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<h1>MOTOR STORIES</h1>

<table summary="scaffold">
<tr>
<td style="width: 50%; padding-right: 1.5em;" class="tdr">
THRILLING<br />
ADVENTURE
</td>
<td style="width: 50%; padding-left: 1.5em;" class="tdl">
MOTOR<br />
FICTION
</td>
</tr><tr>
<td class="bb bt tdl">
NO. 19<br />
JULY 3, 1909.
</td>
<td class="bb bt tdr">
FIVE<br />
CENTS
</td>
</tr><tr>
<td class="tdl large">
MOTOR MATT'S<br />
DEFIANCE
</td><td class="tdr large">
<i class="small">OR</i> AROUND THE<br />
HORN
</td>
</tr><tr>
<td colspan="2" class="tdr">
<i>By <span class="smcap">The Author</span><br />
of "MOTOR MATT"</i>
</td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td class="tdc">
<br /><i>STREET &amp; SMITH,<br />
PUBLISHERS,<br />
NEW YORK.</i>
</td>
</tr></table>
<hr class="chap" />




<table summary="scaffold" class="bbox">
<tr><td colspan="2" class="tdc huge">MOTOR STORIES</td></tr>
<tr><td class="tdr large" style="padding-right: .25em;">THRILLING ADVENTURE</td><td class="tdl large" style="padding-left: .25em;">MOTOR FICTION</td></tr>
</table>

<p><i>Issued Weekly. By subscription $2.50 per year. Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1909, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress,<br />
Washington, D. C., by</i> <span class="smcap">Street &amp; Smith</span>, <i>79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York, N. Y.</i></p>

<table summary="scaffold" class="bb bt">
<tr><td style="width: 33%;" class="tdl">No. 19.</td><td style="width: 33%;" class="tdc">NEW YORK, July 3, 1909.</td><td style="width: 33%;" class="tdr">Price Five Cents.</td></tr>
</table>




<p class="center huge">MOTOR MATT'S DEFIANCE</p>

<p class="center">OR,</p>

<p class="center large">AROUND THE HORN.</p>

<hr class="r5" />
<p class="center">By the author of "MOOR MATT."</p>
<hr class="r5" />



<h2>CONTENTS</h2>

<p class="center">
<a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I. TELLTALE SPARKS.</a><br />
<a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II. CLIPPING THE DRAGON'S CLAWS.</a><br />
<a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III. THE OVERTURNED BOAT.</a><br />
<a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV. GALLANT WORK.</a><br />
<a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V. THE FIVE CHILIANS.</a><br />
<a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI. TREACHERY.</a><br />
<a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII. TURNING THE TABLES.</a><br />
<a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII. THE MAN-OF-WAR.</a><br />
<a href="#CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX. ABOARD THE "SALVADORE."</a><br />
<a href="#CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X. THE TIGHTENING COIL.</a><br />
<a href="#CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI. DICK ON HIS METTLE.</a><br />
<a href="#CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII. DESPERATE MEASURES.</a><br />
<a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII. A DIVE FOR LIBERTY.</a><br />
<a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV. ENGLISH REACH.</a><br />
<a href="#CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV. SANDOVAL EXPLAINS.</a><br />
<a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI. NORTHWARD BOUND!</a><br />
<a href="#THE_SPIDER_WATER">THE SPIDER WATER.</a><br />
<a href="#BEAVER_IN_PERIL_OF_EXTINCTION_IN_MICHIGAN">BEAVER IN PERIL OF EXTINCTION IN MICHIGAN.</a><br />
<a href="#RARE_CAGE_BIRDS">RARE CAGE BIRDS.</a><br />
</p>
<hr class="chap" />



<div class="bbox">
<h2><a name="CHARACTERS_THAT_APPEAR_IN_THIS_STORY" id="CHARACTERS_THAT_APPEAR_IN_THIS_STORY">CHARACTERS THAT APPEAR IN THIS STORY.</a></h2>


<blockquote>

<p><b>Motor Matt</b>, a lad who is at home with every variety of motor, and
whose never-failing nerve serves to carry him through difficulties
that would daunt any ordinary young fellow. Because
of his daring as a racer with bicycle, motor-cycle and automobile
he is known as "Mile-a-minute Matt." Motor-boats,
air ships and submarines come naturally in his line, and consequently
he lives in an atmosphere of adventure in following
up his "hobby."</p>

<p><b>Carl Pretzel</b>, a cheerful and rollicking German boy, stout of frame
as well as of heart, who is led by a fortunate accident to link his
fortunes with those of Motor Matt.</p>

<p><b>Dick Ferral</b>, a young sea dog from Canada, with all a sailor's superstitions,
but in spite of all that a royal chum, ready to stand by
the friend of his choice through thick and thin.</p>

<p><b>John Henry Glennie, Ensign, U. S. N.</b>, representing the U. S. Government
on board the <i>Grampus</i> during her long trip around
South America.</p>

<p><b>Captain Enrique Sandoval</b>, of the Chilian warship <i>Salvadore</i>, a sailor
who has a faculty for gathering wrong opinions, and an equal
facility for setting himself right and doing justice to those
whom his mistaken ideas have wronged.</p>

<p><b>Captain Ichi</b>, and other officers as well as the crew of the mysterious
steamship which plays many parts and sails under many
flags, the Sons of the Rising Sun, fanatic patriots of Young
Japan, to whom nothing is considered valueless that benefits
Nippon!</p>

<p><b>Garcia and his four comrades</b>, escaped convicts from the penal settlement
at Punta Arenas.</p>

<p><b>Gaines, Speake and Clackett</b>, crew of the <i>Grampus</i>.</p></blockquote>
</div>



<hr class="chap" />
<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I.</a></h2>

<p class="chaptitle">TELLTALE SPARKS.</p>


<p>"We have finished repainting the ship, Captain Ichi."</p>

<p>"Very good, lieutenant."</p>

<p>"What flag shall we fly?"</p>

<p>"Where are we?"</p>

<p>"Off Cape Virgins."</p>

<p>"Then break out the Chilian ensign, lieutenant. My
compliments to the officer of the deck, and tell him to
double the lookout and have a sharp watch kept. If we
raise a Chilian ship, haul down the flag, and run up the
British flag; if a British ship is sighted, then haul German
bunting to the gaff. In any other event, leave the
Chilian flag flying. Eternal vigilance is the price of our
success for our beloved country, lieutenant."</p>

<p>"Banzai, captain."</p>

<p>"Banzai, Nippon!"</p>

<p>"Any other orders, Captain Ichi?"</p>

<p>"Watch the wireless. As soon as anything is received,
let me know."</p>

<p>"Ay, ay, sir."</p>

<p>The swarthy little lieutenant withdrew, his slant eyes
gleaming. A few minutes later he clattered to the bridge
and repeated Captain Ichi's orders to the officer of the
deck, then, descending, he walked to the door of the
wireless room.</p>

<p>"Anything yet, Kaneko?" he inquired, lounging in the
door.</p>

<p>A young man in his shirt sleeves bent over a table,
the wireless "receivers" pushed close to his ears and held
there by his fingers. At sight of the lieutenant, whose
lips he could see moving, although his stopped ears had
not allowed him to hear the question, Kaneko removed
the helmet.</p>

<p>"Nothing yet, lieutenant," said he. "I have been two
hours getting the instrument to spark properly. A damp
helix and a feeble motor were the cause; but now I am
ready, and waiting."</p>

<p>"Captain Ichi must know as soon as anything is received."</p>

<p>"I shall inform him immediately, lieutenant."</p>

<p>The lieutenant turned away from the door and passed
to the port rail. The steamer was standing off and on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span>
the coast near the entrance to Magellan Strait. As the
lieutenant peered landward, he surveyed the cape, and
the long spit of low, sandy land stretching southward.
He was somewhat familiar with the English coast, and
this South American headland he likened to Berry Head,
at the north of Torbay.</p>

<p>Turning from the rail, the lieutenant lifted his eyes
to where the phosphor-bronze aërials swung between the
mastheads, the wires of each "T" held rigidly apart by
their wooden stretchers. A passionate look flamed into
his yellow face and gleamed from his slant eyes.</p>

<p>"Come, honorable Hertzian waves," he murmured,
with a queer gesture of appeal directed at the swinging
wires; "give the Sons of the Rising Sun the telltale
sparks, the beautiful blue sparks! Let them spell
success for Nippon and disaster for the American submarine!"</p>

<p>Taking a little image from his pocket&mdash;the image of a
sitting Buddha&mdash;the lieutenant placed it on the heaving
deck and prostrated himself before it. Then, in low
breath, he murmured his supplications to the senseless
ebony. In the midst of his appeal, a stifled crashing
sound came from the wireless room. Starting to his feet,
the lieutenant caught up the little idol and returned it to
his pocket. Exultation arose to his lips, for his upward-turning
eyes saw a blue spark wavering at the ends of
the aërials, and to his ears came the hiss and crackle of
broken sound as the wires plunged back and forth with
the roll of the ship.</p>

<p>The operator appeared in the door of the "station" and
nodded. The lieutenant rushed aft to notify the captain.</p>

<p>Presently Captain Ichi arrived in the wireless room
and sank into a chair by the table.</p>

<p>"Getting anything important, Kaneko?"</p>

<p>The operator shook his head respectfully and continued
to listen and to pencil what he heard on a tab of paper.
Finally he settled back in his chair.</p>

<p>"There's a wireless station at Punta Arenas, in the
strait, captain," said he.</p>

<p>"Then it must have been recently put there," answered
Captain Ichi.</p>

<p>"The Chilians also have a convict settlement at the
place."</p>

<p>"Every one knows that."</p>

<p>"Punta Arenas is calling the Chilian war ship <i>Salvadore</i>."</p>

<p>Captain Ichi wrinkled his brows.</p>

<p>"Your instrument is perfectly tuned with the one at
Punta Arenas, Kaneko?"</p>

<p>"Perfectly, captain."</p>

<p>"And you can send in the Spanish so that the trick
could not be detected?"</p>

<p>"I know the Spanish as well as I know my native
tongue."</p>

<p>"Then answer," was the calm reply. "Say this is the
<i>Salvadore</i> and ask what Punta Arenas wants."</p>

<p>There was not a quiver in the captain's voice, and not
a tremor in Kaneko's fingers as he caught the handle of
the big key. Slowly but firmly he worked the key up
and down. A blue spark exploded in the gap between
the brass knobs of the discharging rods. Sounds like the
explosion of firecrackers echoed through the room.</p>

<p>Throwing off his switch, Kaneko jerked the phones
over his ears. The captain watched Kaneko's pencil
moving over the white paper.</p>

<p>"Five convicts escaped from Punta Arenas last night
in a sloop-rigged boat. Watch for them."</p>

<p>The captain studied the words; then, taking his pencil,
he wrote underneath:</p>

<p>"Very well. Anything else?"</p>

<p>Kaneko sent the message. Five minutes, ten minutes,
passed; then came the question:</p>

<p>"Is that the Chilian gunboat <i>Salvadore</i>?"</p>

<p>"Yes," lied the blue, telltale sparks.</p>

<p>"The United States submarine, in charge of one Matt
King, is going around the Horn. Watch for her; pay
her a visit if you can, and have the craft carefully looked
over. The submarine <i>Grampus</i> is a marvel of her kind,
and a long way ahead of any other under-water boat yet
launched."</p>

<p>A shout of exultation escaped the captain.</p>

<p>"Where is the submarine now?" he penciled, with
shaking fingers.</p>

<p>"Three days out from the River Plate," was the answer,
"and must be well below Cape Virgins by now."</p>

<p>"We will watch for her."</p>

<p>"Try to pick her up before she gets far into the Pacific."</p>

<p>"We will try."</p>

<p>As the spark and sputter ceased, Kaneko jerked off his
helmet. Captain Ichi had leaped to his feet, and now
reached out to grip the operator's hand.</p>

<p>"For the present, Kaneko," he cried, "this is the Chilian
war ship <i>Salvadore</i>, and we of the Young Samurai
are in the Chilian naval service."</p>

<p>"That is good, captain!"</p>

<p>"The <i>Grampus</i> will be expecting a call from us," pursued
the captain. "Who knows but the United States
authorities have asked the Chilian government to have
the <i>Salvadore</i> meet the submarine and escort her to Valparaiso,
thus affording her protection from the Sons of
the Rising Sun?"</p>

<p>"Exactly so, captain! We shall find the <i>Grampus</i>, and
we shall prevent her from falling into the hands of the
United States Government at Mare Island."</p>

<p>"We shall!" and a look of grim determination crossed
the captain's face as he moved hurriedly toward the door.</p>

<p>"Banzai, Nippon!" called Kaneko.</p>

<p>Captain Ichi, pausing a moment, pulled a flag of his
island empire from his pocket and pressed it to his lips.
Just outside the door of the wireless room he met the
lieutenant, repeating to him what had taken place in the
"station." The lieutenant slapped his hands ecstatically.</p>

<p>"We will call on these Americans who are taking the
submarine to Mare Island," said the lieutenant. "It is
a rare chance to accomplish our work, Captain Ichi!"</p>

<p>"There could not be a better chance! If possible, the
submarine must be destroyed in these southern waters.
That, you know, will give us an opportunity to change
the color of our vessel and continue our peaceful cruising
toward Europe! Our government will never know that
we were the ones who destroyed this menace to our beloved
Nippon!"</p>

<p>"If they knew it at home&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>The lieutenant did not finish, but winced and shrugged
his shoulders.</p>

<p>"We should be heavily punished. Even if the United
States found it out, their government would demand that
we be hung."</p>

<p>"Harikari before that!"</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p>

<p>"Harikari? Yes&mdash;perhaps that may be best, anyway.
We have but one life to give for Nippon."</p>

<p>"And we have vowed to give it! Captain, may I be
one of those who visit the <i>Grampus</i>?"</p>

<p>Captain Ichi shook his head.</p>

<p>"I am sorry," said he, "but those who put off to the
submarine must have <i>straight eyes</i>! This Motor Matt
is one of the sharpest Americans I ever had anything to
do with. Slant eyes, lieutenant, would prove that we are
not Chilians. Only those who have such eyes can go in
the boat."</p>

<p>"She is below the cape?"</p>

<p>"So Punta Arenas reports."</p>

<p>The captain turned and made his way to the bridge.
There were two lookouts at the masthead, each watching
the surface of the ocean with powerful binoculars.</p>

<p>Captain Ichi gave the quartermaster his course and
signaled the engine room for the best speed.</p>

<p>The steamer, flaunting her false colors, bore swiftly
away to the southward and toward Cape Horn, bent upon
an act of treachery which, to the misguided minds of
officers and crew, seemed an act of the highest patriotism.</p>



<hr class="chap" />
<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II.</a></h2>

<p class="chaptitle">CLIPPING THE DRAGON'S CLAWS.</p>


<p>"Will it work, matey?"</p>

<p>"It ought to&mdash;providing there is anything for it to
work with. When you talk by wireless, Dick, you know
there has got to be a second instrument within reach of
your Hertzian waves. Lucky we were able to pick up
that wireless instrument in Buenos Ayres. Lucky, too,
that Ensign Glennie knows how to use the key and to
talk Spanish."</p>

<p>Just behind a bold headland to the north of Cape Virgins
and within the mouth of the River Gallego, the submarine
<i>Grampus</i> was anchored. The shore of the little
bay lay steep to, the submarine being moored within a
jump of the wooded bank.</p>

<p>Wires issued from the conning-tower hatch of the
craft, crossed the stretch of water, and climbed a high
tree that had been stripped of its branches. From the
top of the tree hung the aërials. Below deck, in the periscope
room, was the instrument, with John Henry Glennie,
Ensign, U. S. N., waiting at the key.</p>

<p>Motor Matt and Dick Ferral were on deck.</p>

<p>"Are you sure, matey," went on Dick, "that that was
the Jap steamer our lookout raised from the headland?"</p>

<p>"We can't be sure of anything where those Japs are
concerned. The steamer was of about the same size,
although differently painted. But, then, paint is cheap,
and it sometimes makes a big difference in a boat's appearance.
The suspicious circumstance is that, while she
was passing the mouth of the Gallegos, she pulled down
the cross of St. George and ran up the Chilian flag."</p>

<p>"And she had two wireless masts!" exclaimed Dick.
"These Sons of the Rising Sun are wily chaps, but, seeing
that we have come from Para, all down the eastern
coast of South America without any trouble, I was beginning
to think the Japs had given up, and that they
were going to let us finish our long cruise without paying
us any more attention."</p>

<p>"Remember what Mr. Brigham, the American consul
at Para, told us, Dick&mdash;that these fanatical young Japs
never turn back once they have set their hands to a piece
of work. Our business is to get the <i>Grampus</i> around the
Horn and into the hands of the commandant of the navy
yard at Mare Island, and collect a hundred thousand dollars
for Captain Nemo, Jr. The Sons of the Rising Sun
came near winning while we were on the way from Port
of Spain to Para, and the mere fact that we got the best
of them isn't going to cause them to throw up their hands
and haul off."<a name="FNanchor_A_1" id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a></p>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_A_1" id="Footnote_A_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_1"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> How Motor Matt and his chums were commissioned by Captain
Nemo, Jr., to take the <i>Grampus</i> around South America to
San Francisco, how they met unexpected enemies, and how they
worsted them, was set forth in No. 18 of the Motor Stories,
"Motor Matt in Brazil; or, Under the Amazon."</p></div>

<p>"If there's a wireless machine on that steamer," observed
Dick speculatively, "it doesn't seem to me that she
can belong to the Japs."</p>

<p>"It was probably easier for the Japs to install a wireless
apparatus than it was for us. Undoubtedly they had
every part of the machine in the hold of their vessel when
they left their own country. As for us, we had to pick
up a second-hand instrument at Buenos Ayres. I don't
know that wireless telegraphy is going to help us any;
but there's a chance that it may, and we can't neglect
any chance if we want to clip the claws of the dragon."</p>

<p>"Right-o, old ship! Brigham told us not to let any one
know what ports we were to call at, or what course we
were going to take. If that steamer belongs to the Japs,
those aboard won't know whether we're going through
Magellan Strait or around the Horn."</p>

<p>"Our orders," said Matt reflectively, "carry us around
the Horn, but those orders were given when it was not
known that the Sons of the Rising Sun were after us."</p>

<p>"It was a good scheme putting in here and sending a
lookout up on top of that headland," and Dick peered
up toward the high point where Speake was sitting with
a glass to his eyes. "If you hadn't done that, you'd never
have seen that steamer, or&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>Dick was interrupted by a blue flash from the top of
the tree.</p>

<p>"Strike me lucky!" he broke off, grabbing Matt's arm
in a tense grip. "What does that mean?"</p>

<p>"It means," answered Matt excitedly, shaking off Dick's
hand and hurrying toward the conning tower, "that
Glennie is in communication with somebody. Stay here
and watch, Dick, while I go below."</p>

<p>In the periscope room all was excitement. Clackett,
Gaines, Carl, and Glennie were grouped about a table
which, loaded with sending and receiving apparatus, completely
filled one end of the chamber. Ensign Glennie,
stripped to his shirt, was humped over the key, cramming
the ear phone to the side of his head and listening breathlessly.
Matt pushed close and looked on with deep interest.</p>

<p>"What is it?" he asked, as Glennie leaned back on his
seat.</p>

<p>"I can't make out," was the ensign's disappointed answer.
"This old second-hand instrument don't seem to
be keyed properly, or else we're out of the zone of the
ether waves and only catch snatches of&mdash;&mdash; Ah!" he
finished, jumping for the table again.</p>

<p>After a few moments he lifted his head.</p>

<p>"I caught that," he said. "It was Spanish. 'This is
the Chilian war ship <i>Salvadore</i>,' ran the message; 'what
do you want?' It was clear as a bell, and was sent from
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span>some 'station' fairly close. There comes the answer, and
I can't make head or tail to it&mdash;the sending instrument
is too far away."</p>

<p>"It must come from Punta Arenas, in the strait,"
averred Matt. "That's a Chilian settlement, and the station
there is talking with the war ship."</p>

<p>"Or with that mysterious steamer that passed here a
few hours ago," qualified Glennie.</p>

<p>"Py chimineddy!" muttered Carl. "Schust to t'ink
dot all dose t'ings vas t'rown troo der air, und&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>"Hist!" warned Matt as Glennie began to take another
message off the sounder.</p>

<p>"The supposed war ship answers," said Glennie, "'All
right; anything else?'"</p>

<p>"Try and make out what follows, if you can," returned
Matt.</p>

<p>The chronometer on the wall ticked off seven minutes.</p>

<p>"I guess that's the end of it, Matt," said Glennie.</p>

<p>"Our spark won't carry to the land station?" queried
Matt.</p>

<p>"If theirs won't come here distinctly, ours won't be able
to reach them."</p>

<p>"Then we'll get into communication with the boat.
Ask if she's the Chilian war ship <i>Salvadore</i>."</p>

<p>The Spanish words ran crackling up the wires to the
top of the tree and jumped off into space.</p>

<p>"The answer is 'Yes,' Matt," said Glennie.</p>

<p>"Now give them this," said Matt: "'The United
States submarine, in charge of one Matt King, is going
around the Horn. Watch for her, pay her a visit, if you
can, and have the craft carefully looked over. The submarine
<i>Grampus</i> is a marvel of her kind, and a long way
ahead of any other under-water boat yet launched.'"</p>

<p>Glennie stared in blank amazement.</p>

<p>"Vy, Matt, dot's a gifavay!" gasped Carl. "Prigham
saidt dot ve vasn't to dell anypody vere ve're going."</p>

<p>"That's my notion, Matt," said Glennie.</p>

<p>"Send the message, Glennie," ordered Matt.</p>

<p>The perplexed ensign bent to his key.</p>

<p>"It's gone," he muttered, "and here's something else
coming back."</p>

<p>A few minutes later Glennie translated into English
the words that had come to his sharp ears.</p>

<p>"They want to know where the submarine is now."</p>

<p>"Tell them," said Matt resolutely, "that she's three
days out from the River Plate, and may be well below
Cape Virgins by this time."</p>

<p>"Ach, lisden!" whispered Carl. "Pelow Cape Firgins&mdash;und
here ve are to der nort', in Gallegos Pay."</p>

<p>"They say they will watch for her," reported Glennie,
after sending the message and getting the answer.</p>

<p>Matt smiled grimly.</p>

<p>"Tell them, Glennie," said he, "to try and pick her up
before she gets around the Horn."</p>

<p>"They say they'll try," announced Glennie presently.
"Now," he finished, removing the ear phones, "I'd like
to know what you're trying to do, Matt."</p>

<p>"It's a cinch, I think," replied Matt, "that you've been
talking with that steamer that passed the headland,
bound south, a few hours ago."</p>

