e to," retorted Jack Benson, easily.

"Eph can generally take care of himself," added Hal Hastings. "He
rarely falls into any kind of scrape that he can't climb out of."

"But this is a bad time for him to take the 'Farnum' and cruise away,"
objected the owner of the yard. "The 'Hudson' may be here at any hour,
you know, and we ought to be ready for orders."

As he spoke, Mr. Farnum scanned the horizon away to the south, out over
the sea.

"There's a line of smoke, now, and not many miles away," he announced
"It may, as likely as not, be smoke from the 'Hudson's' pipe."

"Going out with us, sir!" inquired Captain Jack Benson, as Hal took his
place at a pair of oars.

"Yes," nodded the owner of the yard, dropping into a seat at the stern
of the boat, after which Benson pushed off at the bow.

Down on the seashore, on this day just past the middle of October, the
air was keen and brisk. There had been frost for several nights past.
Sleighing might be looked for in another month.

"Cable's gone from this buoy," declared Captain Jack, as Hal rowed close.
"Over to the other one, old fellow."

Here, too, the cable was missing. Evidently the "Farnum" had made a
clean get-away. If there had been any accident, it must have taken
place after the new submarine boat had slipped away from her moorings.

"Humph!" grunted Jack, scanning the sea. "No sign of the boat anywhere.
Eph may be anywhere within twenty miles of here."

"Or within twenty feet, either," grinned Hal, looking down into the
waters that were lead colored under the dull autumn sky.

"What are we going to do, Captain?" inquired Jacob Farnum. "There are
Grant Andrews and three of his machinists coming down to the water."

"I reckon, sir, we'd better put them aboard the 'Pollard' first, sir,"
Benson suggested.

Mr. Farnum nodding, the boat was rowed in to the shore and Andrews and
his men were put aboard the "Pollard" at the platform deck. Captain
Jack Benson unlocking the door to the conning tower, was himself the
first to disappear down below. When he came back he carried a line to
which was attached a heavy sounding-lead.

"It won't take us long to sound the deep spots in this little harbor,"
said the young skipper, as he dropped down once more into the bow of the
shore boat. "Row about, Hal, over the places where the submarine could
go below out of sight."

As Hal rowed, Skipper Jack industriously used the sounding-lead.

For twenty minu