Sue" with more care than she had done before. There
was nothing that she could discover that looked like a wireless
apparatus. However, at the forward end of the cabin she discovered a
small door let into the paneling. This door was locked. She asked the
captain to what it opened.

"That's the chain locker, where we stow things," he answered gruffly.

The girl then began calculating on how much space there was under the
floor of the cabin. She decided that there must be at least three feet
of hull under there, but the flooring was covered with carpet that
extended under the lockers and seats at the side, so that she was
unable to determine whether or not the floor could be readily taken
up. Altogether, her discoveries did not amount to very much. She was
obliged to confess as much to herself. As for Tommy, that young woman
had conducted herself admirably during the sail, proving that she was
discreet and fully as keen as was Harriet Burrell; and, though Tommy
said very little on the subject uppermost in the minds of the two
girls, the little girl was constantly on the alert.

In the joy of sailing they forgot their noon meal. Nor were they
reminded of it when Captain Bill, giving Harriet the wheel, made
himself a cup of black coffee over an oil stove and drank it, eating
several slices of dry bread. Having finished his luncheon, he
pointed to the compass, asking Harriet if she knew anything about it.
She said she did not.

[Illustration: Harriet Took the Wheel.]

"If you are going to be a sailor, you must learn to read the compass,"
he said. "In the first place, you must learn to 'box the compass.'
I'll show you."

"Are you looking for the boxth?" questioned Tommy, observing the
skipper searching for something in a locker under the stern seat.

"Box? No," he grunted. "We don't use that kind of a box in boxing the
compass. By boxing the compass we mean reading the points of it." He
produced a long, stiff wire, with which he pointed to the compass
card. "A mariner's compass is divided into thirty-two points," he
informed Harriet. "In the first place, there are four cardinal points,
North, East, South and West. As you will see, by looking at the
compass card, it is divided into smaller points which are not named on
the card. I'll draw you a card to-night with all the points named,
then you can learn them. Until you do, you are not a sailor. For
instance, to read the compass, we begin with North and go on until we