<p>"No doubt about that."</p>

<p>"She hauled down the British ensign and hauled up
the Chilian flag as she passed."</p>

<p>"Exactly, and that looks suspicious, although it might
be explained."</p>

<p>"She says she's a Chilian war ship," went on Matt,
"but she had no guns. If she's not a war ship, she's not
Chilian; and if she's not Chilian, she's Japanese; and if
she's Japanese, she belongs to the Sons of the Rising Sun,
who are trying to lay a trap for us. Here's where we
have a chance to clip the dragon's claws&mdash;and we've
virtually accomplished it by wireless."</p>

<p>Matt whirled away.</p>

<p>"Gaines," said he, "you and Clackett strip those wires
off that tree and call Speake down from the top of the
hill. Carl," he added, "you help Glennie clear these instruments
out of the periscope room. They've served
their purpose better than I ever dreamed they would when
we took them aboard at Buenos Ayres."</p>

<p>Gaines and Clackett at once shinned up the iron ladder
to carry out their orders. Carl and Glennie began
carrying the wireless machine into the steel room abaft
the periscope chamber. Meanwhile Matt was overhauling
some charts, which he had spread out on top of the
locker.</p>

<p>Dick, Speake, Clackett, and Gaines&mdash;the two latter
with the coil of wire and the aërial points&mdash;came down
into the periscope room before Matt was through.</p>

<p>"What's the next move, matey?" asked Dick.</p>

<p>"Get up the anchor and cast off the mooring ropes, old
chap," Matt answered, getting to his feet. "If that boat
we were talking with really belonged to the Japs, then
she's hustling for the Horn to overtake us. While she's
beating around the southern end of Terra del Fuego,
we'll pass through the Strait of Magellan and reach away
up the coast of Chili."</p>

<p>"Hoop-a-la!" exulted Carl. "Dot's der vay der king
oof der modor poys fools der Chaps! Vile dey look for
us von blace, den ve scoot out some odder blace!"</p>

<p>"That's the trick!" cried Ferral; "and it's the trick
that wins."</p>

<p>"But our orders carry us around the Horn," demurred
Glennie.</p>

<p>"You're aboard as the representative of the United
States Government, Glennie," said Matt. "If we try to
go around the Horn, there's no telling what will happen.
A hundred thousand dollars is trembling in the balance,
and ought we to take chances with it? It's for you to
say."</p>

<p>"Then go through the strait," answered Glennie.</p>

<p>Motor Matt had reasoned wisely; but the failure of
their wireless instrument to catch the messages from
Punta Arenas was to cause them a vast amount of
trouble.</p>



<hr class="chap" />
<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III.</a></h2>

<p class="chaptitle">THE OVERTURNED BOAT.</p>


<p>Matt knew why the original orders given him by Captain
Nemo, Jr., carried the <i>Grampus</i> around the Horn.
For a vessel that depended on anything but sails for motive
power rounding the Horn was no difficult matter.
In those southern waters bad weather prevails, but it was
possible for the submarine to dive downward and escape
the gales and the rough seas. Magellan Strait, on the
other hand, was difficult of navigation. Captain Nemo,
Jr., had specified a course around the Horn in order to
expose the <i>Grampus</i> to as little hazard as might be. He
had not known, of course, that Matt and his friends were
to be beset by such relentless foes as the Sons of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span>
Rising Sun. Matt preferred to risk the difficult passage
of the strait rather than to take chances rounding the
southern tip of the continent.</p>

<p>It would have been possible for him, of course, so to
word his wireless message as to carry the mysterious
steamer through the strait, leaving the <i>Grampus</i> free to
take the course originally laid down for her. But that
would have given the steamer the shortest course to the
Pacific, and she could have been waiting in Smyth Channel,
at the western end of the strait, when the submarine
came picking her way among the islands. On the whole,
it seemed to Matt better that he should send the mysterious
steamer around the Horn, and so get ahead of her
for the run up the Chilian coast.</p>

<p>The barometer had been falling rapidly all afternoon,
and Matt was in a hurry to round Cape Virgins and find
anchorage in Possession Bay, there to submerge to a
good depth, avoid the storm, and pass the night. While
in the strait they would have to do their navigating by
daylight, and either sink to the bottom or tie up during
the hours of darkness.</p>

<p>While the <i>Grampus</i> was still at the surface, Matt
pushed through the hatch to get a look at the sky. Off
to the south the heavens were black as the inside of a tar
barrel, and through the heavy gloom ran vivid lines of
lightning. The wind was high and constantly increasing,
so that the waves were lashed furiously. But the rollers
were long, and when the submarine crossed one high
wave, she slid down the watery hill like a toboggan, ramming
her sharp nose into the next comber, and flinging
the scud high over the conning tower.</p>

<p>Our friends aboard the craft were hurled about at
every angle, and it was necessary for those who had to
remain at their posts to lash themselves securely in order
to avoid being thrown against the machinery, or the steel
plates of side or bulkhead.</p>

<p>Matt closed and secured the hatch, after which he slid
down the ladder. Speake, tied to rings in the forward
bulkhead of the periscope room, was watching the periscope
and doing the steering. The floor underneath
seemed to tumble around like the back of a rearing
horse.</p>

<p>"We're getting it good an' proper, Matt," said Speake.
"For exercise in ground an' lofty tumblin', a submarine
in a seaway takes the banner."</p>

<p>"We'll submerge," said Matt, "but I'm in hopes we
can get around Cape Virgins and into Possession Bay before
the worst of it hits us."</p>

<p>He turned to the tank-room speaking tube.</p>

<p>"A ten-foot submergence, Clackett!" he called.</p>

<p>The pounding of waves against the hull caused a dull
roaring throughout the boat, almost deadening the "ay,
ay" that came from Clackett.</p>

<p>Presently, as the ballast tanks slowly filled, the
<i>Grampus</i> sank until only five feet of the periscope mast
was out of water. The motion of the boat was perceptibly
easier, but steering by periscope was difficult. Huge
waves flung themselves at the ball that capped the mast
and thus sponged out the view that should have been reflected
on the mirror. Only at intervals could a view
above the surface be obtained.</p>

<p>Matt called Dick and had him lash himself at the periscope
table, thus leaving Speake free to attend to the
wheel.</p>

<p>"Keelhaul me!" muttered Dick. "It's as black as your
hat all around us. And lightning! I'm a Fiji if I ever
saw it so sharp."</p>

<p>"Can you raise Cape Virgins?" queried Matt.</p>

<p>"I can see something off to starboard that looks as
though it might be the cape."</p>

<p>"Well, after we once get around that we'll be in
quieter waters and will submerge for the night. Keep
your eyes peeled, Dick. This would be a bad time to collide
with some steamer just leaving the strait."</p>

<p>Matt, braced on the locker, fell to examining the chart
again. While he was at it, a yell of amazement and consternation
came from Dick.</p>

<p>The shout lifted Matt off the locker.</p>

<p>"What's the matter?" he asked, ranging alongside his
chum.</p>

<p>"An overturned boat," gasped Dick. "I saw it in a
trough of the waves just as the periscope cleared&mdash;<i>and
there were men lashed to the bottom</i>!"</p>

<p>"Positive of that?" returned Matt, fixing his eyes on
the mirror.</p>

<p>"Watch, matey, and mayhap you'll see them for yourself."</p>

<p>Just then the periscope ball shook itself free of the
waves, and the tumbling sea lay under Matt's eyes. As
the darkness was lighted by a glare of lightning, the
young motorist was thrilled by the vivid glimpse thus
given him of the overturned boat. It was about a hundred
feet away on the starboard side, and, at that moment,
was being hurled high on the top of a comber.
There were five dripping forms on the boat's bottom&mdash;Matt
saw that much before another wave drenched the
periscope ball.</p>

<p>Whirling away, he turned to the motor-room tube.</p>

<p>"Is Glennie or Carl down there?" he shouted.</p>

<p>"Glennie's helping me," answered Gaines, "and Carl's
with Clackett."</p>

<p>"Send 'em both up here on the jump."</p>

<p>"What're you going to try to do?" demanded Speake,
as Matt began throwing coils of light, strong rope out of
the locker.</p>

<p>"There are five men on that overturned boat," was the
determined answer, "and we're going to save them."</p>

<p>"It's as much as your life is worth, Matt," returned
Speake earnestly, "to bring the <i>Grampus</i> to the surface
and venture out on deck."</p>

<p>Matt had thrown off his coat and hat and was now
taking off his shoes.</p>

<p>"It's our duty to do what we can," said he. "We can't
leave those five men to be washed into the sea and
drowned."</p>

<p>"No more we can't," seconded Dick, likewise beginning
to peel off his extra clothing. "Watch your old
periscope yourself, Speake. I wouldn't give tuppence for
those fellows' chances if we don't snatch 'em off."</p>

<p>At that moment Carl and Glennie came rolling into the
periscope room. It took Matt only half a minute to tell
them of the work that lay ahead.</p>

<p>"Hoop-a-la!" shouted Carl, beginning to strip, "dot
means me!"</p>

<p>"And me, too," averred Glennie, likewise preparing
himself.</p>

<p>"Dick and I will tie ropes around us and go on the
deck," said Matt. "Glennie will stand in the tower and
do the steering. Dick and I will each carry the spare
ends of a couple of ropes with us, and the coils will be left
down here in the periscope room. As soon as one of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span>
men makes fast to a rope, Carl and Speake will tail onto
it and haul him aboard."</p>

<p>Matt turned to the tank-room tube.</p>

<p>"Empty the ballast tanks, Clackett!" he shouted.</p>

<p>Clackett must have thought that a strange order, but
he was there to obey, and the tone of Matt's voice told
him clearly that instant compliance was wanted.</p>

<p>The splash of the turbines could be heard, and the
<i>Grampus</i> began rising into rougher water.</p>

<p>"I'll go out first," said Matt, stepping to the ladder.
"You follow me, Dick, and, Glennie, you come last."</p>

<p>Matt lingered a moment to pick up an iron wrench and
secure it to the end of one of the ropes that was going
aloft with him, and then made his way up the ladder.</p>

<p>By then the <i>Grampus</i> was rolling and pitching on the
surface, and when Matt opened the hatch, a wave swept
over his head, nearly smothering him and hurling him
fiercely against the inner wall of the tower.</p>

<p>It looked like suicide to venture out into the waves
that hurled themselves over the rounded deck of the submarine,
but he watched his chances, got over the edge of
the tower and crawled to the steel periscope mast. Just
as he reached it, another wave flung itself over the boat.
Had his arms not been around the mast, he would have
been plucked bodily from the deck and swept into the
sea.</p>

<p>As soon as the wave had passed, he tied his life line to
the stout steel upright, and stood erect. Just then the
submarine was riding a wave, and he saw the overturned
boat to the north and on the port side&mdash;twice as far away
as when he had first seen her through the periscope.</p>

<p>Dick was on the other side of the tower, lashing himself
to the flagstaff, and Glennie was out of the hatch to
the waist line.</p>

<p>Talking, at such a time, was impossible. Matt pointed
in the direction of the overturned boat, and the faint
tinkle of the motor-room bell below was heard as Glennie
signaled for a turn on the port tack.</p>

<p>As the <i>Grampus</i> came around, she was rolled like a
barrel, Matt, Glennie, and Dick, all three, being entirely
submerged. But the stout craft was nothing more than
a big air chamber, and so long as her plates held together
she was practically unsinkable.</p>

<p>Righting herself, the submarine brought the three boys
up out of the whirling maelstrom of water.</p>

<p>Matt looked behind. Glennie, dauntless and determined,
still reared above the hatch, peering ahead and
directing the course; and Dick, farther aft, was hauling
at one of his spare lines, coiling it in his hand and making
ready to cast as soon as the <i>Grampus</i> came close enough
to the overturned boat.</p>



<hr class="chap" />
<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV.</a></h2>

<p class="chaptitle">GALLANT WORK.</p>


<p>The southern horizon had become almost a continuous
glare of lightning. This was a help to the rescuers, otherwise
the deep gloom that prevailed would have rendered
it impossible for them to do anything. The thunder
rolled heavily, and this, united with the splash and
roar of the sea, lent an accompaniment to the scene well
calculated to try the strongest nerves.</p>

<p>At times, Matt, Glennie, and Dick seemed to be adrift
in the waste of waters with no substantial foothold under
them. Rounded deck, and even the conning tower,
were covered with the creaming waves. When they were
not completely deluged, the stinging spray was hurled
into their faces, temporarily blinding them.</p>

<p>Glennie, however, kept his wits about him. Dick and
Carl had never liked the ensign, principally because his
naval rank and his family pride seemed to have gone
to his head, enlarging it. But the way Glennie hung to
the conning tower, keeping his eyes in the direction of
the overturned boat and his hands on the steering and
signaling devices in the inner side of the tower, made a
good deal of a hit with Dick.</p>

<p>By dexterous man&oelig;uvring, Glennie brought the
<i>Grampus</i> to windward of the five men. He did not dare
halt the submarine, for to try and hold her powerless in
that rolling tumult would have invited disaster. Matt
and Dick, understanding this, prepared to hurl their
ropes as they came close to the other boat.</p>

<p>In some manner the five men had contrived to lash
themselves to the keel of their boat. They saw how gallantly
the king of the motor boys and his friends were
trying to rescue them, and waved their arms encouragingly.
They must have shouted, too, although their
voices were lost in the bedlam of sounds that surrounded
them.</p>

<p>Matt, being forward of the conning tower, came near
the overturned boat first. He had his weighted rope
coiled in his hand, but did not cast it immediately. He
was holding back until the next wave should lift the submarine.
At that time the five men would be in the trough,
and this would give him a "downhill" cast.</p>

<p>Dick preferred not to wait. His line flew out, but was
caught by the fierce wind and twisted from the hands that
were stretched to grasp it.</p>

<p>The next moment the <i>Grampus</i> was lifted high, and
Matt swung the wrench. The rope uncoiled in his hand,
was caught by one of the men on the forward part of
the wreck, and there was a cable stretched between the
two boats. But what happened during the next minute
was hardly expected.</p>

<p>As the submarine poised on the crest of the wave, her
propeller was out of the water, and racing; then, as the
wave rushed on, the <i>Grampus</i> fell away in the trough,
rolling her deck plates under. The wreck was lifted, and
the pull of the line and the motion of the sea threw it over
almost on top of the submarine.</p>

<p>The wooden hulk struck the iron plates a tremendous
blow. All three of the boys had a narrow escape. Had
the <i>Grampus</i> delayed two seconds in taking the windward
roll, they would have been crushed under the impact of
the two grinding hulls.</p>

<p>The submarine, however, righted just in the nick of
time. Two of the men on the wreck were thrown off.
Glennie managed to catch one of them, and Dick laid hold
of the other.</p>

<p>This left three still on the boat's bottom, with only
Matt to deal with the situation. Quick to think, the king
of the motor boys flung the second of the two ropes he
had brought with him. It was caught, and two of the
men fastened themselves to it. The other man had
already lashed the first line about his waist.</p>

<p>As the <i>Grampus</i> plowed her way onward, placing a
rapidly widening distance between herself and the wreck,
the three men flung themselves into the water.</p>

<p>Glennie, although busy with his steering, with his signals
to the engine room, and with his work of holding<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span>
the man he had grabbed from the wreck, contrived to let
Carl and Speake know that they were to haul in on Matt's
two lines.</p>

<p>While those in the periscope room were engaged in
this, Glennie was passing his man down the hatch, and
Dick was getting the other one forward.</p>

<p>By the time Dick's man had followed Glennie's, Carl
and Speake had dragged the other three close to the submarine.
A wave threw them with crushing force against
the plates. One was rendered unconscious&mdash;Matt could
not tell, in the lightning glare, but that he was killed.
As his limp body slipped downward over the rounded
deck plates, Matt jumped for it, and wrapped it in his
arms.</p>

<p>A smother of water engulfed the <i>Grampus</i>. When she
shook herself free, Glennie and Dick had the two men on
the other line, and Matt was still clinging to the one he
had rescued.</p>

<p>Glennie and Dick passed their half-drowned charges to
the safe regions below, and Dick helped Matt with the
last of the five unfortunates.</p>

<p>In some manner, the boys could never tell just how,
they succeeded in getting the man below deck and in
following him themselves. Matt, who was the last to
leave, was so nearly fagged that he had not the strength
to close the hatch. Carl bounded up the iron ladder, got
the hatch in place, and slid down again.</p>

<p>Matt, Dick, and Glennie, utterly exhausted, were lying
on the floor among those whom they had rescued. Water,
which had entered the open hatch, was churning back and
forth and splashing through scuppers into the tank room.
Clackett had set a pump to work, and was ejecting the
water as rapidly as possible.</p>

<p>"Were any of the port plates sprung by that collision
with the wreck, Carl?" inquired Matt, rousing himself.
"Did all this water come down the hatchway?"</p>

<p>"Efery pit oof id, Matt," declared Carl. "Clackett
looked ofer der blates, und he say dot dey vas all righdt."</p>

<p>"Then submerge until the periscope ball is awash,"
went on Matt. "These poor fellows can't stand this
knocking around."</p>

<p>The violent rolling and pitching of the boat was throwing
the five men in every direction.</p>

<p>Carl communicated at once with Clackett, in the tank
room, and the <i>Grampus</i> was soon riding easier, some ten
feet under the surface.</p>

<p>"We're off Cape Virgins," announced Speake, once
more at the steering wheel and with his eyes on the periscope.</p>

<p>Matt crawled to the locker and pulled out one of the
charts. After a few moments' study of it he gave Speake
the course.</p>

<p>"As soon as we get into Possession Bay," said Matt,
"we'll be out of this gale. Be careful, Speake."</p>

<p>"It's hard to be careful, Matt, when you ain't able to
see the surface more'n a third of the time," was the answer,
"but I'll do the best I can. I think you fellows are
entitled to a little rest after what you done on deck. Je-ru-sa-lem!
but that was a plucky fight you made. I
wouldn't have given the fag end o' nothin' for your
chances of savin' those fellows&mdash;and not much more for
your chances o' gettin' back yourselves."</p>

<p>One by one the rescued men began to recover. Carl
had been working over the unconscious man, and when
he opened his eyes he began to groan.</p>

<p>"He's hurt," announced Carl. "He vouldn't make a
noise like dot oof he vasn't hurt."</p>

<p>"I'll see if I can tell what's the matter with him," said
Glennie.</p>

<p>Picking his way to the man's side, he and Carl lifted
him and laid him on the locker. The man's groans redoubled
as he was raised.</p>

<p>"It's his arm," announced Glennie, after a brief examination.
"There's a fracture."</p>

<p>"Do you know anything about surgery?" queried Matt.</p>

<p>Glennie shook his head.</p>

<p>"Then it's up to me," said Matt, leaving the periscope
chamber.</p>

<p>There was a chest in the torpedo room well stocked
with everything necessary in the medicine line, also with
lint, bandages, and splints. Selecting a set of splints and
bandages, Matt returned to the periscope room.</p>

<p>Glennie and Carl had already stripped the water-soaked
flannel shirt from the injured man, and Matt, Dick, and
Glennie at once got busy.</p>

<p>It was a painful piece of work. While Glennie held
the man down on the locker by the shoulders, Dick pulled
at the arm, Matt pressing his hands about the fracture so
that he might know when the bones got into place.</p>

<p>The patient groaned and yelled, for the pain must have
been terrific.</p>

<p>"There you are, Dick," said Matt suddenly. "Now
hold it that way until I get it bound up."</p>

<p>Adjusting the splints, Matt wound them rapidly with
bandages, and presently had the arm rigidly in the cast.</p>

<p>The work had required some time, and when it was
finished, Speake turned from the periscope table.</p>

<p>"Here we are in Possession Bay, Matt," said he. "The
chart shows twenty feet of water under us."</p>

<p>"All right," answered Matt. "Drop to the bottom,
Speake, and then get busy and make us a little hot coffee.
We all feel the need of a bracer, I guess."</p>

<p>Clackett could be heard opening the tanks, and the
downward movement of the submarine became perceptible.
The motor was stopped, and in a few minutes the
boat touched bottom gently and came to a rest in undisturbed
waters.</p>

<p>Speake went below to attend to getting the supper, and
Clackett and Gaines, all agog with curiosity, came into
the periscope room.</p>

<p>Matt was just preparing to give his attention to the
rescued men, and to learn how they had come to be in
their desperate plight. Glennie, in a few words, explained
to Clackett and Gaines how the rescue had been
effected.</p>



<hr class="chap" />
<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V.</a></h2>

<p class="chaptitle">THE FIVE CHILIANS.</p>


<p>The five rescued men were swarthy and undersized.
All were barefooted and bareheaded, and clad only in
coarse linen shirts and dungaree trousers. They were
a dejected-looking lot, and seemed hardly able to realize,
as yet, that they had been saved.</p>

<p>The injured man was still lying on the locker, while his
mates were sitting up around the sides of the periscope
chamber and leaning back against the steel walls.</p>

<p>"Who are you?" inquired Matt, seating himself on one
of the low stools with which the room was supplied.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span></p>

<p>Four pairs of eyes were turned on him blankly, then
three pairs swerved to the largest and heaviest man of
the lot, who appeared to be the leader.</p>

<p>"<i>No sabe</i>," said this individual.</p>

<p>Matt had picked up a little Spanish while he was in
Arizona, but he did not feel that it was sufficient to
enable him to hold an extended conversation with the
rescued men.</p>

<p>"Unlimber your Spanish, Glennie," said he, "and translate
it as you go along. I know something of the lingo,
but not enough."</p>

<p>Thereupon the following passed between the ensign
and the spokesman for the five, all being translated as
the conversation proceeded:</p>

<p>"Who are you?"</p>

<p>"We come from Valparaiso, Chili, but have been at
Sandy Point (Punta Arenas) in the strait for a week."</p>

<p>"What is your business?"</p>

<p>"We worked in the quicksilver mines, but left the mines
to ship on a guano boat that was going to the Falklands."</p>

<p>"How did you happen to be at Sandy Point?"</p>

<p>"The guano boat proved unseaworthy. Her seams
opened in the strait, and while we were feeling our way
along toward Sandy Point her boilers blew up. Some of
us got ashore and made our way to Sandy Point."</p>

<p>"Then, after that, how did you happen to get
wrecked?"</p>

<p>"There was no work for us in Sandy Point, so we hired
a small sailboat and were going to the River Plate. The
squall struck us, and our boat went over on her beam
ends. The owner of the boat was swept into the sea and
drowned, but we managed to get on the boat's bottom,
and tied ourselves there. We had given ourselves up for
lost when you came to our aid. We are grateful to all
of you, señors."</p>

<p>There was no reason why Matt and his friends should
not believe the Chilian's story, and they accepted it exactly
as given.</p>

