ut off in the launches. Seaman Streeter was not present, nor
even accounted for. Promptly Darrin ordered the course changed and the
two destroyers went back, making careful search under the searchlights of
the surface of the sea near the scene of the foundering. No trace of the
missing seaman was found.

Seaman Streeter did not die in battle. He perished in the gentler but no
less useful field of saving human life! An orphaned sister in Iowa, his
only living near relative, gazes to-day at the appreciative letter she
has received from the Navy Department at Washington. Then she turns to a
longer and more glowing letter written by the, to her, strange hand of
David Darrin, Lieutenant-Commander, United States Navy.

In less than two hours the destroyers, with their respective strings of
towed boats, arrived at the British port and the work of transferring the
rescued to shore began. Dan's dead and wounded were also sent ashore.

It was afterward reported that nine human beings were unaccounted for.
Four more died in the boats on the way to land.

While the transfers to shore were being made Dan Dalzell came aboard the
"Grigsby" to greet his chum. They chatted while the damaged bridge was
being repaired.

"Danny-boy," Dave remarked seriously, "that exploding mine showed us
clearly what is expected of us. It is our task to see that all these
near-by waters are cleared of such dangerous objects."

"Surely we cannot get every mine that the Huns plant," objected Dalzell.

"We must get as many of them as we can. I know that all the British
mine-sweepers are constantly on the job, but if necessary we must have
more mine-sweepers. We must keep the paths of navigation better cleared
than proved to be the case to-night."

"Oh, say!" expostulated Dalzell, his eyes wide open, "we simply cannot,
even with twice as many mine-sweepers, find every blooming mine that the
Huns choose to sow in the Channel and North Sea."

"To find and take up every mine should be our standard," Dave insisted,
"and we must live as close to that standard as we possibly can."

"Then we did wrong to go after the destroyers this night?" Dan demanded,
curtly.

"Of course not, for that bombardment of that defenseless little town,
carried on longer, might have cost as many lives as are likely to be lost
in the case of a steamship hitting a floating mine."

"We can't do everything at the same time," Dan contended.

"Then we must strive to do ninety-nin