een looking at the chart. Now, I'll know Holmesville to a dot
when we sight the place."

"Nice sort of a town some one took the trouble to name after me, isn't
it?" grunted Lieutenant Holmes.

"Say! Look there!" gasped Lieutenant Noll, pointing ahead just as the
craft rounded a bend of the river, and something was visible that the
trees had shut out before.

A thrill of dismay went through all. Ahead the sky was angrily red at
one point.

"The miscreants have fired the town!" roared Dick Prescott, in anguish.
"Captain Halstead, is there no more speed to be wrung out of this boat?"

"We're going like the wind, now, Mr. Prescott," Halstead answered. "To
try for any more speed would be to endanger either the engine or the
propeller."

"Let this young skipper alone, Dick," whispered Holmes soothingly, in
his chum's ear. "He knows his business, if ever a man did!"

As more miles were covered the red blur against the dark sky became
larger and brighter. Prescott and Darrin watched it as though dazed.
Once in a while their hands wandered to their weapons.

"We'll be there in ten minutes more," announced Halstead finally, after
a glance at his watch.

"Thank Heaven!" devoutly muttered two young officers.

"Oh, I hope we're _in time_!" groaned Lieutenant Hal, turning to Noll
Terry.

Three or four enlisted men were on deck. The others, after the cool
indifference of their kind until the moment of action comes, were below
in the cabin. But every soldier started to his feet as Raney's voice
rang out:

"Ready, men, for a quick landing!"

"You'll go back out into the stream, won't you, Halstead?" Lieutenant
Overton asked, as Hank directed the "Restless" in toward a dock.

"Joe Dawson will," answered Skipper Tom. "He and I have already drawn
lots to see which one of us would stay on the boat."

"You're not going ashore into this hades of riot and arson, are you?"

"Where American women are in danger?" retorted Skipper Tom. "Nothing
less than a file of soldiers could keep me back!"

A dozen irregular shots rang out just as Halstead and Hank leaped ashore
to hold the lines.

"Tumble off there, men. Don't wait for any gang-plank!" roared
Lieutenant Prescott.

Tom Halstead and Hank Butts did not attempt to throw the hawsers over
posts, but tossed their lines back to the deck as soon as the last
soldier was ashore. Joe Dawson, taking his place at the wheel, and with
one foot against the deck control of the engine,