<p>"Tell them, Glennie," said Matt, "that we are not going
into the Atlantic, but around into the Pacific. Ask
them what they want to do."</p>

<p>Glennie gave the Chilians the substance of this, and
their startled looks aroused Matt's surprise.</p>

<p>"They say," went on Glennie, repeating the spokesman's
words, "that they do not want to go to Sandy
Point or to any port in Chili. They want to know how
far north we are going along the Pacific coast. If we
are going as far as Peru they would like to travel with
us."</p>

<p>"Dowse me!" muttered Dick. "We haven't room for
them aboard. They'd only be under foot, say nothing
of consuming our fresh air and making an inroad on the
stores."</p>

<p>"Why don't they want to go to Punta Arenas?" asked
Matt.</p>

<p>Glennie put the question, and all four of the Chilians
began to expostulate excitedly, while the wounded man
redoubled his groans. Finally, when the clamor died
out, the spokesman answered as follows, his words being
faithfully translated by Glennie:</p>

<p>"They say they were suspected of being mixed up in
a Chilian revolution, and that if they are landed at any
Chilian port they will be arrested and shot."</p>

<p>"Py shinks," grunted Carl, "I hope dot ve ain'd going
to have somet'ing more to do mit refoludions. I hat
enough oof dot oop in Cendral America."</p>

<p>"We all did," seconded Dick.</p>

<p>"We're not going to be caught in any more revolutions,"
declared Matt. "These Sons of the Rising Sun
are giving us plenty to think about. I hadn't intended to
stop at Punta Arenas, but we'll have to put in there long
enough to leave these men. If they don't want to take
chances in the town, we'll leave them outside. The
injured man we'll take with us, and do our best to look
after him. Tell them, Glennie, that that is all we can
do."</p>

<p>"And it's right, too," declared Dick. "We can't run
the risk of getting into trouble on account of the revolutionists
when we've got so much at stake. Why didn't
these Chilians explain about the revolution business at
the first? It looks like they were keeping something
back."</p>

<p>Glennie's announcement was received with black looks
and hearty objurgations in the Spanish tongue, but gradually
the four men settled down to a sulky attitude which
did not look promising.</p>

<p>"They're a grateful lot, I must say!" scowled Dick.
"Look at 'em, mates. And to think that we risked our
lives to pull 'em in out of the wet!"</p>

<p>"It don't make any difference who they are, Dick,"
returned Matt. "In rescuing them we did only our duty,
and that's something we can chalk up to our credit.
We've got to work through the three hundred and sixty
miles of this strait just as quick as we can. We've sent
that other boat around the Horn, and if we don't reach
Smyth Channel ahead of her, all our trouble will go for
nothing. The fact that we shall have to lay up nights
makes it all the more necessary for us to travel at top
speed by day. All these men will go ashore at Punta
Arenas&mdash;the injured man into the bargain. There must
be a hospital in the town, and he can be better taken
care of there than here."</p>

<p>Glennie repeated this ultimatum, and the looks of the
spokesman underwent a change. The sullen expression
faded from his swarthy face and he began speaking
volubly.</p>

<p>"He says," reported Glennie, "that he is very sorry if
he and his companions have put us to any extra trouble.
They will go ashore at Punta Arenas&mdash;for they would
rather be captured and shot, although they are innocent
men, than to inconvenience us. If it hadn't been for us,
he says, they would all have been dead men, anyway."</p>

<p>"That's the spirit," approved Matt, "although I don't
think, if they are really innocent, that any harm will
happen to them."</p>

<p>Just then Speake came in with tin plates heaped with
food, and with tin cups of steaming coffee. He had to
make several trips below, but finally all were supplied
and fell to eating.</p>

<p>The Chilians devoured their food more like famished
animals than human beings, casting aside the knives and
forks and using their fingers, and gulping down the hot
coffee as though it had been ice water.</p>

<p>"They eat like cannibals," remarked Dick.</p>

<p>"Vat a safeageness!" exclaimed Carl. "Dey act like
dey don'd haf nodding to eat for a mont'."</p>

<p>Even the injured Chilian used his left hand and went
at his food with the frantic haste shown by his comrades.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span></p>

<p>"They'll do," rumbled Dick. "You couldn't kill 'em
with a meat axe. That chap on the locker has forgot all
about his broken arm."</p>

<p>When the Chilians had emptied their plates they clamored
for more.</p>

<p>"We haven't any more," said Speake. "I cooked just
enough and made an equal division all around."</p>

<p>Glennie explained to the Chilians, and once more they
looked resentful; but, as before, their faces finally cleared
and they resigned themselves to the situation. Matt emptied
some of his food upon the plate of the injured Chilian,
and without so much as a <i>gracias</i> (thank you) he
devoured it with fierce celerity.</p>

<p>"We'll have to let them sleep in the steel room with
you, Glennie," said Matt, when the meal was done and
the eating utensils cleared away. "You've got a revolver
and you can watch them. It may not be necessary to
have a guard, but it will be just as well. Some one of us
will keep awake in this room&mdash;Gaines can put in a two-hour
watch, then call Speake. Speake can call Clackett,
and Clackett can call Dick. I'll follow Dick, and by that
time, I hope, it will be light enough so we can start
through the strait. We must take advantage of every
hour of daylight."</p>

<p>Matt's orders were immediately carried out. The four
uninjured Chilians were shown into the room abaft the
periscope chamber, and the injured man was left on the
locker. Carl and Matt went down into the torpedo room,
and Dick, Clackett, and Speake sprawled out in the tank
room and motor room. Gaines, in pursuance of orders,
went on guard in the periscope chamber.</p>

<p>Matt, being dog tired, was asleep almost as soon as he
lay down on his blankets. Carl was tired himself, but he
would have liked to talk a little, in spite of that. As Matt
slipped off into slumber under his first remark, the Dutch
boy had to go to sleep.</p>

<p>All was quiet in the boat, save for the ventilator fan
humming softly in the motor room and sending fresh air
throughout the steel hull.</p>

<p>No matter how wildly the gale howled over the surface
of Possession Bay, thirty feet down in its depths all
was quiet and serene.</p>

<p>When Matt was awakened, it was by a wild yell echoing
weirdly through the vessel. At first he thought he
had been dreaming, and he sat up, in the Stygian blackness
of the torpedo room, and listened in bewilderment.</p>

<p>A moment more and he knew that what he had heard
was not a dream. The boat, poised on the ocean bed,
rocked with the frantic movements of some one in the
periscope room.</p>

<p>"Vat id iss, Matt?" came the voice of Carl through the
darkness.</p>

<p>"Give it up," answered Matt. "Switch on the light,
Carl, so we can see what we're about."</p>

<p>Carl could be heard getting to his feet and groping for
the electric switch. Presently the torpedo room was
flooded with light and Matt rushed for the open door
in the bulkhead.</p>

<p>Just as he reached it, a revolver exploded in the tank
room, and a bullet whizzed past his head and struck the
torpedo tube.</p>

<p>Matt paused only a moment. He knew that the Chilians
were up to some rascally piece of work, and that it
would stand him and his friends in hand to get busy without
delay.</p>




<hr class="chap" />
<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI.</a></h2>

<p class="chaptitle">TREACHERY.</p>


<p>With a shout to Carl to follow, Matt plunged through
the doorway, and was met with a terrific blow that threw
him, half stunned, backward against Carl. Carl tripped
over a box, grabbed at Matt to save himself, and both
fell sprawling. Before they could get up four Chilians
were upon them, holding them by main strength.</p>

<p>"<i>Que quiere?</i>" cried Matt, as he struggled.</p>

<p>One of the Chilians had a rope. None of them answered
Matt's question, but proceeded without delay to
put lashings on his hands and feet. Carl was treated in
a similar manner, and thus the two chums were rendered
absolutely powerless to do anything for themselves,
or for their friends. And where were their friends? they
asked themselves.</p>

<p>As soon as Matt and Carl were secured, the leader of
the treacherous Chilians left the torpedo room with one
of the others.</p>

<p>"Here iss a fine keddle oof fish?" wheezed Carl. "Der
nexdt dime vat ve see some fellers on der pottom oof a
poat, py shinks ve vill leaf dem vere dey are. Ach, vat
a lot oof sgoundrels!"</p>

<p>"Hello, there!" came the voice of Gaines from the
tank room. "Did that bullet do you any damage, Matt?"</p>

<p>"No. Where are you, Gaines?"</p>

<p>"Here, in the tank room, lashed hard and fast. We
heard a noise, and Speake went up to investigate. He
didn't come back. Those rascally Chilians have turned
on us."</p>

<p>"Who was in the periscope room?"</p>

<p>"Dick."</p>

<p>"Any one else below with you?"</p>

<p>"No. I'm alone."</p>

<p>"You don't know anything about Glennie or Clackett?"</p>

<p>"Not a thing."</p>

<p>Just then Glennie entered the torpedo room. The big
Chilian walked behind him with a revolver pressed to the
back of the ensign's neck. Glennie's hands were bound.</p>

<p>"Here's a go, Matt!" muttered the ensign angrily.</p>

<p>"How did it happen?" asked Matt.</p>

<p>"I ought to have kept awake, I suppose, but I was so
deuced tired I dropped off and slept like a log. The big
Chilian got my revolver while I slept, and then the four
of them laid hold of me, kept me from giving an alarm,
and got ropes on my wrists and ankles. After that they
gagged me. Then one of them went out into the periscope
room. Dick was on guard there, and the Chilian
asked for a drink&mdash;making motions to let Dick know
what he pretended to want. Dick couldn't tell him how
to get the water, so he started to get it himself. He had
hardly turned his back before the Chilian downed him
with a cowardly blow from behind. He was tied and
dragged into the steel room by two of the Chilians, the
other two staying behind to deal with Speake, who came
up to see what was going on. Speake was taken by surprise
and captured, and then Clackett. Speake and
Clackett were hauled neck and heels into the steel room.
I wonder if you can imagine how I felt, lying there on
the cot, bound and gagged, and able to look through the
door and see what was going on?"</p>

<p>"I can imagine it, Glennie," said Matt. "We're in a
fix, all right, but we're not going to let that discourage
us. They've brought you down here to talk, I suppose,
and to let us know what their plans are."</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span></p>

<p>The leader of the Chilians had allowed Glennie to
speak with Matt, inferring, no doubt, that he would explain
how securely the <i>Grampus</i> had passed into the
hands of him and his companions. Now, as Glennie faced
him, the man began to speak.</p>

<p>"He says," translated Glennie, "that he and his friends
do not intend to go to Sandy Point. They are determined
that we shall take them to the River Plate."</p>

<p>"Meppy he iss," struck in Carl, glaring at the leader
of the rascally Chilians, "aber ve're tedermined anodder
vay."</p>

<p>"We won't do anything of that kind, Glennie," said
Matt, "for the chances are we'd have trouble with that
mysterious steamer. I wonder," he added, as a startling
thought flashed through his mind, "if the Sons of the
Rising Sun had anything to do with this?"</p>

<p>Glennie shook his head.</p>

<p>"It can't be possible," he answered. "From the little
I have overheard passing between the Chilians, I believe
that they are convicts. There's a penal settlement at
Punta Arenas, and I feel sure the rascals escaped from
there. That was a tall yarn they gave us&mdash;but they had
to explain their situation on the bottom of that boat and
to do it without exciting our suspicions."</p>

<p>"Well, ask the leader how he expects to get the
<i>Grampus</i> to the River Plate."</p>

<p>Glennie put the question.</p>

<p>"He says," the ensign went on, "that he intends to have
you and one other run the boat."</p>

<p>"Ah!" exclaimed Matt. "Unless we run the boat they
won't be able to carry out their plans. I believe I see a
chance here to do something. We can at least take the
boat to the surface&mdash;and when we get her there we'll not
sink her again. If we're on the surface, we may have
a chance to communicate with some vessel passing
through the strait. Tell him, Glennie, that there will
have to be three of us given our liberty, one to run the
engine, one to run the tanks, and another to steer. I
think that Dick, you, and I are the ones. You can steer
and Dick will look after the tanks. Perhaps the three of
us can get the better of these scoundrels."</p>

<p>"It's my chob to look afder der tanks," put in Carl.
"Vy nod led me haf a handt in der scrimmage? I vould
like, pedder as I can tell, to haf some mix-oops mit der
sgoundrels."</p>

<p>Matt, however, did not change his plans. Carl was a
good man in a set-to, if there should be one, but he was
apt to lose his head.</p>

<p>Glennie repeated Matt's words to the Chilian, and the
latter's face cleared as if by magic. No doubt he thought
that he and his comrades were to have their own way
on the <i>Grampus</i>.</p>

<p>"He says all right, Matt," said Glennie, "but he warns
us that if we try to do anything more than obey orders
he will shoot. He and his comrades are determined to
reach the River Plate, and are willing to give up their
lives trying to do so."</p>

<p>"If he can take chances," said Matt grimly, "then so
can we."</p>

<p>The Chilian gave an order to the three men with him,
and the ropes were taken off the ensign's hands. The
three Chilians then led him out of the room.</p>

<p>"Count on me to do everything that's possible, Matt,"
called Glennie.</p>

<p>When they were gone, the leader himself cut the cords
that bound Matt. Presenting the revolver, he motioned
sternly for Matt to rise and proceed through the door.</p>

<p>Matt did not intend to rebel just then. He was anxious
to get the <i>Grampus</i> to the surface; then, after that,
he and his two friends could do whatever they thought
best.</p>

<p>The Chilians were playing a desperate game; and the
fact that they were obliged to rely on their prisoners for
running the boat made it all the more hazardous.</p>

<p>The young motorist proceeded forthwith to the engine
room. Kneeling behind him, his captor continued to
keep him covered with the weapon.</p>

<p>Presently Dick, followed by another Chilian armed
with a harpoon that belonged on the boat, appeared in
the tank room.</p>

<p>"Keep your offing, you loafing longshore scuttler!"
cried Dick angrily as the Chilian touched him with the
sharp point of the harpoon. "You're the swab I saved
from the wreck, and I wish now I had let you go to the
sharks. Matt, old ship, what do you think of this?"</p>

<p>"Never mind, Dick, what I think of it," answered Matt.
"We'll get the <i>Grampus</i> to the top of the water; then, if
they want her sunk again, you'll find there's something
wrong with the ballast tanks. There'll be three of us
free, and perhaps we can do something."</p>

<p>"All I want is half a chance," growled Dick savagely.</p>

<p>"The first thing you do," spoke up Gaines, "cut me
loose. That will make four of us&mdash;only one apiece."</p>

<p>The leader of the Chilians said something fiercely. Undoubtedly
it was a command for silence.</p>

<p>"Quiet now, fellows!" warned Matt. "Pretend that
you are scared to death and go ahead with your work."</p>

<p>"Hello, Matt!"</p>

<p>It was the voice of Glennie rattling through the speaking
tube.</p>

<p>"What is it?" replied Matt.</p>

<p>"I'm at the wheel. Whenever you're ready you can
count on me."</p>

<p>"What's the situation up there?"</p>

<p>"Clackett and Speake are locked in the steel room.
Two Chilians are watching me like cats watching a
mouse. One of them has the key to the room."</p>

<p>"Well," called Matt, "don't do anything until I give
the word."</p>

<p>Matt and his chums had the advantage of being able
to talk among themselves without their captors understanding
a word. On the other hand, Glennie could
hear what the Chilians were talking about and communicate
it to Matt and his chums.</p>

<p>"Empty the tanks, Dick," called Matt, getting the engine
to running preparatory to switching the power into
the propeller.</p>

<p>Dick was a good all-round hand. He had made it his
business to learn the engine so that he could relieve
Gaines, and he had also learned how to use the turbines,
the compressed air, to load and fire torpedoes, to steer,
and everything else connected with the operating of the
submarine.</p>

<p>The turbines got to work with a splash, and the
<i>Grampus</i> began slowly to rise. The two Chilians watched
operations with considerable curiosity, although they did
not fail to give their closest attention to Matt and Dick.</p>

<p>Presently the boat was at the surface.</p>

<p>"Great Scott!" exclaimed Glennie, through the tube,
"we almost came up under a canoe with&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>Matt did not hear the rest. Just at that instant there<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span>
was a fierce yell from Carl. Matt whirled just in time
to see the Dutch boy flinging himself on the Chilian with
the harpoon.</p>

<p>The Chilian, watching Dick, had his back to the door
of the torpedo room, and this gave Carl his chance to
make an attack.</p>



<hr class="chap" />
<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII.</a></h2>

<p class="chaptitle">TURNING THE TABLES.</p>


<p>How Carl had managed to release himself Matt did not
know, and he was too busy, just then, to spare time to
ask. The leader of the Chilians, leaning out into the narrow
passage, lifted the revolver with the intention of
firing it at Carl. The position of the fighters did not give
the man the chance he wanted&mdash;but it did give Matt an
opportunity of which he was not slow to take advantage.</p>

<p>While the face of the Chilian was turned, the young
motorist leaped at him and clasped him about the neck
with his arms. There was no head room in the passage
between the engine room and the tank room. In order
to get through it a person had to go down on his hands
and knees and creep.</p>

<p>Matt caught the leader of the Chilians just where a
step downward led from the passage into the engine
room&mdash;the farthest point aft in the boat.</p>

<p>The swarthy rascal gave vent to a yell, shouting something
to the two men above. As Matt pulled him backward
and downward, Dick rushed forward and lent his
aid.</p>

<p>"Fine-o!" panted Dick, gripping the hand that held the
revolver and wrenching the weapon away. "We're turning
the tables quicker than I ever thought we'd be able
to do. It's a main lucky thing Carl was left in the torpedo
room. Quiet, you treacherous swab!" Dick added
to the fiercely battling Chilian. "Stop your fighting or
I'll put a bullet into you."</p>

<p>"Give me the revolver, Dick," said Matt, "and I'll take
care of him. You go and lend Carl a hand."</p>

<p>Carl was having a hard time of it. The Chilian was
not large, but hard labor in the penal settlement of Punta
Arenas had developed his muscles.</p>

<p>Carl, at the bottom of the hatchway leading up to the
periscope room, was doing his utmost to bear the Chilian
down in the passage leading to the tank room. He was
on the rascal's back, throttling him with his hands, and
trying to force him forward.</p>

<p>The man, holding the harpoon point up, was jabbing
with it over his shoulder. It was a dangerous instrument,
and if Carl had been struck fairly with the lance-like
point, he would surely have been badly hurt.</p>

<p>"You t'ought you hat got der pest oof Modor Matt,
hey?" Carl was whooping as he continued compressing
his fingers about the brown throat and gave no attention
to the harpoon. "Vell, you got some more t'oughts coming.
I peen Modor Matt's chum, und I vas a rekular
horned ven I got my mad oop&mdash;a yellow chacket mit
some stingers, yah, so! Vy don'd you fall mit yourseluf?
Vy don'd&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>Just then the point of the harpoon ran through Carl's
hair, raking his scalp.</p>

<p>"Shdop id, oder I vill shdrangle you!" Carl cried.</p>

<p>The Chilian, so to speak, had got the range. He was
breathing in choking gasps, but he still had strength
enough to stand upright, and he was preparing for a
backward thrust with the harpoon, which might have
won the day for him had not Dick interfered.</p>

<p>At the critical moment Dick seized the fellow's arm
and wrenched it so severely that the harpoon fell clanging
to the steel floor. The next instant the boys had the
Chilian down.</p>

<p>"Get a rope, Carl!" puffed Dick. "I can hold him
while you're doing it. Better get two ropes&mdash;one for
Matt to use."</p>

<p>Carl darted into the torpedo room, and was soon back
with the ropes. They were the same ones that had been
used to secure him and Matt.</p>

<p>"Durn aboudt iss fair blay," chuckled Carl. "Der
ropes ve use on dem vas de vones dey use on us! Ach,
vat a habbiness!"</p>

<p>The man was quickly bound, and Carl and Dick crept
on to where Matt was threatening the leader of the
treacherous clique with the firearm.</p>

<p>"You and Carl can take care of the fellow, Dick," said
Matt. "I'll leave you and go up to the periscope room.
There's no telling what's been going on there."</p>

<p>"Slant away, matey," said Dick. "Carl and I can
handle this dago, with ground to spare."</p>

<p>"You bed you!" echoed Carl; "ve can take care oof all
der tagos on der poat."</p>

<p>Matt waited for no more, but crawled back to the ladder
and hurried to the periscope chamber. What he saw
from the door alarmed him. Glennie was lying on the
floor, and the two other Chilians were nowhere to be
seen.</p>

<p>"Glennie!" shouted Matt, rushing forward.</p>

<p>Glennie lifted himself on one elbow and gave the
young motorist a bewildered look; then abruptly his
brain cleared and he realized what had taken place.</p>

<p>"All right, Matt," said he. "As soon as that row was
turned on below I was knocked over. Cæsar, what a
thump I got!" Glennie sat up and lifted both hands to
the back of his head. "What's going on?" he asked.</p>

<p>"We've captured the two villains who were below with
us," Matt answered. "What has become of the other
two?"</p>

<p>"Give it up. My wits went woolgathering the minute
I dropped."</p>

<p>Matt ran to the door of the steel room and tried it.
It was locked.</p>

<p>"Hello, out there!" came the voice of Speake. "What's
all the excitement about?"</p>

<p>"We've captured the boat back again," replied Matt.</p>

<p>"Hooray!" exulted Clackett. "Let us out, Matt."</p>

<p>"As soon as I find the key." Matt turned to Glennie.
"Who did you say had the key?" he asked.</p>

<p>"One of the two who were here with me," said Glennie.
"They must have gone up on deck."</p>

<p>Matt sprang to the iron ladder and mounted swiftly
to the hatch. The hatch was open and the morning sun
was streaming down. The moment he got his head
through the opening, he saw a sight that still further
increased his alarm.</p>

<p>At least a dozen canoes were in the bay, arranged in a
circle at a good safe distance from the <i>Grampus</i>. The
boats were constructed of rough planks rudely tied together
with the sinews of animals. There were four
warriors in each canoe; small, fierce little men wearing
cloaks of the sea otter and with faces like those of
baboons. The warriors were armed with bows and arrows,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>
and in each canoe the small fighters had their bows
in hand with an arrow laid to the string.</p>

<p>Matt recalled what Glennie had said just before Carl
made his attack on the Chilian with the harpoon. Evidently
this flock of canoes had been in the bay, the warriors
intent upon some nefarious expedition, when the
<i>Grampus</i> lifted herself to the surface of the water.</p>

<p>This apparition, emerging from the depths of the bay,
must have filled the superstitious natives with panic.
They had fled, Matt reasoned, but had plucked up heart
when the monster had failed to attack them and had
drawn closer.</p>

<p>In grim silence the warriors surveyed the youth. They
made no attempt to attack, but watched with glittering
eyes, their steel-pointed arrows ready.</p>

