just abreast of that light? It will give us a starting point to reckon
our run from."

"A good idea," nodded Mr. Farnum, and just then David Pollard came up
from below. Both stood watching the young commander for some moments.

"Captain," remarked the inventor, "you handle the boat as easily as
though you had been doing this sort of thing for years. You must have
had some practice aboard rather goodsized craft?"

"Never anything much bigger than a thirty-foot gasoline boat," Jack
replied. "In the old days, sir, a young sailor had to begin with a
rowboat, go on to a cat-boat, and so work on up until he could handle
a full-rigged ship. That's where the change has come with to-day's
gasoline boats. A fellow who learns to run a twenty-foot gasoline
launch can just as easily handle a big gasoline yacht of any size. The
new style of power saves a heap of time in the learning, sir."

Captain Jack was now nearing a line abreast of the Point Villars light.
He watched keenly. At last, when just abreast, he shouted down through
the manhole:

"Shut off the gasoline power. Stand ready to turn on the electric power.
Get ready to dive. Henderson, take the steering wheel in the conning
tower."

Less than sixty seconds later the ventilators had been taken in, the
manhole cover was made fast, and all were below, save Bill Henderson,
who sat at the tower wheel, before him an electric lighted compass.

"Henderson," called Captain Jack, "steer north by northeast, one point
off north."

"Aye, aye, sir," came from the seaman in the conning tower.

"Hold fast! Make ready to dive!" called the young captain.

Then, at the signal, Hal Hastings turned open the sea-valves into the
diving tanks. Down shot the "Pollard," the young captain standing by
the gauge to watch until they were fifty feet below.

"On even keel!" he shouted. Quickly the submarine regained her even
keel, and ran along at eight miles an hour. Captain Jack Benson read
the gauge once more, to make sure that they were fifty feet below
the surface.

"And now, we've nothing to watch but the clock, until our hour is up,"
he laughed, dropping onto one of the seats and stretching. "Somehow,
I notice none of us are as nervous as we were the first time this
diving machine went down with us."

With the electric fans running it was cool and comfortable there, and
the air, as pure as that above the ocean until the point of diving,
would last for some time withou