n you would away from my watchful eye."

"Huh! A fine lot your watchful eye has been on me this week,"
retorted Midshipman Dalzell. "Jetson has been my grandmother
this week."

It was a jolly party that steamed down Chesapeake Bay in the launch
that afternoon. There was an enlisted man of the engineer department
at the engine, while a seaman acted as helmsman.

"Straight down the bay, helmsman," Dave directed, as the launch
headed out.

"Aye, aye, sir," replied the man, touching his cap.

After that the young people---Mrs. Meade was included under that
heading---gave themselves over to enjoyment. Belle, with a quiet
twinkle in her eyes that was born of the love of teasing, tried
very hard to draw Mr. Jetson out, thereby causing that young man
to flush many times.

Dan, from the outset, played devoted squire to Mrs. Meade. That
was safe ground for him.

"What's that party in the sailboat yonder?" inquired Mrs. Meade,
when the steamer had been nearly an hour out. "Are the young
men midshipman or officers?"

Dave raised to his eyes the glasses with which the steamer was
equipped.

"They're midshipmen," he announced. "Gray and Lambert, of our
class, and Haynes and Whipple of the second class."

"They've young ladies with them."

"Certainly."

"Isn't it rather risky for midshipmen to have control of the boat,
then, with no older man along?" asked Mrs. Meade.

"It ought not to be," Dave replied. "Midshipmen of the upper
classes are expected to be familiar with the handling of sailboats."

"Those fellows are getting careless, at any rate," muttered Dan
Dalzell. "Look at the way that sail is behaving. Those fellows
are paying too much attention to the girls and too little heed
to the handling of the craft!"

Even as Dalzell spoke the helm was jammed over and the boat started
to come about.

"Confound Lambert! He ought to ease off his sheet a good bit,"
snapped Midshipman Dalzell.

"Helmsman, point our boat so as to pass under the other craft's
stern," spoke Darrin so quietly that only Dan and Belle overheard
him.

"Aye, aye, sir," murmured the helmsman, in a very low voice.
Dave signaled the engineman silently to increase the speed.

"There the boat goes, the sail caught by a cross current of air!"
called Midshipman Dalzell almost furiously.

The girls aboard the sailboat now cried out in alarm as they felt
the extreme list of the boat under them. All too late Midshipman
Gray Sprang for