<p>"That's a layout for you!" came the voice of Glennie
from below. He was looking into the periscope, and had
as good a view of the canoes and warriors as Matt had
himself. "Don't let them get a whack at you, Matt," the
ensign cautioned. "They're a treacherous lot of savages,
and many a good ship they have coaxed to her doom by
lighting fires on shore in stormy weather. It was those
false beacons that gave their land the name of Terra del
Fuego&mdash;the Land of Fire."</p>

<p>"I thought the country was named that because of the
habit the natives have of carrying fire with them to keep
them warm."</p>

<p>"Some say one thing and some another, but&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>"No use debating that question now. What I'd like to
know is where have those other Chilians gone?"</p>

<p>"Can't you see them? They're beyond the canoes in a
boat of their own, and pulling ashore."</p>

<p>The periscope ball, being fifteen feet above the deck of
the <i>Grampus</i>, afforded Glennie a wider view than Matt
had from the top of the tower. Matt climbed higher up
the ladder and looked shoreward over the heads of the
savages in the canoes.</p>

<p>He saw the two Chilians. They were in one of the
rough boats and getting hastily toward the shore of the
bay.</p>

<p>"How do you suppose they ever managed to get that
canoe and pass through the circle of Fuegans?" asked
Glennie. "Why, the savages are not even chasing them!"</p>

<p>"Probably," guessed Matt, "the Fuegans thought the
Chilians were visitors from the bottom of the sea, inasmuch
as they came out of the boat, and were afraid to
molest them. But we're not going to let the scoundrels
get away so easy as all that."</p>

<p>Stepping back down the ladder until his fingers could
touch the steering device and the bell pushes, Matt rang
for full speed ahead.</p>

<p>The jingle of the bell reached the Fuegans, and perhaps
gave them the idea that this monster of the deep
was making ready to do battle with them. Dropping
their bows, they seized their paddles and shot their
canoes to a safer distance.</p>

<p>The churning of the propeller still further alarmed the
savages, and when the submarine headed shoreward,
pointing straight for one segment of the canoe-draw circle,
there was a wild scramble among the boats to get
out of the way.</p>

<p>The Chilians, looking over their shoulders and seeing
the <i>Grampus</i> pursuing them, redoubled their efforts to
get away. But they would not have succeeded had not
the Fuegans unexpectedly changed their tactics.</p>

<p>Whiz-z-z&mdash;zip! An arrow flashed past Matt's head.</p>

<p>"Come down, Matt!" shouted Glennie. "If you don't
they'll put one of those arrows through you! It's a wonder
that one missed."</p>

<p>Matt needed no second bidding. Emboldened by the
attack of the first savage, all the others prepared to
launch their shafts.</p>

<p>As Matt dropped into the tower and closed and secured
the hatch, a veritable cloud of arrows came pecking at
tower and deck, some of them gliding off into space, and
some of them splintering and breaking upon the tough
steel.</p>

<p>Matt continued to remain in the tower, his eyes at the
lunettes and his hand on the steering device.</p>

<p>Any further attempt to chase the escaping Chilians
was only a waste of time. Even if the <i>Grampus</i> overhauled
them it would have been impossible for those
aboard to get out on deck and effect a capture. Their
canoe might have been run down and destroyed, but that
would merely have thrown the convicts into the water,
where they would have been drowned or pierced with the
sharp-pointed Fuegan arrows. Rather than have the
Chilians slain, Matt chose to let them get ashore and
take their chances on dry land.</p>

<p>The Fuegans, however, had no intention of giving up
their attack. When Matt vanished below the conning-tower
hatch, they divined instantly that he was afraid
of their arrows. He could be no god of the ocean's
depths if a Fuegan arrow frightened him. Reasoning in
this primitive fashion, the savages gave vent to loud cries
and urged their canoes toward the submarine from all
sides.</p>



<hr class="chap" />
<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII.</a></h2>

<p class="chaptitle">THE MAN-OF-WAR.</p>


<p>With an armor of steel between him and the arrows,
Matt could laugh at the puny efforts of the Fuegans to
do any harm. With his eyes at the lunettes, he guided
the <i>Grampus</i> toward the outlet of the bay.</p>

<p>The savage ardor of the Fuegans increased as they
saw the monster apparently running away. Closer and
closer they drew their circle of boats, two in each small
craft using the paddles and the other two continuing to
discharge their arrows. The canoes on the side toward
which the submarine was making did not give way an
inch, but continued to come boldly on. Two warriors in
each leaped to their feet and hurled taunts at the frightened
leviathan, letting their arrows fly directly against
the bow. In a few moments the <i>Grampus</i> was upon one
of these canoes, staving it in and tossing its splintered
pieces to right and left.</p>

<p>Four Fuegans were in the water. They were canoe
Indians, however, and as much at home in the water as
on dry land. Swimming away, they were picked up by
some of their comrades in the other canoes.</p>

<p>Meanwhile, three canoes had managed to come alongside.
Some of their occupants clambered to the deck of
the <i>Grampus</i> and began stabbing at the plates with the
points of their arrows. Fearing they might come to the
tower and damage the lunettes, Matt ordered a ten-foot
submergence.</p>

<p>As the submarine began to sink, the Fuegans flung
themselves from the deck&mdash;and that was the last Matt
saw of them.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span></p>

<p>"Take the wheel below, Glennie," called the young
motorist. "We'll travel a short distance submerged and
see if we can't leave those troublesome little fellows behind."</p>

<p>Glennie went to his work and Matt descended. Ten
minutes later the <i>Grampus</i> again sought the surface, and
a look from the conning tower showed that the savages
had been left out of sight around a point of land.</p>

<p>"Here is our course, Glennie," said Matt, laying a
chart on the periscope table, and running his finger
along the route they were to take; "through the first and
second narrows, and so on to Cape Negro. I've got to
leave you to do the steering for a time while I open the
door and release Clackett and Speake. One of those
two Chilians got away with the key, and, for all the good
it can do us, it might as well be in the bottom of the
ocean."</p>

<p>"I can take care of the <i>Grampus</i>, all right," answered
Glennie.</p>

<p>"How's your head?"</p>

<p>"It feels as big as a barrel, but otherwise it's comfortable."</p>

<p>Matt went below. Dick was at the motor and Carl
was in the tank room with Gaines. The latter had been
released and was keeping a watchful eye on the two
Chilian prisoners.</p>

<p>"What's been going on overhead, matey?" called Dick.</p>

<p>"The other two Chilians got away," replied Matt, "and
we were attacked by a lot of Fuegans in canoes. But
their attack didn't amount to much."</p>

<p>"Dose fellers," and Carl nodded to the prisoners, "vas
in der vay. Vy nod take dem oop to dot shdeel shamper,
Matt?"</p>

<p>"That will be all right, Carl, just as soon as I can get
the steel chamber opened. Just now it's locked, and the
key is somewhere in the pocket of one of the escaped
Chilians. I've got to break the lock in order to let Speake
and Clackett out."</p>

<p>Matt went on to the torpedo room, opened a tool box
and possessed himself of a hammer and cold chisel.
With these he was not long in smashing the lock on the
door of the steel room. Speake and Clackett rushed out.</p>

<p>"Jumpin' jerushy!" exclaimed Clackett disgustedly.
"We didn't cut much of a figure in the recapture of the
boat, Matt."</p>

<p>"We didn't need you," answered Matt. "Carl turned
the trick. Once the rest of us got started there was no
stopping us. Two of the rascals we rescued got away,
but the other two are nicely tied down in the tank room.
You fellows had better go down and relieve Dick and
Carl, so they can bring up the prisoners. Or, better still,
Speake, you might let Gaines take the motor, Clackett
the tanks, and you get something for us to eat. We don't
want to neglect our appetites during all this excitement."</p>

<p>"I'm hungry myself," replied Speake, following Clackett
out of the room, "and I'll not be long getting our
whack ready."</p>

<p>"Get every ounce of power out of the motor down
there," called Matt. "We've already lost a couple of
hours&mdash;and we didn't have any time to waste."</p>

<p>Matt took a look at the periscope. They were gliding
past the low, sandy shores of Patagonia, on one hand,
and the rugged mountains of Terra del Fuego on the
other, headed for the Narrows.</p>

<p>"We ought to be at Punta Arenas late this afternoon,"
said Glennie, "providing we keep up this rate of speed.
Shall we put in there?"</p>

<p>"We might as well pass the night there, Glennie," answered
Matt. "There's danger in it, but we've got to
land these prisoners."</p>

<p>"Where's the danger?" asked Glennie. "Our worst
enemies are sailing around the Horn; we're well to the
north of them and are due in the Pacific before they are."</p>

<p>"You forget one important point: The Japs have a
wireless outfit aboard, and there is another station at
Punta Arenas. Suppose the news is flashed out that the
submarine <i>Grampus</i> is in the harbor? What's to prevent
the Japs from picking it up?"</p>

<p>"That's so," muttered Glennie. "I hadn't thought of
that, but it isn't much that gets away from you, Matt."</p>

<p>"I've got a big responsibility on my shoulders and can't
afford to let anything get away from me. Even if the
news did reach the Japs that we're in the harbor at Sandy
Point, headed west, we'd still be ahead of them and their
steamer. But they're so full of wily tricks they might
hatch up something to make us trouble."</p>

<p>"I'm mighty glad they're going around the Horn, and
not us," said Glennie. "You were wise when you made
that change in the programme, Matt."</p>

<p>At that moment, Dick and Carl came dragging the
leader of the escaped convicts into the periscope room.
The fellow began to talk as soon as he saw Glennie.</p>

<p>"Pay attention to him, Glennie," said Matt, taking the
wheel out of the ensign's hand, "and let us know what
he's saying."</p>

<p>Glennie stepped over to the prisoner and listened to
his talk.</p>

<p>"He's making threats," observed Glennie, "and his
talk's not worth listening to."</p>

<p>"What does he say?"</p>

<p>"Why, he says that if we turn him over to the authorities
at Sandy Point he'll make us more trouble than we
can take care of."</p>

<p>"The duffin' old jailbird!" exclaimed Dick angrily.
"Tell him that if he talks too much like that we'll toss
him overboard, tied as he is."</p>

<p>"He's talking for effect," said Matt. "Take him into
the steel room."</p>

<p>"I vish, py shinks," cried Carl, "dot I could dalk Spinnish
so I could tell dis feller vat I t'ink oof him!"</p>

<p>When both men had been brought up from below and
put into the steel room, Speake had breakfast ready. It
was ten o'clock, and rather a late hour for breakfast
aboard the <i>Grampus</i>.</p>

<p>Some attempt was made, while the boys were eating,
to get some information from the wounded Chilian, but
he would not say a word. He ate with his usual heartiness,
however, and when the meal was finished, Dick
went into the prison chamber and supplied the other
Chilians.</p>

<p>No boats were passed, and hour after hour drifted by
with the motor singing its song of speed, and the
<i>Grampus</i> just "humping herself" through the strait.</p>

<p>Matt kept to the steering himself. He had made a
long study of the chart and felt that he was more competent
than any of the others to keep the submarine out
of danger.</p>

<p>At Cape Negro the scenery began to change, and for
the better. The low brushwood became good-sized trees,
and there was some character to the shores the submarine
was passing.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span></p>

<p>"It was just our luck to fall in with a bunch of convicts&mdash;that
is the way our luck has been running ever
since we left Port of Spain," grumbled Speake.</p>

<p>"Avast dere a leedle, Shpeake!" warned Carl. "Don'd
go finding some fault mit our luck. Ditn't ve got der
poat pack from dem confict fellers? Dot vasn't a pad
luck, you bed you!"</p>

<p>"Yes, but look at the time we've lost."</p>

<p>"We're making it up, Speake," said Matt. "By the
way, Carl," and he turned his eyes on his Dutch pard,
"how did you get those ropes off your hands down there
in the torpedo room?"</p>

<p>"I vas some foxy fellers, you bed my life," chuckled
Carl. "Ven you shkipped oudt, I t'inks, py shiminy, dot
I vill make some surbrises. Der dool shest hat its gorner
in der shmall oof my pack, und I rupped der ropes oop
und down der gorner ondil I rupped dem in doo. Den I
vas retty, und you saw vat I dit. Some shtar blays, eh?"</p>

<p>"One of the finest things you ever did, matey," averred
Dick, "and you've done a lot of things that stand pretty
high on the record."</p>

<p>"T'anks," said Carl. "I ain'd von oof der pragging
kindt, aber you bed somet'ing for nodding I'm a hot von
ven I durn meinseluf loose. Now&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>"Ship ahoy!" exclaimed Matt suddenly, his eyes fixed
on the periscope.</p>

<p>Every one in the periscope room leaped up excitedly.</p>

<p>"What is she?" came from all of them in chorus.</p>

<p>"A Chilian war ship," said Matt.</p>

<p>"Not the&mdash;the Jap boat?" gasped Glennie.</p>

<p>"Hardly. The Jap boat wasn't a war ship. This isn't
the same steamer, but an armor-clad. Run up the hatchway,
Dick, and hail her. We can turn our prisoners over
to the captain and won't have to go ashore at Punta
Arenas."</p>

<p>"A capital piece of work!" applauded Glennie.</p>

<p>But it was not to turn out such a capital piece of work
as they all thought.</p>



<hr class="chap" />
<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX.</a></h2>

<p class="chaptitle">ABOARD THE "SALVADORE."</p>


<p>The <i>Grampus</i> was between Elizabeth Island and the
island of Santa Madalena when the war ship was sighted.
She was headed eastward, and by the time Dick got the
hatch opened and looked out, the distance between the
two boats had rapidly narrowed.</p>

<p>There was a good deal of excitement on the deck of
the war ship. Officers were crowding the bridge and
sailors were pressing against the rail, forward. Several
of the officers had glasses to their eyes and were studying
the submarine with ill-concealed curiosity.</p>

<p>The waters of the strait were as smooth as a pond, and
it was possible for the <i>Grampus</i> to come close alongside
the larger vessel.</p>

<p>"Ahoy!" roared Dick.</p>

<p>An answer was returned in Spanish.</p>

<p>"Can't savvy your lingo," roared Dick, making a
trumpet of his hands. "Haven't you got any one aboard
who can talk English?"</p>

<p>"What ship is that?" cried an officer, so heavily embroidered
with gold lace, brass buttons, and epaulettes
that Dick was sure he must be the captain.</p>

<p>"It's the submarine <i>Grampus</i>," answered Dick.</p>

<p>"English?"</p>

<p>"No, American, although <i>I'm</i> English, fast enough."</p>

<p>"Where's your flag?"</p>

<p>The war ship had slowed her engines and was lying to.</p>

<p>Dick signaled the engine room for just enough speed
to give the submarine steerageway.</p>

<p>"We're under water so much," said Dick, in answer to
the officer's question, "that we can't fly our colors."</p>

<p>"Is that a government vessel?"</p>

<p>"Not now, but she will be as soon as we get her to
Mare Island Navy Yard."</p>

<p>"I'd like to send a man aboard of her to look her over,"
said the captain. "Come closer alongside and heave to."</p>

<p>"We can't allow you to look her over," said Dick.
"There are improvements on this boat that no other nation
is going to get hold of."</p>

<p>Dick was not very tactful. Whenever he wanted to
make a point, he took the shortest way to it. His answer
seemed to anger the officer.</p>

<p>"You're talking to a captain in the Chilian navy," cried
the officer, an ostrich plume in his hat quivering with the
wrath that shook his body. "If I want to look that boat
over I'll do it. Who's your captain?"</p>

<p>"Better let me come up and talk with him, Dick," said
Matt, who, at the foot of the iron ladder, had heard all
that had passed between his chum and the captain of the
war ship.</p>

<p>Instead of coming down the ladder, Dick got out on the
deck.</p>

<p>"I am in charge of this boat, captain," Matt called up
to the commander of the war ship, "but there is a representative
of the United States Navy with us, and his
orders are that the boat is not to undergo inspection. I
am sorry, but, you see, this boat has virtually been purchased
by the United States Government."</p>

<p>"If you're in charge," came from the man on the war
ship's bridge, "then come up here&mdash;I want to talk with
you."</p>

<p>"I shall be glad to do so," Matt answered, "but, first,
we have some prisoners we should like to turn over to
you."</p>

<p>"Prisoners?"</p>

<p>"Yes, escaped convicts."</p>

<p>"Ah, ha! You found those five rascals, did you?"</p>

<p>"Yes, captain. Their boat had overturned and we
picked them off the craft's bottom not far from Cape
Virgins during the storm late yesterday afternoon."</p>

<p>"Good enough! We were looking for those men.
Come up close under our lee and we'll send down a
rope for the prisoners and a sea ladder for you."</p>

<p>"Better drop a bosun's chair, captain," suggested Dick.
"One of the men has a broken arm."</p>

<p>The officer turned and gave some directions. While
these were being carried out, the <i>Grampus</i> was man&oelig;uvred
around the stern of the war ship and up under the
lee. As they passed the stern, Matt and Dick saw the
war ship's name. It was the <i>Salvadore</i>.</p>

<p>"That other ship, we talked with by wireless," commented
Dick, "wasn't the <i>Salvadore</i>, by a long shot."</p>

<p>"I had a hunch to that effect right along," answered
Matt.</p>

<p>As soon as the <i>Grampus</i> was close in, on the lee side
of the larger vessel, a bosun's chair and a sea ladder
were in readiness. Dick went below to help bring up
the prisoners.</p>

<p>The leader came bellowing and roaring his wrath. He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span>
fought against being placed in the bosun's chair, and a
rope was flung down from the steamer's rail. Dick
caught the end of the rope and it was tied around the
Chilian's body, under the arms. The rascal was still
howling as he was snatched aloft and dragged to the
war ship's deck.</p>

<p>Another rope was sent down for the second uninjured
prisoner. He went up quietly, but with a stern face
and glittering eyes.</p>

<p>The man with the broken arm made no struggle, but
silently took his place in the bosun's chair. When he had
been safely lifted over the war ship's rail, the captain
leaned over and called down:</p>

<p>"Where are the other two? There were five who
escaped."</p>

<p>Matt explained how the two missing convicts had
got away. Just as he finished, a junior officer stepped to
the captain's side, touched his arm, and said something in
a low tone.</p>

<p>"Now you come up," called the captain, beckoning
to Matt; "I want to talk with you."</p>

<p>The captain turned away from the rail.</p>

<p>"You vould t'ink dot brass-plated feller owned der
eart'," remarked Carl. "Ve vas free American cidizens,
py shinks, und he don'd got some pitzness shpeaking
to us like vat he dit."</p>

<p>"Nonsense, Carl," laughed Matt, "that's only his way."</p>

<p>The sailors on the war ship gave the rope ladder a
heave that sent it close enough for Matt to catch it.
Gripping the iron rungs, Matt allowed himself to swing
from the submarine's deck. He was jarred a little as he
struck the armored side of the war ship, but he went on
up to the rail quickly and easily.</p>

<p>An officer said something to him and took him by the
arm. Leading him aft, they entered a passageway at
the break in the poop, walked along it a few steps,
and then turned in at an open door.</p>

<p>Two men, who were armed with muskets and looked
like marines, stepped on each side of Matt as he entered.</p>

<p>Dick, Glennie, and Carl, down on the deck of the
<i>Grampus</i>, had watched Matt vanish over the rail with
anything but easy minds.</p>

<p>"I don't like the looks of things, mates," said Dick,
"and that's a fact."</p>

<p>"Me, neider," added Carl. "Dot feller in der brass
drimmings shpeaks like ve vas togs. He iss some
Shmard Alecs, I bed you."</p>

<p>"I don't think Matt ought to have gone aboard the
war ship," averred Glennie.</p>

<p>Dick turned on him in a flash.</p>

<p>"Then why didn't you say so?" he demanded sharply.
"You're an officer in the United States Navy, and these
Chilian swabs wouldn't dare lay a finger on <i>you</i>. What
did you let Matt go for, when you could have gone
just as well?"</p>

<p>"Hold your luff, Ferral," answered Glennie, reddening.
"You didn't think I stayed off that war ship because I
was <i>afraid</i>, did you?"</p>

<p>"I'm a Fiji if I know why you stayed off," scowled
Dick. "That dago captain is hot because he couldn't
come aboard the <i>Grampus</i>&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>"He's hot because you refused him the privilege in the
way you did."</p>

<p>"Oh, my eye!" scoffed Dick.</p>

<p>The dislike Dick had for Glennie was increased by a
vague alarm for Matt, and the ensign and Matt's sailor
chum were never nearer an open rupture than at that
moment. Dick's fists had clinched, and a dangerous
gleam had leaped into Glennie's eyes.</p>

<p>Carl, to his great credit be it stated, interfered. He
had as little liking for Glennie as Dick had, but he saw
the folly of quarreling under the eyes of the <i>Salvadore's</i>
sailors.</p>

<p>"Dot vill do you, Tick!" growled Carl. "You vant
dose tagos to t'ink Modor Madd's friendts vas a punch
oof yaps? Keep shdill mit yourseluf; und you, Glennie,
nodding more schust now, oof you blease."</p>

<p>Glennie turned and walked to the base of the conning
tower. There he sat down moodily and watched the war
ship, hoping every moment to see Matt reappear.</p>

<p>"I don't like that swab a little bit," muttered Dick to
Carl. "There's something wrong with his top-hamper.
Do you recollect the time he came aboard the <i>Grampus</i>,
Carl? How he laid it down that we were all to 'mister'
him?"</p>

<p>"We can't forged dot," said Carl, "aber id vas pedder
dot ve try, Tick."</p>

<p>"I guess he'd like to make us black his boots, if he
could."</p>

<p>"Nod so pad as dot. He's a prave feller&mdash;you saidt
dot yourseluf ven he vas heluping you und Matt safe dose
fellers on der poat."</p>

<p>"Of course he's got nerve, but he spoils it all with
that way of his. Why didn't he put in his oar, while
that cock of the walk up there was ordering Matt
around?"</p>

<p>"He knowed pedder as to inderfere mit Matt's pitzness,
same as you und me. Modor Matt knows vat he's
got to do, und chenerally, you bed you, he does id.
<i>Nicht wahr?</i>"</p>

<p>Dick remained silent. He was not acting at all like
himself, but was angry because something had not been
said or done to keep Matt off the <i>Salvadore</i>.</p>

<p>Half an hour passed, with the war ship and the submarine
lying alongside of each other. At the end of that
time another officer, who could not talk English quite so
fluently as the captain, thrust his head over the rail.</p>

<p>"We go to Punta Arenas," he called down. "You come
'long in your leetle boat."</p>

<p>"Where's our skipper?" roared Dick.</p>

<p>"He iss arrest'," was the calm answer. "You know
more w'en you get to Punta Arenas!"</p>

