cage, making neat and compact examples of their handiwork. Bishops and Madagascar weavers are brilliant red and black in coloring, cutthroats have a band of red across the throat from which is derived the name, and whidah birds (sometimes but incorrectly called widow birds) have extremely long tails.

Waxbills form a family of African cage birds which are just beginning to attract fashionable notice. These include the dainty little cordon bleu, or crimson-eared waxbill, various species of silverbills, and several other kinds. The violet-eared waxbill, a bird of radiant prismatic beauty, though for some years past popular in Europe, has just been brought to this country. Edelsingers, or African gray singers, are an African species with a pleasing song.

Lady goldfinches from Australia have hitherto been extremely rare in this country, although they are said to reach the highest point of beauty and elegance attained by any of the smaller cage birds of the world. These birds tame readily, are not pugnacious with cage mates, and exhibit many individualities of disposition. Among their accomplishments is an interesting and graceful little dance.

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Transcriber's Notes:

Page 15, corrected typo "glitering" in "stern face and glittering eyes." Changed "Hs" to "He" in "He iss arrest."

Page 23, changed "secondhand" to "second-hand" for consistency ("our second-hand machine").

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THRILLING ADVENTURE	MOTOR FICTION
NO. 19 JULY 3, 1909.	FIVE CENTS
MOTOR MATT'S DEFIANCE	OR AROUND THE HORN
By The Author of "MOTOR MATT"
	STREET & SMITH, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK.

3 months	65c.
4 months	85c.
6 months	$1.25
One year	2.50
2 copies one year	4.00
1 copy two years	4.00

________________________ 190
STREET & SMITH, 79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York City. Dear Sirs: Enclosed please find ___________________________ cents for which send me:

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