he clean sweep I made of the
gophers and prairie-dogs, but we've still managed to keep our own little
section of the beat pretty clear.

"Having satisfied myself regarding the Hun's penchant for stealing up,
submerged, to gloat over the dying agonies of his victim, it seemed to
me that the obvious thing to do was to lead him on with an imitation
death-agony, and then have a proper surprise waiting for him when he
came up to gloat. The first thing I started working on was how to 'burn
up' and 'blow up' with sufficient realism to deceive the skipper of a
submerged U-boat, and still be in shape to spring an effective surprise
if he could be tempted into laying himself open to it.

"My first plan proved too primitive by far. I reckoned that the
'blowing-up' touch might be provided by dropping a depth-charge, and
that of 'burning up' by playing my searchlight on the surface of the
water on the side the approach was to be expected from. Neither was good
enough. The 'can' might have been set to explode on the surface, but
that could not be affected without running the chance of blowing in my
own stern. But the bing of a depth-charge detonating well under the
water is quite unmistakable, and the first U-boat I tried to lure with
one made off forthwith, plainly under the impression that it was the
object of an active attack. As for the searchlight, I saw that it
wouldn't do the first time I went down and took a peep at a trial of it
through the periscope of one of our own submarines. The beam did cast a
patch of brightness discernible through the upturned 'eye' at a depth of
from sixty to eighty feet, but it was neither red enough nor fluttery
enough to suggest anything like a burning ship. I set to work to devise
something more life-like, without ever waiting for a chance to draw a
Fritz with it.

"First and last, I tried a goodly variety of 'fire' experiments," D----
continued, snuggling down for a moment with both arms under the
blankets, "and I don't mind admitting that I'd like to have a few of
'em, smoke and all, flaming up all over this refrigerator right now. The
thing I finally decided to try consisted of nothing more than a light,
shallow tank of ordinary kerosene--paraffin oil, I believe they call it
here--made fast to a small, roughly built raft. The _modus operandi_ was
as simple as the contrivance itself. As soon as a U-boat was sighted,
the raft was to be launched on the _opposite_ side, and kept about
thirty f