<p>Dick said a good many wild and unreasonable things,
then, but no one on the war ship paid any attention to
him. Carl said quite a few things, too, but, strange as it
may seem, he had himself under better control than
Dick.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span></p>

<p>The war ship got under headway again, put about and
started westward along the strait. There was nothing
for the <i>Grampus</i> to do but to follow.</p>



<hr class="chap" />
<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X.</a></h2>

<p class="chaptitle">THE TIGHTENING COIL.</p>


<p>Matt, supposing that the actions of the two marines
was a mere formality, made no comment. The captain
sat in a chair before a desk, smoking a cigar and scowling
at him. He did not ask Matt to sit down.</p>

<p>"Who owns that submarine?" the captain jerked out.</p>

<p>"Captain Nemo, Jr., of Philadelphia," Matt answered,
a little resentful because of the captain's curt manner.</p>

<p>He and his chums had captured the convicts and had
thus performed a good deed for the Chilian government.
It seemed to Matt as though he was entitled to a little
more courtesy.</p>

<p>"Captain Nemo, Jr.," muttered the captain. "<i>Carramba!</i>
A fictitious name. There is a story about a
Captain Nemo. Why do you talk to me like that?"</p>

<p>"I am telling you the truth!" answered Matt. "Will
you tell me your name, sir?"</p>

<p>"Why do you wish to know that?"</p>

<p>"So I may report this conversation to the naval officer
aboard the <i>Grampus</i>. He will enter it in his log, which,
at the end of this cruise, will be submitted to the navy
department of our government."</p>

<p>The captain's eyes glimmered like coals.</p>

<p>"So!" he snapped. "You think me afraid? Ah, ha!
I am Captain Enrique Sandoval, of the Chilian war ship
<i>Salvadore</i>. Report it. What is it to me? Now, if you
please, have you a wireless telegraph instrument aboard
the submarine?"</p>

<p>"We have. What of that?"</p>

<p>"Then you admit it!"</p>

<p>"I don't know why I shouldn't admit it," answered
Matt coolly.</p>

<p>"Why have you a wireless machine on your boat?"
went on the captain.</p>

<p>Matt had no intention of telling this Captain Sandoval
about his trouble with the Sons of the Rising Sun.</p>

<p>"That is my business, Captain Sandoval," said he.</p>

<p>"<i>Si</i>, and mine, too, as you will find. Yesterday, this
war ship was in Smyth Channel. Her wireless machine
was out of commission and could not be used. The station
at Punta Arenas kept calling for me. <i>You</i> answered!
<i>You</i> replied that your boat was the <i>Salvadore</i>!
<i>You</i> took the message about the escaped convicts from
the air. Why? Because you wanted to find them, take
them aboard, and help them escape! <i>Carramba!</i>"</p>

<p>Matt was astounded. Captain Sandoval punctuated
his words by jabbing a long forefinger into the air, but
Matt hardly saw the finger, or the wildly triumphant look
on the captain's face.</p>

<p>"That is not true, Captain Sandoval," said Matt, his
face flaming indignantly. "If we were trying to keep the
convicts out of your hands, why should we turn them
over to you, here in the strait?"</p>

<p>"Garcia told me," went on the captain. "He and his
men were to pay you money to take them to the River
Plate. You took them off the sailboat, and then you
lost your courage and came westward along the strait
to leave them at Punta Arenas."</p>

<p>"That is not the truth!"</p>

<p>"Don't talk so to me!" frowned the captain. "Be respectful."</p>

<p>"I shall tell you what I think," answered Matt. "What
you say is worse than foolish. Who is this Garcia?"</p>

<p>"He is the leader of the convicts&mdash;the one who planned
the escape. I say you helped them, because you thought
they would give you money."</p>

<p>"There is not a word of truth in what you say!" declared
Matt.</p>

<p>The captain started up from his chair.</p>

<p>"Ah, ha!" he screamed. "You dispute the word of
Captain Enrique Sandoval?"</p>

<p>"Oh, splash!" exclaimed Matt disgustedly. "I'm going,
but this insult shall be reported to our state department."</p>

<p>"Your state department!" sneered Captain Sandoval.
"When you try to help Chilian convicts escape, you put
yourself out of the protection of your state department."</p>

<p>Matt stepped to the door. Two muskets dropped across
the opening in front of him. The king of the motor
boys whirled around and drew himself up to his full
height.</p>

<p>"What does this mean, Captain Sandoval?" he asked
crisply. "Am I not to be allowed to leave this ship?"</p>

<p>"No; you are under arrest."</p>

<p>Matt, waiting no longer for an invitation, sat down
in a chair.</p>

<p>"You are piling up a lot of trouble for yourself, Captain
Sandoval," said he coolly. "You're a reasonable
man, or ought to be, as captain of a war ship, but is there
any sense in arresting me on such a ridiculous charge as
the one you have just mentioned?"</p>

<p>"The charge is enough," growled the captain. "But
there is another."</p>

<p>"What is it?"</p>

<p>The captain's talk was so outrageously nonsensical
that Matt, in spite of his desperate situation, could not
help but find some amusement in his preposterous assertions.</p>

<p>"You, over your wireless machine, claimed to be the
war ship <i>Salvadore</i>. That is enough, more than enough,
to cause your arrest."</p>

<p>Matt was beginning to see through the whole proceeding.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span></p>

<p>Captain Sandoval, for reasons of his own, chose to
take the word of the convict, Garcia, in preference to
Matt's. Garcia had made his threats that, if Matt persisted
in turning him over to the Chilian authorities, he
would make trouble for the <i>Grampus</i>. This, undoubtedly,
was what the convict was now trying to do.</p>

<p>Garcia had been the first one sent aboard. He had
at once told his false story to one of the petty officers,
who, in turn, had carried it to the captain.</p>

<p>As for the wireless part of it, the machine on the
<i>Grampus</i> had not been strong enough either to receive
messages from Punta Arenas, or to send them there.
Punta Arenas had heard the Japanese boat talking. The
Japs had claimed to be the war ship for nothing else
than to receive a possible message regarding the whereabouts
of the <i>Grampus</i>.</p>

<p>But Matt could not explain the case of the Sons of the
Rising Sun to Captain Sandoval. Sandoval might attempt
to get into communication with the Japanese boat,
either to confirm Matt's story, or for some other purpose.
The result would be that the Sons of the Rising Sun
would learn that they had been tricked, and that the
submarine was in Magellan Strait. Then, if the <i>Grampus</i>
was held any length of time in Punta Arenas, pending
an investigation, the Japanese boat would have time
to get around to Smyth Channel before Matt and his
friends could reach the Pacific.</p>

<p>The young motorist took a look ahead, and held his
peace regarding his Jap enemies.</p>

<p>"You are making a big mistake, Captain Sandoval,"
said Matt quietly. "I shall appeal to the American consul
at Punta Arenas."</p>

<p>The captain showed his teeth in a snaky smile.</p>

<p>"I shall have much to say about what you will do," he
answered.</p>

<p>"You will not allow me to return to the submarine?"
asked Matt.</p>

<p>"I shall take you, a prisoner, on this war ship to Punta
Arenas."</p>

<p>"How about the submarine?"</p>

<p>"The submarine will follow us. We&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>An officer appeared at the door.</p>

<p>"Captain," said he, "one of the prisoners would speak
with you."</p>

<p>This report was made in Spanish, but Matt translated
it.</p>

<p>"Let him be brought here properly guarded," said
the captain.</p>

<p>A few minutes later, the wounded Chilian was brought
in by two marines. This was the man Matt had taken
such a desperate risk to save at the time the five convicts
were taken from the overturned boat.</p>

<p>"<i>Amigo</i>," said the prisoner, looking at Matt and tapping
his bandaged arm.</p>

<p>Here, then, was a friend where Matt had least expected
to find one. For some time the convict talked, the
captain listening incredulously. When he had done,
the captain ordered him away.</p>

<p>"The fellow says," observed the captain, to Matt, "that
Garcia speaks lies, nothing but lies. But this fellow wants
to help you, for he says you saved his life."</p>

<p>"He is truthful," said Matt.</p>

<p>"I reason for myself," declared the captain shortly.</p>

<p>"If you delay the <i>Grampus</i> at Punta Arenas," went on
Matt, "our government will hear of it and will make
trouble for you and your government."</p>

<p>"I do my duty," answered the officer, patting his gold-laced
chest; "Captain Enrique Sandoval always does
his duty. It is not for you to tell me what I must
do."</p>

<p>"Will you take me to jail in Punta Arenas?" asked
Matt.</p>

<p>"No, not to the jail. The house of the harbor master
will do. You will be kept there until the convict, Garcia's,
story is looked into."</p>

<p>"How long will that take?"</p>

<p>"A week, two weeks&mdash;I do not know how long."</p>

<p>"I shall not stay in Punta Arenas more than a day,
at most!" declared Matt. "The submarine must be taken
into the Pacific and up the coast without delay."</p>

<p>"We shall see," said Captain Sandoval, pulling at his
mustache and shrugging his shoulders.</p>

<p>"We shall see," repeated Matt, "if the American consul,
when appealed to by the naval officer aboard the
<i>Grampus</i>, has any power to undo this outrage."</p>

<p>The captain waved his hand to the marines and gave
them an order. The guards stepped to Matt's side, motioned
for him to stand up, and led him off to a small
room opening upon the same passage that led to the captain's
quarters. Here Matt was locked in, and presently
he heard muffled orders, a jingling of bells, and the <i>Salvadore</i>
began putting about for the run back to Sandy
Point.</p>



<hr class="chap" />
<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI.</a></h2>

<p class="chaptitle">DICK ON HIS METTLE.</p>


<p>It was dark when the submarine arrived off the town,
and those aboard her could not have taken in the city's
appearance even if their curiosity had prompted them.
All the way in from the point where they had met the
war ship those on the <i>Grampus</i> had been holding a council
of war.</p>

<p>Why had Matt been arrested? Why was he being taken
to Punta Arenas? What was to be done with him there?
How long would the <i>Grampus</i> be delayed? Would the
Japanese steamer have time to round the Horn and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>
reach the other end of the strait before the submarine
pushed her nose into the Pacific?</p>

<p>These were some of the questions canvassed by those
aboard the <i>Grampus</i>. No one was very much worried
over Matt's safety, for they all felt that the Chilian authorities
would not dare go to any desperate length with
him. The worst that could happen would be the delay
to the <i>Grampus</i>&mdash;but that was likely to be grievous
enough if the Jap steamer was in a position to take advantage
of it.</p>

<p>"I shall go ashore," declared Glennie, "just as soon
as the <i>Grampus</i> reaches the town, and lay the matter
before the American consul."</p>

<p>"The British consul's my man," declared Dick.</p>

<p>"Our boat sails under the American flag," said Glennie,
"and the logical man for us is the American consul."</p>

<p>"The British consul cuts more ice," affirmed Dick, "and
I shall go to him."</p>

<p>"Vere iss it for me to go?" piped up Carl. "I vant
to do somet'ing for my bard, Modor Matt."</p>

<p>"You, and all the rest of the submarine's crew," said
Dick, "will stay on board and watch the boat. If any
one tries to come aboard, close the hatch and sink to the
bottom. I guess they won't go after you in diving
suits."</p>

<p>On reaching the town, the <i>Salvadore</i> took up her berth
a cable's length off the wharf. The submarine, being of
light draught, lay to alongside the wharf, and Dick and
Glennie went ashore. As soon as they had landed, Carl,
who was left in nominal command, backed off for half a
cable's length and let go the anchors. It was arranged
that a sharp whistle from the shore was to bring the
<i>Grampus</i> back to that particular part of the wharf as
soon as the mud hooks could be lifted. All on board
were to keep awake and remain ready, at a moment's
warning, to assume their duties.</p>

<p>When this arrangement was made, none of those concerned
in it had the remotest idea of the importance it
was to hold in the progress of events. It went to prove
that carefully laid plans are always best, even when an
excess of care does not seem essential.</p>

<p>Neither Dick nor Glennie knew where their respective
consuls were to be found. Happening to meet a soldier
from the garrison, however, he directed them.</p>

<p>Having secured their bearings, Dick and Glennie separated.
For this Dick was not sorry. The ensign had
a number of little mannerisms, entirely unaffected, although
they did not seem so, which Dick was far from
admiring. Then, again, Dick Ferral had been an apprentice
seaman in His British Majesty's navy, and Glennie
was a commissioned officer. The fact that Glennie held
his commission in the United States and not in the British
navy did not seem to lessen the breach that lies between
the forecastle and the quarter deck. At least,
it did not in Dick's estimation.</p>

<p>Dick was not long in finding the vice-consul's house&mdash;and
not much longer in discovering that the vice-consul
was out of town for a week, having taken a horseback
journey into the interior. His affairs, meanwhile, had
been left in the hands of the German consul.</p>

<p>"I'll be shot," grumbled Dick, to himself, as he came
away from the vice-consul's door, "if I call on any Dutchman.
I guess it's up to Mr. Glennie, so here's hoping
that he puts his conceit in his pocket and gets the United
States consul to do something."</p>

<p>Dick, loitering back along the street, suddenly came
face to face with Glennie, who struck into the thoroughfare
Dick was following from a crossroad.</p>

<p>"Well!" exclaimed Glennie, recognizing Dick by a
street lamp.</p>

<p>"Is it?" returned Dick, none too well pleased by a
meeting.</p>

<p>"Is it&mdash;what?" queried Glennie.</p>

<p>"Why, well. What did the consul promise to do?
And, if he promised anything, why isn't he along with
you to do something? You don't want to have Matt
spend the night in the war ship's bally old brig, do you?"</p>

<p>"I had hard luck," said Glennie disappointedly. "The
American consul has taken a horseback ride into the
country and won't be back for a week. He left his affairs
in the hands of the German consul."</p>

<p>"Keelhaul me!" growled Dick. "That's just what I
was told at the British vice-consul's. That's all we have
here now is a vice-consul. He left <i>his</i> business with
the German consul, too. I wonder if those two fellows
went into the country together?"</p>

<p>"More than likely," was the gloomy response. "What
are we to do now?"</p>

<p>"Call on the Dutchman. I'd rather be flogged than do
it, for Carl's about the only Dutchman I ever saw who
was worth knowing. But I'll go, if it's going to help
Matt."</p>

<p>"Let's hunt up some one to tell us where the German
lives."</p>

<p>Having agreed on their course, the two boys set off
to follow it. A sailor gave them their directions, from
which it appeared that the consul they were looking for
lived on the other side of the city, not far from the shore.
As the easiest way of reaching his house, Dick and Glennie
returned to the wharf and followed it for a short
distance. It had been their original intention to keep
along the wharf until they reached a point opposite the
square of houses containing the German's residence,
but something occurred to interfere with their designs.</p>

<p>Just as they were abreast of the spot where the Chilian
war ship was anchored, they heard a splash of oars.</p>

<p>"A boat's coming ashore," said Dick. "Let's draw
back and watch. If the captain's in the boat we'll tackle<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>
him and make him tell us something about Matt. It's
no more than fair that we should be told what Matt's
been arrested for."</p>

<p>"Quite right," agreed Glennie. "Here's a good place
to wait, Ferral."</p>

<p>The ensign pointed to a pile of timbers close to the
wharf.</p>

<p>"Just the place," assented Dick, and, in a few moments,
they were screened from sight and watching the approaching
boat.</p>

<p>The launch hove alongside the wharf and five figures
could be seen climbing up on the old timbers. Just who
the persons were the darkness made it impossible for
Dick and Glennie to discover. Their ears, however,
soon gave them the knowledge that their eyes could not
yield.</p>

<p>"I claim the right to be taken to the American consul!"
said a voice.</p>

<p>Dick was so startled he almost dropped.</p>

<p>"It's Matt!" he whispered hoarsely. "By glory, they've
brought my old raggie ashore!"</p>

<p>"Listen!" urged Glennie.</p>

<p>"You will not go to the American consul's to-night,"
an authoritative voice answered the young motorist.</p>

<p>"There will be trouble over this, Captain Sandoval,"
went on Matt, "if you don't take me to my country's
representative."</p>

<p>"It is impossible."</p>

<p>"Why?"</p>

<p>"Because the American consul is not in the town. He
has gone away for a week. When he comes back, you
may see him."</p>

<p>"Are you telling me the truth, Captain Sandoval?"</p>

<p>"<i>Carajo!</i> I will not allow you to talk to me like that."</p>

<p>Some words in Spanish followed, evidently an order
to those who accompanied the captain and Matt.</p>

<p>"Stop!" commanded Matt. "Before you take me to the
house of the harbor master, I have another demand to
make."</p>

<p>"We are wasting too much time over your demands,"
replied the captain sternly. "The harbor master may
have gone to bed if we wait too long. I do not wish to
put him to any inconvenience."</p>

<p>"His convenience is as nothing compared to mine.
If the American consul is not in town, then I ask you to
take me to the British consul."</p>

<p>A laugh arose to the captain's lips.</p>

<p>"As it happens, <i>amigo</i>," said he, "the British consul
left town with the American. Neither will be back here
for a week."</p>

<p>"That is too much of a coincidence to be true," answered
Matt.</p>

<p>"You have disputed my word too much, already,"
snapped the captain, "and I will bear no more."</p>

<p>Again he gave the order to move, and again Matt
hung back.</p>

<p>"If necessary," cried the captain, "I will have the
marines carry you. Forward, I say."</p>

<p>"Let me have a word with my friends on the submarine,"
continued Matt.</p>

<p>"I shall allow you to talk with no one but me&mdash;and
the harbor master. In a week you may see your consul."</p>

<p>"I tell you I can't stay here in Punta Arenas for a
week. The submarine must leave Sandy Point in the
morning."</p>

<p>"If so," was the sarcastic rejoinder, "then she leaves
without you."</p>

<p>Motor Matt had borne patiently with Captain Sandoval,
but now his patience seemed to have given out.</p>

<p>"Captain Sandoval," he cried, "I defy you to go ahead
and do your worst; and, at the same time, I warn you
that the more trouble you make me the more you are
making for yourself. I can't understand what you are
trying to do, for your excuse for arresting me and
taking me away from the submarine is as unreasonable
as it is foolish. If&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>"Do you threaten me?" stormed the captain.</p>

<p>"Yes," was the calm response, "and defy you, at the
same time. Now go ahead and let's see how far your
crazy ideas will carry you."</p>

<p>The captain, in a tone that bespoke his fierce anger,
gave orders for a third time to the marines who were
with him.</p>

<p>The orders were obeyed, and the marines started.</p>

<p>"I'm a Fiji," whispered Dick, "if they're not coming
this way!"</p>

<p>"I believe you're right," answered Glennie, carefully
watching the direction taken by the dark forms.</p>

<p>"They'll pass close to the end of this pile of timber,"
continued Dick.</p>

<p>He spoke rapidly, and there was a good deal of excitement
back of his words.</p>

<p>"I guess that's so, too. But what of it?"</p>

<p>"What of it?" repeated Dick. "Say, Glennie, if you're
the right sort, now's the time to show it."</p>

<p>"I'm over my head," said Glennie. "What are you
thinking about?"</p>

<p>"I'm on my mettle to-night," pursued Dick.</p>

<p>"From your excited condition I should judge that that
might be the case."</p>

<p>"Do you want to see the <i>Grampus</i> held up for a week
in this blooming place at the south end of Nowhere?"</p>

<p>"Of course not!"</p>

<p>"Well, that's what will happen, sure as fate, if those
fellows take Matt to a lockup. Neither the American
consul, nor the British vice-consul, will be back for a
week, or&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span></p>

<p>"But there's the German consul we're going to call
upon."</p>

<p>"Ten to one he'll play safe, and make us wait until
the American consul gets back. Now we know Matt
hasn't done a thing that calls for this sort of treatment.
It's an outrage. But that's not the worst. The delay
to the <i>Grampus</i> may throw us into the hands of those
Sons of the Rising Sun, and that <i>might</i> prove the destruction
of the submarine. Everything hangs on us,
right here and now. Matt has given his defiance to the
captain of the war ship. Let's match him, and go him
one better by giving defiance to all the powers of Chili,
naval and military."</p>

<p>"How?"</p>

<p>"Why, by laying for that blooming lot of swabs and
taking Matt away from them by main force! Are you
with me? In other words, John Henry Glennie, are you
a man or just an imitation of one with a uniform and a
commission in the United States Navy?"</p>

<p>Dick Ferral certainly was on his mettle! His proposition
almost took Glennie's breath; but, notwithstanding,
there was a taunt in the last words which did not escape
the sensitive ensign.</p>

<p>"By Jupiter!" he exclaimed. "It's a wild, impossible
piece of work, but I'm with you!"</p>

<p>"Then lie low here and wait for those fellows to come
along!"</p>



<hr class="chap" />
<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII.</a></h2>

<p class="chaptitle">DESPERATE MEASURES.</p>


<p>Ensign Glennie was as brave and gallant an officer as
ever left Annapolis, but he was taught to look at such
enterprises as Dick had broached in a sane and logical
manner. This desperate measure, viewed in that light,
seemed the height of reckless folly.</p>

<p>Matt had four guards&mdash;the captain of the war ship and
three marines. The captain was armed&mdash;probably with
the sword alone&mdash;but the marines certainly had muskets.</p>

<p>Here, then, was the situation: He and Ferral, with
only their two hands for weapons&mdash;Glennie had left his
revolver on the submarine&mdash;were to attack four armed
men in the attempt to rescue Matt!</p>

<p>Even if fortune was kind to them, and they were able,
in some manner, to get Matt away from his guards, there
was a barracks full of soldiers within sound of the captain's
voice; and how could Matt, and Dick, and Glennie
run the gantlet of the whole town?</p>

<p>But Glennie had given his word, and he would stand
to it, no matter what the cost. It was a matter of pride
with him to meet any plan Dick Ferral might propose.</p>

<p>The ensign did not think, for a minute, that there was
anything unjust in taking Matt by force away from the
captain of the war ship. A mistake had been made by
the captain, but there was no time to let the blunder be
rectified by the ordinary course of events. As Dick had
said, the fate of the <i>Grampus</i> might depend on her leaving
Punta Arenas the next morning.</p>

<p>The cause was a just one&mdash;but foolhardy.</p>

<p>Matt and his guards had landed at quite a distance
from the pile of timbers behind which Dick and Glennie
were lying concealed. The path from the wharf led
past the end of the pile, and it had not been difficult to
discover that the approaching party was following the
path.</p>

<p>The party was close, very close, as the two youths
knelt near the ends of the timbers, listening to the crunch
of footsteps and prepared for their reckless work.</p>

<p>"What's your plan?" whispered Glennie.</p>

<p>"Nothing but to jump out at 'em with our fists," whispered
Dick. "As soon as Matt knows what's up, he'll
help. And say, he's got a 'right' that could put any one
of that outfit to sleep!"</p>

<p>"I hope none of us will be put to sleep while we're
getting Matt in shape to use his 'right.'"</p>

<p>"Don't croak!"</p>

<p>"Never. I'm merely thinking of what might happen."</p>

<p>"Hist now! Here they come. Jump when I give the
word."</p>

<p>In that critical moment Glennie thought how much
better off he and Dick would have been, and how much
more certain of success, if they had brought Speake and
Clackett along with them. But it was too late to think
of what might have been. Dick and Glennie were face
to face with the emergency, and must, alone and unaided,
deal out the desperate measures themselves.</p>

<p>The crunching footsteps approached. Glennie caught
a glimmer of starlight on a musket barrel, and saw dimly
two marines marching ahead, followed by Matt, with a
uniformed figure and another marine bringing up the
rear.</p>

<p>"Now!" roared Dick.</p>

<p>His voice was loud enough to arouse the town. Dick
made it so purposely. He aimed to startle the guards&mdash;to
hold them panic-stricken, if possible, until Matt could
be apprised of conditions and help in the resulting battle.</p>

<p>In this Dick was entirely successful. Every member
of the party jumped, even Matt.</p>

<p>"It's Dick and Glennie, Matt!" cried the young sailor.
"Get into it, old ship! Everything hangs on our success!"</p>

<p>Dick, while he spoke, was plunging at one of the
marines. Glennie leaped at another. Matt, quick to
realize what was afoot, turned on the third. Captain
Sandoval drew his sword.</p>

<p>Before the sword could be used, Matt whirled about,
the marine's musket in his hands. <i>Clash!</i> The sword<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>
struck the musket barrel and Matt, by a dexterous jerk,
flung the blade a dozen feet away into the darkness.</p>

<p>Captain Sandoval, thus suddenly unarmed, set his face
toward the barracks and ran with all his speed, shouting
at every jump for the soldiers.</p>

<p>"Don't hurt anybody!" panted Matt. "Don't make this
a serious matter instead of a&mdash;a farce!"</p>

<p>"It will be a mighty serious matter if we don't get you
down to the <i>Grampus</i> in short order," puffed Glennie.</p>

<p>He had toppled over the marine whom he had chosen
for an antagonist and was struggling to get his musket;
but the marine, agile as a monkey, rolled out from under
the ensign's gripping fingers, bounded erect, and made
off into the gloom like an antelope.</p>

<p>A blow, and then a grab and a jerk, all judiciously
given, had placed Ferral in possession of the weapon
belonging to the other marine. Those who were unarmed
had rushed away on the track of the captain. The one
who had retained his musket, however, paused somewhere
among the shadows and began to fire.</p>

<p>Bang!</p>

<p>A bullet whistled through the air close to Glennie's
head.</p>

<p>"Cut for it!" shouted Dick. "Don't let any grass grow
under you! This way, Matt."</p>

<p>Dick started for the wharf, pointing so as to reach
it at the nearest point to the submarine. Matt and
Glennie pushed after him&mdash;three fleeing streaks rushing
for the water front of Punta Arenas with the clamor
of alarmed soldiers awaking frantic echoes around the
barracks.</p>

<p>Bang! went a revolver.</p>

<p>The marine, emboldened by the sounds from the barracks,
pursued the fugitives, firing as he came. His bullets,
launched while he was running, went wide of their
targets.</p>

<p>"We'll never make it!" breathed the ensign.</p>

<p>"We've got to make it!" flung back Dick over his
shoulder.</p>

<p>"But the <i>Grampus</i>&mdash;it will take time for those aboard
to get up the anchors and to come to the wharf for us!"</p>

<p>"We'll win out!" asserted Dick stoutly. "Save your
breath and run!"</p>

<p>Stumbling over the litter that had been scattered from
the wharf, the three fugitives reeled and sprawled their
way through the darkness. Even a fall, if it was in the
right direction, was a distinct help.</p>

<p>Dick, being in the lead, was the first to reach that part
of the wharf nearest the <i>Grampus</i>. The boat, looking
like a black blot on the water, was tantalizingly out of
reach.</p>

<p>Dick whistled shrilly.</p>

<p>Bang! It was not another bullet, but the hatch cover
being thrown open.</p>

<p>"Vat it iss?" came the wavering voice of Carl.</p>

<p>"Pull up your mud hooks and come to the wharf!"
shouted Dick. "Matt's with us&mdash;and we're defying the
whole town. Everybody in the place is tight at our
heels."</p>

<p>"Himmelblitzen!" cried Carl. "Der anchors vas coming
oop alretty, aber id dakes a leedle time&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>The marine blazed away again. Carl, interrupted in
the midst of his remarks, gave a hollow gurgle.</p>

<p>"Vat a safageness!" he exclaimed, "aber pulleds vat
don'd hit don'd amoundt to nodding."</p>

<p>"Start the motor!" called Matt. "If the anchors are
clear they can be carried this way while the chain is
being taken in."</p>

<p>The jingler could be heard answering Carl's pressure
on the push button. The propeller began to churn the
water, but the boat did not move.</p>

<p>"They're sticking to the bottom!" groaned Dick. "Oh,
what a beastly run of luck!"</p>

<p>A yelling pack was rushing toward the wharf from the
barracks.</p>

<p>"We can't wait here until that outfit comes within rifle
shot," declared Glennie. "We've got to get behind the
iron walls of the submarine."</p>

<p>"How can we do it if the anchors hang to the bottom?"
returned Dick.</p>

<p>"Swim!"</p>

<p>Splash! The ensign was in the water. Then there
were two more splashes as Matt and Dick followed.</p>



<hr class="chap" />
<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII.</a></h2>

<p class="chaptitle">A DIVE FOR LIBERTY.</p>


<p>Carl fell over the top of the conning tower, descended
the rounded deck with one hand clinging to a wire guy,
and reached out over the water.</p>

<p>"Schust a leedle vay farder, bard!" he cried encouragingly.
"Shvim a leedle fasder! Der fellers on shore
iss pooty glose!"</p>

<p>Glennie was first to clasp Carl's outstretched hand, and,
with its assistance, to reach the deck; then Glennie, dripping
wet, laid hold of another guy and bent down to give
a hand to Matt. Carl assisted Dick up the sloping deck
at the same time.</p>

<p>By then the soldiers were almost upon the wharf.
Sudden flares lit the night, and each flare meant the explosion
of a gun.</p>

<p>"Quick!" cried Matt, "get below. We're in the right,
but those fellows don't know it yet."</p>

<p>Carl pushed Dick toward the conning tower. The
sailor was loath to be the first to seek safety, but hesitation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>
on his part only blocked the way for the others.
Down Dick went, Carl close after him. Then Glennie
took a dive through the hatch, and had no more than
cleared the way before Matt followed.</p>

<p>Flashes were shooting up in the darkness all along the
wharf. Leaden hail pattered on the steel sides of the
<i>Grampus</i>, but the stout iron merely gave a ringing laugh
and flung the softer metal off.</p>

<p>An unexpected event happened just as Matt ducked
below the hatch. The propeller, working against the pull
of the anchors, suddenly took a grip and hurled the
<i>Grampus</i> ahead.</p>

<p>Carl had set the rudder for a move toward the wharf.
It was in that direction, therefore, that the boat plunged,
thus carrying those aboard nearer their enemies. Matt
grabbed the tower steering device just in time to turn the
craft. So narrow was the margin that the rounded side
of the hull brushed the wharf timbers as the boat
swept by.</p>

<p>This gave the soldiers a chance to do some shooting
at close range; it likewise gave them a chance&mdash;for the
fraction of a minute&mdash;to jump aboard, but no one improved
the opportunity. Another minute and the submarine
was headed out into the strait.</p>

<p>"Take the wheel, Carl, until I get down," called Matt.</p>

<p>"Dot's me!" boomed Carl from below.</p>

<p>Matt closed the hatch and descended to the periscope
room.</p>

<p>"Stop the engine, Gaines!" he called through the tube.
"Fill the tanks, Clackett!" he added.</p>

<p>"Hooray!" came from Clackett as the splash of water
echoed from the filling tanks. "It's good to hear your
voice again, Matt. How far down are we going?"</p>

<p>"Till we touch bottom. There's where we're to pass
the night."</p>

<p>The bottom was reached at forty feet. Clackett announced
the depth as the <i>Grampus</i> came to a rest.</p>

<p>"We're forty feet from all the military and naval
forces of Punta Arenas," said Glennie.</p>

<p>"But it's forty feet of water," added Dick, "and, even
if those ashore knew where we were, it would puzzle
them some to get at us."</p>

<p>"We're safe enough," said Matt. "In the early morning
we'll rise until we show just the periscope ball and
will start for the Pacific. Now that there's nothing particular
for all hands to do, let's be comfortable and find
out how it all happened."</p>

<p>"You're the cause of it, matey," declared Dick.</p>

<p>"I know that, of course. If I hadn't been held a prisoner
by Captain Sandoval, there wouldn't have been any
need of you and Glennie taking all those chances to rescue
me. What I mean is, what suggested such an audacious
proceeding?"</p>

<p>"You did," persisted Dick.</p>

<p>"Explain how?"</p>

<p>"Why, when you landed from the war ship, you stood
up there on the wharf and defied this Captain Sandoval.
It was Motor Matt's defiance that suggested to me a plan
that was a little more comprehensive. You had defied
Sandoval, so why couldn't the three of us defy all the
Chilians in the town? Well, we did, didn't we? And we
got clear with whole skins, every one of us."</p>

<p>"I can hardly believe it possible," muttered Glennie.</p>

<p>Dick turned on the ensign.</p>

<p>"You had as big a finger in the pie as any one," said
he, "and you took the foolhardy risk like a whole man.
I like you better this minute, John Glennie, than I ever
thought I could. Toss us your fin!"</p>

<p>Glennie looked surprised, then a pleased look crossed
his face and he reached forward and caught the young
sailor's hand.</p>

<p>"If I've won your friendship by that piece of work,
then I've had a double gain," said he.</p>

<p>"Vat in der vorld," chimed in Carl, "dit dose fellers
shpeak to you like you vas a tog for? Und arrest you
und keep you apoardt der var ship? I hat id all fixed
oop in my mindt to put a dorpeto indo dot gruiser oof she
ditn't led you go."</p>

<p>"It isn't very clear to me yet," answered Matt, "what
I was made a prisoner for. Garcia started the trouble
for me&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>"He said he would, you remember," put in Glennie.</p>

<p>"Yes, and he carried out his threat as soon as he got
on the deck of the war ship. He told one of the officers
that he had hired me to take him and his friends out of
that sailboat in the <i>Grampus</i>, and that I had lost my
courage and was heading for Sandy Point with them."</p>

<p>"You don't mean to say that this Captain Sandoval
believed that?" cried Glennie.</p>

<p>"He professed to," answered Matt. "I was to be held
in Punta Arenas until Garcia's yarn could be verified,
which, the captain said, might take a week or two. The
American consul, and the British consul, the captain also
told me, were both out of town for a week&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>"Which is a fact," spoke up Glennie. "Dick and I went
ashore to see the two consuls, and were informed, at
their residences, that they had gone into the interior for
a week."</p>

<p>"Then I owe Captain Sandoval an apology," said
Matt, "for I doubted his word."</p>

<p>"Vell, he owes you some abologies, too, don'd he?"
asked Carl.</p>

<p>"Well," smiled Matt, "a few."</p>

<p>Matt got up and turned off the electric light that
flooded the periscope room.</p>

<p>"What's that for?" asked Dick.</p>

<p>"The light might shine through the lunettes and be
reflected up to the surface," was Matt's answer. "I just
happened to think of it."</p>

<p>"Well you did, Matt!" exclaimed Glennie.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span></p>

<p>"There was something else that Captain Sandoval told
me," went on Matt, "which had to do with the Jap
steamer."</p>

<p>"What was that?" came the questioning chorus.</p>

<p>"Why, at the time we were doing our wireless work
from Gallegos Bay, the war ship <i>Salvadore's</i> wireless apparatus
was not working. Sandoval discovered, from the
station at Punta Arenas, that, at that very time, the station
was communicating with a ship which claimed to be
the <i>Salvadore</i>."</p>

<p>"It was the Jap steamer, eh?" put in Dick.</p>

<p>"Yes. You see, our second-hand machine wasn't powerful
enough to communicate with Punta Arenas nor to
receive messages from there; but the Jap steamer was
closer, and so we exchanged messages with her. But the
Japs were able to communicate with the Punta Arenas
station, and the Chilians thought it was us. At least, that
is what Captain Sandoval said. I couldn't explain without
getting us into more trouble with the Sons of the
Rising Sun, so I kept quiet."</p>

<p>Matt cut short the general comment by declaring that
he was tired, that they were perfectly safe from pursuit,
and that he was going to sleep.</p>

<p>All the rest were of the same mind, and presently the
echoes of the excited voices had died out, and only sounds
of deep and peaceful breathing disturbed the silence that
reigned within the <i>Grampus</i>.</p>

<p>Matt was astir at five o'clock the next morning, and
went around waking his friends.</p>

<p>"We must get an early start," he explained, "so all
take your stations quietly. We are still off the town,
remember, and we shall have to come close enough to
the surface so that our periscope ball will be free of the
water and show us the course. If the red ball should be
seen as it glides over the water, we might have trouble,
so we must proceed as warily as we can."</p>

<p>With Matt at the wheel and the periscope table, Gaines
and Dick in the motor room, Carl and Clackett in the
tank room, and Speake working at his electric stove in
the torpedo room, the ballast tanks were slowly freed of
a part of their watery load. Matt, watching the periscope,
signaled to Clackett to stop unloading the tanks
just as the reflected image of the surface appeared in the
mirror.</p>

<p>"How is everything, matey?" queried Dick through
the speaking tube.</p>

<p>"The <i>Salvadore</i> is within twenty fathoms of us," replied
Matt, "but everything is quiet. Full speed ahead,
Gaines," he added. "We'll not come to the surface until
we're several miles nearer Smyth Channel."</p>

<p>With all the machinery working smoothly, the
<i>Grampus</i> glided as softly as a huge fish away from the
dangerous port of Punta Arenas, the red periscope ball
alone showing, and flashing a crimson trail in the direction
of the Pacific.</p>




<hr class="chap" />
<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV.</a></h2>

<p class="chaptitle">ENGLISH REACH.</p>


<p>When safely beyond Punta Arenas, the <i>Grampus</i> arose
to the surface and rode as high as completely empty ballast
tanks would let her. The higher she was in the
water the more speed she would develop&mdash;and speed was
the one crying need at that time.</p>

<p>Luck had favored the chums in Punta Arenas, and all
were hoping that the good fortune would hold until they
passed the western end of the strait. But in this they
were destined to be disappointed.</p>

<p>With everything working perfectly they passed Port
Famine, and, a little later, the southernmost point of
South America that enters the strait&mdash;Cape Froward.
Here the weather usually changes, but it did not change
for Motor Matt and his friends. They had, what was
rare in those waters, a fair day, which, so far as the
barometer could foretell, was likely to hold.</p>

<p>But after passing Cape Froward, and while Mount
Sarmiento's snowy crown was still visible in the distance,
the motor developed a serious complaint. It refused absolutely
to run, and the trouble was too much for Gaines
and Dick. Matt had to go down and give the machinery
his personal attention.</p>

<p>The batteries were not working properly. Matt replaced
some of the cells. That, however, did not remedy
the matter. Further examination developed carburetter
trouble, and, as the examination continued, one ill after
another showed itself until it seemed as though every
part of the motor had gone into a decline.</p>

<p>Matt, of course, remedied the matter, but it took hours
of time and made it impossible for the <i>Grampus</i> to glide
into the waters of the Pacific that day.</p>

<p>After supper, smothering their disappointment as best
they could, the submarine descended to the bottom according
to her usual fashion, and her crew had supper
together in the periscope chamber.</p>

<p>"How long does it take a good fast steamer to sail
around the Horn?" asked Speake.</p>

<p>"About a year, I guess," grinned Dick. "It would depend
on the number of sails the steamer had. Probably
she could steam around in two or three days."</p>

<p>"From that," spoke up Clackett, "I should infer that
the Jap boat has had time to get somewhere near the end
of the strait and lay for us?"</p>

<p>"It's hard to tell where the Jap steamer is," said Matt.
"We've done the best we can, so let's not borrow any
trouble. Our periscope ball is a pretty small thing for the
crew of the steamer to see. We could pass within a mile
of the Japs and they'd never know we were anywhere
in their vicinity."</p>

<p>"We'll get through, somehow, mates," averred Dick
cheerfully. "After we pulled off that little game in Punta
Arenas, I'm beginning to think there isn't anything we
can't do."</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span></p>

<p>"There'll be more accidents," said Gaines seriously.
"Something else will happen to the machinery. I've noticed
always that motor troubles come in pairs."</p>

<p>"Why, Gaines," laughed Matt, "our last motor troubles
came in bunches of a dozen! Every part of the motor
seemed to have developed a weakness."</p>

<p>"They all came at the same time," continued Gaines,
with superstitious firmness. "There'll be something else,
you mark what I'm saying."</p>

<p>The following morning there was another early start.
Everything went swimmingly for several hours; then, on
rounding a particularly bold headland, Speake, who was
in the conning tower, steering, saw something which
nearly caused him to fall off the ladder.</p>

<p>"Oh, Christopher!" he called down the hatch. "Look,
Matt!"</p>

<p>Matt and Glennie both sprang to the periscope, drawn
there by a quick jump on account of the wild alarm that
throbbed in Speake's voice.</p>

<p>English Reach lay ahead of the <i>Grampus</i>, and there,
out across the surface of the water, quietly and expectantly
waiting, was the Jap steamer!</p>

<p>Speake had been on the lookout, on the crest of the hill
at Gallego Bay, at the time the steamer had been raised
the other time. He recognized her on the instant.</p>

<p>There was a Chilian flag flying, and from a swift movement
of men over the steamer's decks it was certain that
the <i>Grampus</i> had been seen.</p>

<p>"They see us now," said Matt, "but they won't in a
minute. Clackett," he called through the tank-room tube,
"we'll go down the usual depth for periscope work."</p>

<p>Matt's voice was calm and steady, in spite of the fact
that the thing for which he had planned in Gallegos Bay&mdash;namely,
the avoiding of the steamer&mdash;had failed.</p>

<p>Minutes passed without bringing the usual swish of
water filling the ballast tanks. Through the periscope
Matt could see that the Japs were lowering a boat.
Speake had come down into the periscope room, closing
the hatch behind him in preparation for a dive. He stood
with his hand on the wheel and looking over Matt's
shoulder.</p>

<p>"What's the matter, Clackett?" called Matt.</p>

<p>"The intake valves won't work!" came back the disgusted
voice of Clackett.</p>

<p>Matt ran down to give his personal attention to the
matter. For a few minutes he struggled with the valves,
but all to no purpose.</p>

<p>"I'll get at the bottom of this trouble," declared Matt,
"if it takes a leg."</p>

<p>"I told you something else would happen," called
Gaines from the motor room. "That's what it is&mdash;tank
trouble."</p>

<p>"And just when we need the tanks," said Matt. "That
Jap boat is close by, and we ought to be under the surface."</p>

<p>Matt, seeing a way whereby he thought the valve
trouble might be remedied, was just beginning a new line
of attack when Glennie called frantically through the
tube:</p>

<p>"<i>Do</i> something, Matt! One boat is on its way to us
from the steamer, and another is dropped into the water.
If you can't do anything down there, then come up here."</p>

<p>Matt turned to Dick, explained to him what his new
idea was regarding the valve trouble, asked him to work
along that line, and then hurried up to the periscope room.</p>

<p>Speake was in the room, hardly knowing what to do.</p>

<p>"If we try to run," said he, "the Jap steamer will catch
us, and if we don't run, the rowboats will be on top of
us. If we can't dive, Matt, we're in another kind of a
hole."</p>

<p>"Don't lose your nerve, Speake," said Matt. "Go down
and see if you can help Dick. Glennie will go up into the
tower and steer. I'm for the deck to watch and see how
matters progress."</p>

<p>"I'm for der teck, too!" declared Carl, who happened,
at that moment, to be in the periscope room.</p>

<p>He had a keen scent for trouble, and always tried hard
to be around whenever any was going to happen.</p>

<p>Without paying much attention to Carl, Matt opened
the locker and took out the submarine's copy of the Stars
and Stripes.</p>

<p>"If the Sons of the Rising Sun try any of their old
tactics," said Matt, "I'll make it plain that it's a ship
carrying Old Glory."</p>

<p>"What do they care for any flag?" demanded Glennie.
"Why, they're flying the Chilian flag now, and every man
of them is got up in Chilian naval uniform. It's hard to
tell them from the real thing, at a distance, too."</p>

<p>Matt ran up the ladder, gained the deck, and bent the
flag to the halyards. Presently he had it flying, and drew
back from the staff to look at the approaching boats.</p>

<p>Carl was on the after deck. In order, perhaps, to make
himself look more nautical, the Dutch boy had crowded
himself into sailor clothes. They were too big for him,
up and down, and too small the other way.</p>

<p>Glennie, braced in the top of the conning tower, was
running the boat from that position.</p>

<p>The first boat that had put off from the steamer, and
consequently the nearest one to the submarine, contained
an officer and two sailors.</p>

<p>They were rigged out in genuine Chilian style, and
Matt had to admit to himself that the imitation was admirable&mdash;so
admirable, in fact, that he would have been
deceived had he not had prior knowledge of the identity
of the steamer.</p>

<p>The submarine's motor was doing her best, but the
craft had to follow the contour of the coast, and this
threw her nearer and nearer the first of the approaching
rowboats.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span></p>

<p>"We're in for it, Matt," said Glennie grimly.</p>

<p>"We'll try and keep ourselves out of harm until our
diving gear is put in shape, Glennie," Matt answered.
"After that we'll drop away and leave our Jap friends up
above."</p>

<p>"Vell, vat oof der tiving gear don'd vas got retty in
time, Matt?" asked Carl.</p>

<p>"Don't cross that bridge until you get to it, Carl. If
the Stars and Stripes can't protect us on a peaceable
cruise, then the Sons of the Rising Sun are taking long
chances and running big risks."</p>

<p>A hail came from across the water. The officer in the
nearest boat was standing and trumpeting through his
hands.</p>

<p>"Spanish!" exclaimed Glennie. "They're not overlooking
many details, those Japs. They want to know
what boat this is, Matt."</p>

<p>"Just as if they didn't know!" muttered Matt. "Tell
them, Glennie. Then ask them what boat they're from."</p>

<p>Glennie followed his orders, receiving some more
Spanish talk from the officer.</p>

<p>"He says," reported Glennie, "that he's Captain Sandoval,
of the Chilian war ship <i>Salvadore</i>, and, he says
further, that he has been requested by his government to
meet us at the Pacific end of the strait and give us safe
conduct to Valparaiso."</p>

<p>"Talk about nerve!" murmured Matt. "We've seen
Sandoval, and Sandoval's ship, the <i>Salvadore</i>, and we
know what sort of a bold game our friends, the Japs, are
playing. Ask him how he knew we were coming through
the strait."</p>

<p>"He replies," pursued Glennie, "that our government
communicated with his, and requested that a Chilian gunboat
protect the <i>Grampus</i> from Jap miscreants known as
Sons of the Rising Sun."</p>

<p>"Continued displays of nerve," murmured Matt, "and
of the monumental order. Tell him we don't want his
safe conduct, and to sheer away from us."</p>

<p>The first boat was almost upon the submarine. Glennie
repeated Matt's order.</p>

<p>"The officer insists on coming aboard," said the ensign.</p>

<p>"Just tell him we know he's a Jap, and that we left the
<i>Salvadore</i> and Captain Sandoval at Punta Arenas."</p>

<p>There was no waiting on the part of the Japs in the
rowboat for Matt's words to be translated into Spanish.
The Japs took the words as they fell from the lips of the
king of the motor boys, dropped their mask, and the sailors
fell to with their oars.</p>

<p>"Stave in their boat, Glennie!" called Matt, his eyes
flashing. "I hate to do it, but it's all we can do to avoid
trouble. The sailors in the other boat will pick up these
when they drop in the water."</p>

<p>"Dot's der dicket!" chirruped Carl, who had been
shaking his fists at the Japs and taunting them with various
epithets. "Sink der poat! Den, afder dot, sink der
odder poat; und vind oop by drowing a dorpeto indo der
shdeamer. Make some cleanoops vile you vas aboudt
id."</p>

<p>Glennie so man&oelig;uvred the <i>Grampus</i> that her sharp
prow struck the rowboat broadside on. Instead of staving
the boat, however, the <i>Grampus</i> ran under her, the
forward part of the small boat's keel sliding over the
deck. All the Japs were hurled into the water.</p>

<p>"Clear away the boat if you can!" shouted Glennie.
"Hooray for Motor Matt!"</p>

<p>The <i>Grampus</i> flung onward. Matt started ahead to
clear the rowboat off the deck, but, before he could reach
her, she had cleared herself.</p>

<p>The speed of the submarine and the drag of the rowboat
had accomplished the work.</p>

<p>"Don't cheer too soon, Glennie!" warned Matt. "Look
behind you!"</p>

<p>Glennie turned in the tower and cast a glance rearward.
A war ship was just rounding the headland, enveloping
the top of the uplift in a dense cloud of black
smoke.</p>

<p>"The <i>Salvadore</i>!" fluttered Glennie, his despairing eyes
returning to Matt.</p>

<p>"Anyhow," said Matt, "we're saved from the Sons of
the Rising Sun. Look at them! That rowboat is hardly
taking the necessary time to pick up the Japs we knocked
into the water, she's so anxious to get back to the
steamer."</p>

<p>"I don'd know vich gifs me der mosdt colt chills,"
cried Carl, "der Sons oof der Rising Sun oder der fellers
on der <i>Salfatore</i>!"</p>



<hr class="chap" />
<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV.</a></h2>

<p class="chaptitle">SANDOVAL EXPLAINS.</p>


<p>"It looks," remarked Matt, "as though we were between
two fires. However, of the two enemies, I had
rather fall into the hands of Sandoval. He certainly has
no destructive designs on the <i>Grampus</i>."</p>

<p>"The war ship is heading up for us," remarked
Glennie. "It's a wonder they don't open on us with some
of their small calibre guns."</p>

<p>"Vatch der Chaps," chuckled Carl. "Der Sons oof der
Rising Sun acts schust like dey vas aboudt do set. Ach,
du lieber, how dey row pack py der shdeamer!"</p>

<p>"They're pulling down the Chilian flag," laughed Matt.
"They don't intend to have Sandoval see that."</p>

<p>"But what's the reason the war ship is coming for us,
and acting so peaceably?" queried Glennie.</p>

<p>"I don't know, Glennie, but I wouldn't trust Sandoval
the length of a lead line. I wish we could dive! Call
down and ask Dick what he and Clackett are doing, if
anything."</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span></p>

<p>Glennie bent down beside the tower and put the question.</p>

<p>"They haven't found the trouble yet," said Glennie,
lifting his head out of the tower.</p>

<p>"That means," remarked Matt, "that we've got to face
Sandoval."</p>

<p>"Ah!" shouted Carl, "dere goes a flag signal."</p>

<p>The signal was a common one, and Matt did not have
to send for his code book.</p>

<p>"Wish to communicate with you," read the flags; "come
alongside."</p>

<p>"'Communicate with you,'" repeated Matt. "That
sounds rather mild&mdash;for Sandoval. Get us alongside,
Glennie."</p>

<p>"Don't you go aboard the war ship, Matt," cautioned
Glennie.</p>

<p>"Thank you," said Matt, "once was enough."</p>

<p>As the submarine came along on the lee side of the
war vessel, the big ship slowed her pace. Presently both
craft were jogging along as companionably as a lad and
his lass going to market.</p>

<p>"Señor," called Sandoval through a megaphone, "I
beg your pardon ten thousand times."</p>

<p>"Vat's dot?" muttered Carl, with bulging eyes. "Can
I pelieve vat I hear? Ten t'ousant dimes he pegs Modor
Matt's bardon. For vy?"</p>

<p>"Why do you do that, captain?" asked Matt.</p>

<p>"Because of the little mistake. I made it. When Captain
Enrique Sandoval makes a mistake he admits it like
a man."</p>

<p>"What was the mistake?"</p>

<p>"Why, this, that your wireless instrument was not the
one that claimed the submarine was my war ship."</p>

<p>Matt was puzzled.</p>

<p>"How did you find that out?" he asked.</p>

<p>"By a ruse, which I thought of myself. Early last
evening I sent out calls, through the <i>Salvadore's</i> wireless
instrument, for the <i>Salvadore</i>. You see? My ship was
calling for herself. The call was answered by a ship
which claimed she was the <i>Salvadore</i>, Captain Sandoval
commanding."</p>

<p>Matt was amazed, not so much by what the captain had
found out as by the fact that he had had sense enough
to think of such a ruse.</p>

<p>"How did you know, captain," returned Matt, "that I
did not answer that second call as you accused me of
answering that other one?"</p>

<p>"<i>Carramba!</i> You would not have been so foolish.
There is a ship somewhere in these waters that is trying
to make others think she is the <i>Salvadore</i>. Where is
she?"</p>

<p>"Yonder," said Matt, pointing to the Japanese steamer.
"That is the vessel that claims to be the <i>Salvadore</i>. One
of her officers told me that was her name, and that her
captain was Enrique Sandoval."</p>

<p>Sandoval whirled about on his bridge and picked up a
pair of binoculars. For several moments he studied the
steamer.</p>

<p>"She was flying the Chilian flag when we first sighted
her," he went on to Matt through the megaphone, "and
now she's flying a piece of German bunting."</p>

<p>"That's because she don't want you to make her any
trouble," said Matt.</p>

<p>"<i>Car-r-ramba!</i> I will make her trouble. I will pursue
her and take her to Punta Arenas while the conduct of
her officers and crew is being looked into. It will be
easy for the real <i>Salvadore</i> to overtake the counterfeit.
<i>Adios</i>, señor, and good luck to you!"</p>

<p>"Wait a minute, captain!" called Matt.</p>

<p>"What is it you wish, señor?"</p>

<p>"How about that story Garcia told you about me?"</p>

<p>"Ah, it was a fairy tale, a child's story, and unworthy
of full-grown ears."</p>

<p>"But you believed it?"</p>

<p>"For a time, yes. The injured convict told me that
Garcia was not telling the truth. I did not believe, even
then. It was only when the other convict supported the
one with the broken arm that I believed. Garcia had two
against him. What better proof could you want?"</p>

<p>"You are not out of patience with us for what my
friends did in helping me escape from you?"</p>

<p>"No! It was a gr-r-rand fight! You and your two
friends worsted me, Captain Enrique Sandoval, and three
marines. Of course, had I been armed with my pistol,
the result would have been vastly different. Yet you
escaped, after bidding defiance to all the Chilian authorities
in Punta Arenas. Ah, marvelous! I am filled with
admiration for your disregard of life. All Punta Arenas
is talking about it. No one was killed, no one was even
hurt, and yet you were rescued. I am glad it was so.
How would I have felt had I been compelled to face you
in your prison room at the harbor master's house, and admitted
that I had made a mistake? What could I have
said to his excellency, the American consul? I should
have perished of shame and mortification. I have your
pardon, señor?"</p>

<p>"You have," said Matt, very gravely but with a mischievous
twinkle in his gray eye. "We are friends, captain?"</p>

<p>"Forever!"</p>

<p>The smoke of the Jap steamer was vanishing rapidly
to southward. The <i>Salvadore</i>, a few minutes after the
captain ceased speaking, turned her bow on the other
tack and started in pursuit.</p>

<p>"What do you think of that, Glennie, you and Carl?"
queried Matt.</p>

<p>"It shows," replied the ensign, "how fortune changes
when you least expect it. I was counting, first, on losing
the <i>Grampus</i>; then, when the war ship showed up, I was
thinking only that we should have to return to Punta<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>
Arenas. And now here we are, safe on the high seas,
with not even the Japs to molest us!"</p>

<p>"Von enemy has peat off der odder!" said Carl.</p>

<p>"That's the way of it," said Matt. "If&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>Some one called from the periscope room. Glennie
bent down to hear what was said.</p>

<p>"It's Dick," said Glennie, looking toward Matt with a
smile. "The tank valves are fixed, and he wants to know
if we are ready to dive."</p>

<p>"Tell him no," answered Matt, "and add that, if the
valves had been in shape, when we first sighted the Jap
steamer, we would have dived and would have missed the
biggest chance that has come our way since we left
Port of Spain&mdash;the chance to make a friend out of an
enemy, and to set our new-made friend against our implacable
foes, the Sons of the Rising Sun."</p>

<p>Glennie repeated this somewhat lengthy statement to
Dick.</p>

<p>"Dick says he can't understand it," said Glennie, "and
wants you to come down and make it clear."</p>

<p>"We might as well go down," said Matt.</p>

<p>"Ve ditn't got no fighdt oudt oof dot," remarked Carl,
with a disappointed air, "so ve mighdt as vell go pelow
und shday dere. It looks like dere vouldn't be any fighding
any more for anypody."</p>



<hr class="chap" />
<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI.</a></h2>

<p class="chaptitle">NORTHWARD BOUND!</p>


<p>It was a jovial crowd that the submarine carried into
Smyth Channel, practically free of the strait and ready to
reach out along the coast up the western edge of two
continents.</p>

<p>Speake was serving dinner, and all were in the periscope
room with the exception of Gaines and Clackett,
who had to be on duty below. But Gaines and Clackett
were listening at their speaking tubes and hearing all
that was taking place in the chamber overhead.</p>

<p>"These experiences of ours, during the last few days,"
said Glennie, "prove that luck wears as many disguises
as those Japs."</p>

<p>"Dot vas some deep talk," said Carl; "so deep, py
shinks, dot I can't onderstand id."</p>

<p>"You're getting terribly thick-headed all at once, Carl,"
said Dick.</p>

<p>"Oh, I don'd know," said Carl easily. "Who vas id got
loose mit himseluf in der beriscope room und got pack
der <i>Grampus</i> from der gonficts? Leedle Carl, I bed you.
A feller vat vas t'ick-headed couldn't do dot. Hey, Matt?"</p>

<p>"You're right, Carl," laughed Matt. "It took a pretty
bright fellow to do that; and your brightness flashed up
at just the right time."</p>

<p>"And then flashed out again," said Dick, with a wink
at Matt, "and we haven't seen it since."</p>

<p>"Vell, meppy," observed Carl. "Anyvay, subbose
Glennie oxblains vat he means ven he say dot luck vears
so many tisguises as der Chaps. I nefer see luck but
in two vays&mdash;von iss goot luck, und der odder iss pad
luck. I can shpot dose fellers so far as I can see dem."</p>

<p>"Do you know good luck when you see it, Carl?" went
on Glennie.</p>

<p>"Don'd I say dot? Sure I do."</p>

<p>"Well, was meeting those convicts good luck or bad
for Motor Matt and the rest of the motor boys?"</p>

<p>"Vat a foolish kvestion!" muttered Carl. "It vas pad
luck righdt from der chump off. Ditn't Modor Matt, und
you, und Tick come pooty near going off der poat drying
to ged dose fellers? Vas dot goot luck?"</p>

<p>"Well," went on Glennie, "what was it when Captain
Sandoval made up with Motor Matt and went after the
Japs' steamer, thereby leaving us free to proceed north
without having anything to fear from the Sons of the
Rising Sun?"</p>

<p>"Dot kvestion iss more foolish as der odder," said
Carl disgustedly; "dot vas goot luck."</p>

<p>"Then if we hadn't had the bad luck we couldn't have
had the good luck."</p>

<p>"You vas gedding grazy, Glennie. I von't lisden to
sooch a ignorance."</p>

<p>There was a general laugh at this.</p>

<p>"Now, wait a minute, Carl," proceeded Glennie. "I
want to change your views on the subject of luck. If we
had not taken the convicts aboard we should not have
delivered them to Captain Sandoval; and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>"Und oof ve hatn't telivered dem to Santoval," continued
Carl, taking up the theme, "Matt vouldn't have
gone on der poat und got indo drouple."</p>

<p>"And if Matt hadn't got into trouble, we should not
have put in at Punta Arenas; and if we hadn't stopped
there, we wouldn't have got Matt away from Sandoval;
and if Sandoval hadn't been trying to test Matt's story
about the convicts, he wouldn't have come after us when
we fled from Punta Arenas; and if he hadn't found us
and made his peace with Matt, he wouldn't now be chasing
the Sons of the Rising Sun or&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>"Ach, himmelblitzen!" groaned Carl, clapping his
fingers over his ears, "shdop it! You vill haf me grazier
as a pedpug."</p>

<p>"Well, you see, don't you, that helping the convicts,
which you called bad luck, really resulted in bringing us
in touch with Captain Sandoval, who is now our friend
and doing his utmost to overhaul the Japs. He will keep
the Sons of the Rising Sun so busy that they won't have
any chance to follow us up the coast."</p>

<p>"You've run the bell with your remarks, Glennie," said
Dick. "We can't always tell whether things are happening
to us for the better or for the worse. But, taking 'em
full and by, they usually pan out what's best for us."</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span></p>

<p>"My little scheme for gaining time on the Japs by sending
them around the Horn didn't work," put in Matt.</p>

<p>"It was a clever scheme, all right," declared Glennie,
"and it would have worked if the motor hadn't balked on
us and compelled us to lose a day."</p>

<p>"We've given the Sons of the Rising Sun something
to think about," said Dick. "Keelhaul me if I don't
think they'll just about throw up their hands and quit
after this."</p>

<p>"If Sandoval gets them," returned Glennie, "he'll keep
them in Punta Arenas until we reach Mare Island."</p>

<p>"And if he don't get them," queried Matt, "what then?"</p>

<p>"There's no doubt about his getting them, old ship!"
exclaimed Dick. "The war ship is a faster boat than the
steamer."</p>

<p>"But Sandoval hasn't the cunning nor the brains that
the leader of those Japs has!"</p>

<p>"That may be, but it doesn't take much cunning or
brains for a straight-away race. The fastest boat will
win, and I'm banking on the <i>Salvadore</i>. You don't mean
to say, matey, that you're expecting to meet the Young
Samurai somewhere up the coast?"</p>

<p>"I'm not expecting it, Dick," answered Matt, "but I'm
not going to let anything surprise me. The things you
least expect are the things those Japs are certain to do."</p>

<p>"I hope like anyt'ing dot der resdt oof dis gruise don'd
vas going to be some Suntay-school bicnics," piped Carl
grewsomely. "I vould like to haf a leedle chincher shdill
lefdt in der expetition."</p>

<p>"I guess we'll have ginger enough left, Carl," said
Glennie, "even if we don't have anything more to do
with the Sons of the Rising Sun."</p>

<p>"Where's our next port of call, matey?" queried Dick,
directing the question at Matt.</p>

<p>"You know what Brigham said we were to do when
we mentioned any place where we were to put in with the
<i>Grampus</i>?" laughed Matt.</p>

<p>"He said," replied Glennie, "that we ought to go down
in the deepest part of the ocean and then whisper it."</p>

<p>"Vat dit he mean by sooch grazy talk as dot?" inquired
Carl.</p>

<p>"He meant," said Matt, "that the Japs were full of
guile, and that the plans we least expected them to overhear
would be the very ones they discovered. We came
down the east coast of the continent from Brazil and the
River Plate, and laid in at Gallego Bay. If we hadn't
done that, we shouldn't have discovered that the Japs were
following us, their boat newly painted and two wireless
masts on her deck. Those lads had their wits about them
when they did that wireless work; and it was only an accident
that enabled us to catch their messages, and answer
them, putting them on a wrong tack."</p>

<p>"But that isn't telling us, mate, where our next port
of call is to be."</p>

<p>"I was trying to emphasize Mr. Brigham's advice of
keeping such matters to ourselves."</p>

<p>"But it isn't necessary, now that the Sons of the Rising
Sun are out of the running."</p>

<p>"Possibly it isn't. Well, we shall have to have more
gasoline about the time we reach Valparaiso. You can
draw your own inferences from that."</p>

<p>"That means," said Dick, "that we put in at Valparaiso.
That will do, fine. I've been there a lot of times, and I'm
a Fiji if I wouldn't like to renew some old acquaintance
among the Chilians and the English colony. Let's lay
over a day or two, Matt, when we get there, and not just
paddle ashore, get the gasoline, and put to sea again."</p>

<p>"How long we stay in the place, Dick," returned Matt,
"will have to depend on circumstances. We've got to
make good, you know, by delivering the <i>Grampus</i> safely
at Mare Island Navy Yard."</p>

<p>"Well, I guess we've nothing but plain sailing ahead
of us," said Dick. "You won't have to set a pattern of
defiance for the rest of us again, or use our wireless apparatus
to send a disguised Jap steamer around the
Horn."</p>

<p>"When we ought to have gone around the Horn ourselves,"
added Matt.</p>

<p>"I don't agree with you there," said Glennie. "By
coming through the strait you took the most dangerous
passage, and it will count more as a test of the submarine's
capabilities than rounding the Horn."</p>

<p>"I agree with you on that point, Glennie," returned
Matt, "and I am glad you take that view of a case that
was practically forced upon us by the Sons of the Rising
Sun."</p>

<p>"To their own undoing," finished Glennie.</p>


<p class="center">THE END.</p>



<p class="center medium">THE NEXT NUMBER (20) WILL CONTAIN</p>

<p class="center huge">Motor Matt Makes Good;</p>

<p class="center medium">OR,</p>

<p class="center large">Another Victory for the Motor Boys.</p>

<hr class="r5" />

<blockquote>

<p>Off the Chilian Coast&mdash;Hurled into the Sea&mdash;Saved
by a Torpedo&mdash;Weighing the Evidence&mdash;A Surprising
Situation&mdash;Another Attack&mdash;A Bad Half
Hour&mdash;Chasing a Torpedo&mdash;Northward Bound&mdash;A
Halt for Repairs&mdash;Dick Makes a Discovery&mdash;A
Wary Foe&mdash;Pluck that Wins&mdash;A Little
Work On the Inside&mdash;A Star Performance&mdash;Conclusion.</p></blockquote>

<hr class="chap" />


<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span></p>




<table summary="scaffold" class="bbox">
<tr><td colspan="2" class="tdc huge">MOTOR STORIES</td></tr>
<tr><td class="tdr large" style="padding-right: .25em;">THRILLING ADVENTURE</td><td class="tdl large" style="padding-left: .25em;">MOTOR FICTION</td></tr>
</table>

<p class="center">NEW YORK, July 3, 1909.</p>


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<table summary="scaffold">
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</td>
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<hr class="chap" />



<h2><a name="THE_SPIDER_WATER" id="THE_SPIDER_WATER">THE SPIDER WATER.</a></h2>


<p class="chaptitle">I.</p>

<p>Not officially: I don't pretend to say that. You might
travel the West from fresh water to salt without ever locating
the Spider Water, by map or by name.</p>

<p>But if you should happen anywhere in the West to sit
among a gang of bridge carpenters, or get to confidence with
a bridge foreman; or find the springy side of a road master's
heart&mdash;then you might hear all you want about the Spider
Water; maybe more.</p>

<p>The Sioux named it; and, whatever their faults, no man
with sense ever attempted to improve on their names for
things&mdash;whether birds, or braves, or winds, or waters; they
know.</p>

<p>Unfortunately our managers hadn't always sense, and one
of them countenanced a shameful change in the name of
Spider Water. Some idiot dubbed it the Big Sandy; and the
Big Sandy it is to this day on map and in folder. But not
in the heart of the Sioux or the lingo of trackmen.</p>

<p>It was the only stream our bridge engineers could never
manage. Bridge after bridge they threw across it&mdash;and
into it. One auditor at Omaha, given to asthma and statistics,
estimated, between spells, that the Spider Water had
cost us more than all the other watercourses together from
the Missouri to the Sierras.</p>

<p>Then came to the West End a masterful man, a Scotchman,
pawky and hard. Brodie was his name, an Edinburgh
man, with no end of degrees and master of every one. A
great engineer, Brodie, but the Spider Water took a fall
even out of him. It swept out a Howe truss bridge for
Brodie almost before he got his bag opened.</p>

<p>Then Brodie tried&mdash;not to make friends with the Spider,
for nobody could do that&mdash;but to get acquainted with it. For
this he went to its oldest neighbors, the Sioux. Brodie spent
weeks and weeks, summers, up the Spider Water, hunting.
And with the Sioux he talked the Spider Water and drank
fire water. That was Brodie's shame, the fire water.</p>

<p>But he was pawky, and he chinned unceasingly the braves
and the medicine men about the uncommonly queer creek
that took the bridges so fast. The river that month in
and month out couldn't squeeze up water enough for a pollywog
to bathe in, and then, of a sudden, and for a few days,
would rage like the Missouri, and leave our bewildered
rails hung up either side in the wind.</p>

<p>Brodie talked cloudbursts up country; for the floods came,
times, under clear skies&mdash;and the Sioux sulked in silence.
He suggested an unsuspected inlet from some mountain
stream which, maybe, times, sent its stormwater over a low
divide into the Spider&mdash;and the red men shrugged their faces.</p>

<p>Finally they told him the Indian legend about the Spider
Water; took him away up where once a party of Pawnees
had camped in the dust of the river bed to surprise the
Sioux; and told Brodie how the Spider&mdash;more sudden than
buck, fleeter than pony&mdash;had come down in the night and
ambushed the Pawnees with a flood. And so well that next
morning there wasn't enough material in sight for a ghost
dance.</p>

<p>They took Brodie himself out into the ratty bed, and when
he said heap dry, and said no water, they laughed, Indian-wise,
and pointed to the sand. Scooping little wells with
their hands, they showed him the rising and the filling;
water where the instant before was no water; and a bigger
fool than Brodie could see the water was all there, only
underground.</p>

<p>"But when did it rise?" asked Brodie. "When the chinook
spoke," said the Sioux. "And why?" persisted Brodie. "Because
the Spider woke," answered the Sioux. And Brodie
went out of the camp of the Sioux wondering.</p>

<p>And he planned a new bridge which should stand the
chinook and the Spider and all evil spirits. And full seven
year it lasted; and then the fire water spoke for the wicked
Scotchman, and he himself went out into the night.</p>

<p>And after he died, miserable wreck of a man, the Spider
woke and took his pawky bridge and tied up the main line
for two weeks and set us crazy, for it cost us our grip on the
California fast freight business. But at that time Healey
was superintendent of bridges on the West End.</p>

<p>His father was a section foreman. When Healey was a
mere kid, he got into Brodie's office doing errands. But
whenever he saw a draughtsman at work he hung over the
table till they kicked him downstairs. Then, by and by,
Healey got himself an old table and part of a cake of India ink,
and with some cursing from Brodie became a draughtsman,
and one day head draughtsman in Brodie's office. Healey was
no college man; Healey was a Brodie man. Single mind on
single mind&mdash;concentration absolute. Mathematics, drawing,
bridges, brains&mdash;that was Healey. All that Brodie knew,
Healey had from him, and Brodie, who hated even himself,
showed still a light in the wreck by moulding Healey to his
work. For one day, said Brodie in his heart, this boy shall
be master of these bridges. When I am dust he will be here
what I might have been&mdash;this Irish boy&mdash;and they will say
he was Brodie's boy. And better than any of these doughheads
they send me out he shall be, if he was made engineer
by a drunkard. And Healey was better, far, far better than
the doughheads, better than the graduates, better than Brodie&mdash;and
to Healey came the time to wrestle with the Spider.</p>

<p>Stronger than any man he was, before or since, for the
work. All Brodie knew, all the Indians knew, all that a
life's experience, eating, living, watching, sleeping with the
big river, had taught him, that Healey knew. And when
Brodie's bridge went out, Healey was ready with his new
bridge for the Spider Water, which should be better than
Brodie's, just as he was better than Brodie. A bridge like
Brodie's, with the fire water, as it were, left out. And after
the temporary structure was thrown over the stream, Healey's
plans for a Howe truss, two-pier, two-abutment, three-span,
pneumatic caisson bridge to span the Spider Water were
submitted to headquarters.</p>

<p>But the cost! The directors jumped the table when they
saw the figures. Our directors talked economy for the road
and for themselves studied piracy. So Healey couldn't get
the money for his new bridge, and was forced to build a
cheap one which must, he knew, go some time. But the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>
dream of his life, this we all knew&mdash;the Sioux would have
said the Spider knew&mdash;was to build a final bridge over the
Spider Water, a bridge to throttle it for all time.</p>

<p>It was the one subject on which you would get a rise out
of Healey any time, day or night, the two-pier, two-abutment,
three-span, pneumatic caisson Spider bridge. He
would talk Spider bridge to a Chinaman. His bridge foreman,
Ed Peeto, a staving big one-eyed French-Canadian, had
but two ideas in life. One was Healey, the other the Spider
bridge. And after many moons our pirate directors were
thrown out, and a great and public-spirited man took control
of our system, and when Ed Peeto heard it he kicked his
little water spaniel in a frenzy of delight. "Now, Sport, old
boy," he exclaimed riotously, "we'll get the bridge!" And
after much effort by Healey, seconded by Bucks, superintendent
of the division, and by Callahan, assistant, the new
president did consent to put up the money for the good
bridge. The wire flashed the word to the West End. Everybody
at the wickiup, as we called the old division headquarters,
was glad; but Healey rejoiced, Ed Peeto burned
red fire, and his little dog Sport ate rattlesnakes.</p>

<p>There was a good bridge needed at one other point, the
Peace River, a treacherous water, and Healey had told the
new management that if they would give him a pneumatic
caisson bridge there, he would guarantee the worst stretch
on the system against tie-up disasters for a generation; and
they had said go ahead; and Ed Peeto went fairly savage
with responsibility and strutted around the wickiup like a
Cyclops.</p>

<p>Early in the summer, Healey very quiet, and Peeto very
profane, with all their traps and belongings, moved into construction
headquarters at the Spider, and the first airlock
ever sunk west of the Missouri closed over the heads of tall
Healey and big Ed Peeto. Like a swarm of ants the bridge
workers cast the refuse up out of the Spider bed. The blowpipes
never slept, night and day the sand streamed from below,
and Healey's caissons sank like armed cruisers foot by
foot toward the bed-rock. When the masonry was crowding
high-water mark, Healey and Peeto ran back to Medicine
Bend to get acquainted with their families. Peeto was so
deaf he couldn't hear himself sing, and Healey was as ragged
and ratty as the old depot; but both were immensely happy.</p>

<p>Next morning, Sunday, they all sat up in Buck's office
reading letters and smoking.</p>

<p>"Hello," growled Bucks, chucking a nine-inch official manila
under the table, "here's a general order&mdash;Number Fourteen."</p>

<p>The boys drew their briars like one. Bucks read a lot of
stuff that didn't touch our end, then he reached this paragraph:</p>

<blockquote>

<p>"The Mountain and Inter-mountain divisions are hereby
consolidated under the name of the Mountain Division, with
J. F. Bucks superintendent, headquarters at Medicine Bend.
C. T. Callahan is appointed assistant of the consolidated
divisions."</p></blockquote>

<p>"Good boy!" roared Ed Peeto, straining his ears.</p>

<p>"Well, well, well," murmured Healey, opening his eyes,
"here's promotions right and left." Bucks read on:</p>

<blockquote>

<p>"H. P. Agnew is appointed superintendent of bridges of
the new division, with headquarters at Omaha, vice P. C.
Healey."</p></blockquote>

<p>Bucks threw down the order. Ed Peeto broke out first:
"Did you hear that?"</p>

<p>Healey nodded.</p>

<p>"You're let out!" stormed Peeto. Healey nodded. The
bridge foreman dashed his pipe at the stove, jumped up,
stamped across to the window, and was like to have sworn
the glass out before Healey spoke.</p>

<p>"I'm glad we're up with the Spider job, Bucks," said he.
"When they get the Peace River work in, the division will
run itself for a year."</p>

<p>"Healey," said Bucks, "I don't need to tell you what I
think of it, do I? It's a shame. But it's what I've said for
a year&mdash;nobody will ever know what Omaha is going to do
next." Healey rose to his feet. "Where you going?"</p>

<p>"Back to the Spider on Number Two."</p>

<p>"Not going back this morning. Why don't you wait for
Four to-night?"</p>

<p>"Ed, will you get those staybolts and chuck them into the
baggage car for me when Two pulls in? I'm going over to
the house for a minute."</p>

<p>They knew what that meant. He was going over to tell
the folks he wouldn't be home for Sunday as he expected&mdash;as
the children expected. Going to tell the wife&mdash;the old
man&mdash;that he was out. Out of the railroad system he had
given his life to help build up and to make what it was. Out
of the position he had climbed to by studying like a hermit
and working like a hobo. Out&mdash;without criticism or reason
or allegation. Simply, like a dog, out.</p>

<p>Bucks and Callahan looked down on the departing train
soon afterward, and saw Healey climbing into the smoker.
Every minute he had before the new order beheaded him he
spent at the Spider. One thing he meant to make sure of&mdash;that
they shouldn't beat him out of the finish of the Spider
bridge as he had planned it. One monument Healey meant
to have; one he has.</p>

<p>After he let go on the West End, Healey wanted to look
up something East. But Bucks told him frankly it would be
difficult to get a place without a regular engineer's degree.
It seemed as if there was no place for Healey but just the
mountains, and after a time finding nothing, and Bucks losing
a roadmaster, Healey&mdash;Callahan urging&mdash;agreed to take
the little job and stay with his old superintendent. It was a
big drop, but Healey took it.</p>

<p>Agnew meantime had stopped all construction work not
too far along to discontinue. The bridge at the Spider was
fortunately beyond his mandate; it was finished to a rivet as
Healey had planned it. But the Peace River bridge was
caught in the air, and Healey's great caissons gave way to
piles, and the cost came down from a hundred to seventy-five
thousand dollars. Incidentally it was breathed from headquarters
that the day for extravagant appropriations on the
West End was passed.</p>

<p>That year we had no winter till spring, and no spring till
summer; and it was a spring of snow and a summer of
water. The mountains were lost in snow even after Easter.
When the snow let up, and it was no longer a matter of
keeping the track clear, it was a matter of lashing it to the
right-of-way to keep it from swimming clear. Healey caught
it worse than anybody. He knew Bucks looked to him for
the track, and he worked like two men, for that was his way
in a pinch. He strained every nerve making ready for the
time the mountain snows should go out.</p>

<p>There was nobody easy on the West End. Healey least of
all, for that spring, ahead of the suns, ahead of the thaws,
ahead of the waters, came a going out that unsettled the
oldest calculator in the wickiup. Brodie's old friends began
coming out of the up-country, out of the Spider Valley. Over
the Eagle Pass and through the Peace Cañon came the
Sioux in parties and camps and tribes. And Bucks stayed
them and talked with them. But the Sioux did not talk, they
grunted&mdash;and traveled. After Bucks Healey tried, for the
braves knew him and would listen. But when he accused
them of fixing for a fight, they denied and turned their faces
to the mountains. They stretched their arms straight out
under their blankets like stringers, and put their palms downward
and muttered to Healey, "Plenty snow."</p>

<p>"I reckon they're lying," growled Bucks listening. Healey
made no comment; only looked at the buried mountains.</p>

<p>Now the Spider wakes regularly twice; at all other times
irregularly. Once in April; that is the foothills water. Once
in June; that is the mountain water.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span></p>

<p>Now came an April without any rise; nothing rose but
the snow, and May opened bleaker than April; even the
trackmen walked with set faces. The dirtiest half-breed on
the line knew now what the mountains held.</p>

<p>Section gangs were doubled, night walkers put on. Bypasses
were opened, bridge crews strengthened, everything
buckled for grief. Gullies began to race, culverts to choke,
creeks to tumble, rivers to madden. From the Muddy to the
Summit the water courses swelled and boiled; all but the
Spider; the big river slept. Through May and into June
the Spider slept. But Healey was there at the wickiup, with
one eye always running over all the line and one eye turned
always to the Spider, where two men and two, night and
day, watched the lazy surface water trickle over and through
the vagabond bed between Healey's monumental piers. Never
an hour did the operating department lose the track. East
and west of us everywhere railroads clamored in despair.
The flood swept from the Rockies to the Alleghanies. Our
trains never missed a trip; our schedules were unbroken;
our people laughed; we got the business, dead loads of it!
Our treasury flowed over; and Healey watched, and the
Spider slept. But when May turned soft and hot into June,
with every ditch bellying and the mountains still buried, it
put us all thinking hard. It was the season for floods.</p>


<p class="center">TO BE CONCLUDED.</p>



<hr class="chap" />
<h2><a name="BEAVER_IN_PERIL_OF_EXTINCTION_IN_MICHIGAN" id="BEAVER_IN_PERIL_OF_EXTINCTION_IN_MICHIGAN">BEAVER IN PERIL OF EXTINCTION IN MICHIGAN.</a></h2>


<p>Unless the State lawmaking body intervenes with protective
legislation, there will be a great slaughter of beavers
in Upper Michigan less than a year hence. The law which
prohibits killing the little fur-bearing animals expires with
the close of January, 1910.</p>

<p>For more than eight years beavers have been protected,
and that they have thrived is shown by the fact that large
colonies are to be found on many streams in different portions
of the peninsula.</p>

<p>Whether the animals are worthy of continued protection
is a question concerning which divergent views are held.
From a humanitarian standpoint most persons doubtless
would be sorry to see the closed season abolished. It is the
opinion of lumbermen, however, that beavers are a nuisance.
This is because of the work of the animals in building dams.
The streams obstructed in this manner, the water is often
backed up and extensive areas are flooded, interfering with
the log drives and frequently resulting in considerable property
loss.</p>

<p>The dams in most cases are amazingly well constructed.
Marvelous ingenuity is shown by the builders, and so systematically
are the operations carried on that the work accomplished
is almost beyond belief.</p>

<p>Last fall when the water in Dead River fell to such a low
stage that it was hardly possible to keep Marquette's municipal
electric plant in commission, investigation resulted in
the discovery that the stream was dammed at more than a
score of places. Large reservoirs had thus been created.
The obstructions were the work of beavers, good-sized colonies
of which were domiciled at every point where the river
was found to be blocked.</p>

<p>So stanchly constructed were the dams that the use of
dynamite was necessary to destroy them. It was found that
trees as large as ten inches in diameter had been utilized,
and in almost every instance the timber had been cut into
four-foot lengths. Firmly set into place and plastered with
mud, the logs formed a substantial barrier, and, augmented
with small sticks and brush, they were successful in backing
up the river until at one point the stream was more than a
mile in width.</p>

<p>However, although the beavers occasion material havoc of
this sort, they do not want for friends who would resent
such action as would leave the animals open to wholesale
slaughter. It is pointed out that, while the beavers have
multiplied greatly the last few years and are now very
plentiful, as the result of the imposition of the closed season,
it would require only a few months' work to exterminate the
animals entirely.</p>

<p>Choice beaver skins, such as are procurable in upper
Michigan, are in demand from furriers, and it is unquestioned
that with the expiration of the present statutory protection,
waters frequented by the little animals would witness
a swift and sanguinary onslaught by scores of trappers.</p>



<hr class="chap" />
<h2><a name="RARE_CAGE_BIRDS" id="RARE_CAGE_BIRDS">RARE CAGE BIRDS.</a></h2>


<p>Lovers of cage birds have hitherto confined their attention
chiefly to the canary, the parrot, and the mocking bird.
Now, however, there is a tendency to acquire rare varieties
and dealers are preparing to meet this novel demand.</p>

<p>The bulbul is among the feathered pets now in demand in
this country. "A few bulbuls have been hitherto brought
from India," said a bird dealer. "These have not included,
however, the bulbul of Persia, the Oriental counterpart of
the European nightingale, but gifted with a richer, sweeter,
and more plaintive song."</p>

<p>The hill minas of India sometimes eclipse parrots in their
lingual abilities, yet very few have been imported into the
United States. They now retail at $17 apiece. Japanese
robins, sometimes called Pekin nightingales by English aviculturists,
are peculiarly colored&mdash;dark and greenish, with
distinctive yellow and orange on breast, bill, and wings.
They are easy to keep, possess a sweet and musical song,
and have a song period lasting ten months.</p>

<p>The skill of Japanese breeders is also shown in several
varieties of cage birds that are coming into notice in this
country. A pure white variety and a buff-and-white variety
of one species&mdash;the Japanese nun, also known as bengelee or
mannikin&mdash;bear testimony to the assiduity of the Japanese
fanciers. Nuns are small birds of different species, such as
the black-headed and tri-colored nuns, the spice bird or chestnut
finch, and others. Most of them have more or less dark
brown in the coloring.</p>

<p>Cage birds from Africa are notable for beauty of plumage
rather than song. The African weaver, in addition to attractive
coloring, offers a striking exhibition of his skill in the
art that has given him his name. At nesting time, if furnished
with worsted or other suitable material, the birds
will weave this in and out of the wires of their cage, making
neat and compact examples of their handiwork. Bishops
and Madagascar weavers are brilliant red and black in coloring,
cutthroats have a band of red across the throat from
which is derived the name, and whidah birds (sometimes but
incorrectly called widow birds) have extremely long tails.</p>

<p>Waxbills form a family of African cage birds which are
just beginning to attract fashionable notice. These include
the dainty little cordon bleu, or crimson-eared waxbill, various
species of silverbills, and several other kinds. The violet-eared
waxbill, a bird of radiant prismatic beauty, though for
some years past popular in Europe, has just been brought to
this country. Edelsingers, or African gray singers, are an
African species with a pleasing song.</p>

<p>Lady goldfinches from Australia have hitherto been extremely
rare in this country, although they are said to reach
the highest point of beauty and elegance attained by any
of the smaller cage birds of the world. These birds tame
readily, are not pugnacious with cage mates, and exhibit
many individualities of disposition. Among their accomplishments
is an interesting and graceful little dance.</p>




<hr class="chap" />

<h3>BUFFALO BILL STORIES</h3>

<p>The most original stories of Western adventure. The only weekly containing the adventures of the famous
Buffalo Bill. <b>High art colored covers. Thirty-two big pages. Price, 5 cents.</b></p>

<blockquote>

<p>415&mdash;Buffalo Bill's Cumbres Scouts; or, The Wild Pigs Corralled.</p>

<p>416&mdash;Buffalo Bill and the Man-wolf; or, The Mystery of the
Adobe Castle.</p>

<p>417&mdash;Buffalo Bill and His Winged Pard; or, Indian Against
Indian.</p>

<p>418&mdash;Buffalo Bill at Babylon Bar; or, The Mountain Pirates.</p>

<p>419&mdash;Buffalo Bill's Long Arm; or, The Game-cock of Shasta.</p>

<p>420&mdash;Buffalo Bill and Old Weasel-top; or, The Man From
Nowhar.</p>

<p>421&mdash;Buffalo Bill's Steel Arm Pard; or, Old Weasel-top's Mission.</p>

<p>422&mdash;Buffalo Bill's Aztec Guide; or, The White Indian.</p>

<p>423&mdash;Buffalo Bill and Little Firefly; or, Playing with Death.</p>

<p>424&mdash;Buffalo Bill in the Aztec City; or, Little Firefly's Friendship.</p>

<p>425&mdash;Buffalo Bill's Balloon Escape; or, Out of the Grip of the
Great Swamp.</p>

<p>426&mdash;Buffalo Bill and the Guerrillas; or, The Flower Girl of San
Felipe.</p></blockquote>


<hr class="r5" />
<h3>BRAVE AND BOLD WEEKLY</h3>

<p>All kinds of stories that boys like. The biggest and best nickel's worth ever offered. <b>High art colored
covers. Thirty-two big pages. Price, 5 cents.</b></p>

<blockquote>

<p>331&mdash;Two Chums Afloat; or, The Cruise of the "Arrow." By
Cornelius Shea.</p>

<p>332&mdash;In the Path of Duty; or, The Fortunes of Officer Dan
Deering. By Harrie Irving Hancock.</p>

<p>333&mdash;A Bid for Fortune; or, True as Steel. By Fred Thorpe.</p>

<p>334&mdash;A Battle with Fate; or, The Baseball Mascot. By Weldon
J. Cobb.</p>

<p>335&mdash;Three Brave Boys; or, Adventures in the Balloon World.
By Frank Sheridan.</p>

<p>336&mdash;Archie Atwood, Champion; or, An All-around Athlete's
Career. By Cornelius Shea.</p>

<p>337&mdash;Dick Stanhope Afloat; or, The Eventful Cruise of the
<i>Elsinore</i>. By Harrie Irving Hancock.</p>

<p>338&mdash;Working His Way Upward; or, From Footlights to Riches.
By Fred Thorpe.</p>

<p>339&mdash;The Fourteenth Boy; or, How Vin Lovell Won Out. By
Weldon J. Cobb.</p>

<p>340&mdash;Among the Nomads; or, Life in the Open. By the author
of "Through Air to Fame."</p>

<p>341&mdash;Bob, the Acrobat; or, Hustle and Win Out. By Harrie
Irving Hancock.</p>

<p>342&mdash;Through the Earth; or, Jack Nelson's Invention. By Fred
Thorpe.</p>

<p>343&mdash;The Boy Chief; or, Comrades of Camp and Trail. By John
De Morgan.</p></blockquote>


<hr class="r5" />
<h3>MOTOR STORIES</h3>

<p>The latest and best five-cent weekly. We won't say how interesting it is. See for yourself. <b>High art
colored covers. Thirty-two big pages. Price, 5 cents.</b></p>

<blockquote>

<p>6&mdash;Motor Matt's Red Flier; or, On The High Gear.</p>

<p>7&mdash;Motor Matt's Clue; or, The Phantom Auto.</p>

<p>8&mdash;Motor Matt's Triumph; or, Three Speeds Forward.</p>

<p>9&mdash;Motor Matt's Air-Ship; or, The Rival Inventors.</p>

<p>10&mdash;Motor Matt's Hard Luck; or, The Balloon House Plot.</p>

<p>11&mdash;Motor Matt's Daring Rescue; or, The Strange Case of Helen
Brady.</p>

<p>12&mdash;Motor Matt's Peril; or, Castaway in the Bahamas.</p>

<p>13&mdash;Motor Matt's Queer Find; or, The Secret of the Iron Chest.</p>

<p>14&mdash;Motor Matt's Promise; or, The Wreck of the <i>Hawk</i>.</p>

<p>15&mdash;Motor Matt's Submarine; or, The Strange Cruise of the
<i>Grampus</i>.</p>

<p>16&mdash;Motor Matt's Quest; or, Three Chums in Strange Waters.</p>

<p>17&mdash;Motor Matt's Close Call; or, The Snare of Don Carlos.</p>

<p>18&mdash;Motor Matt in Brazil; or, Under the Amazon.</p>

<p>19&mdash;Motor Matt's Defiance; or, Around the Horn.</p>

<p>20&mdash;Motor Matt Makes Good; or, Another Victory for the Motor
Boys.</p></blockquote>


<p class="center"><i>For sale by all newsdealers, or will be sent to any address on receipt of price,
5 cents per copy, in money or postage stamps, by</i></p>

<p class="center large">STREET &amp; SMITH, Publishers, 79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York</p>

<blockquote>

<p><b class="medium">IF YOU WANT ANY BACK NUMBERS</b> of our Weeklies and cannot procure them from your newsdealer, they can be
obtained from this office direct. Fill out the following Order Blank and send it to
us with the price of the Weeklies you want and we will send them to you by return mail. <b>POSTAGE STAMPS TAKEN THE SAME AS MONEY.</b></p></blockquote>

<hr class="r5" />

<table summary="form" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5">

<tr><td colspan="6" class="tdr sig">________________________ <i>190</i></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="6"><i>STREET &amp; SMITH, 79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York City.</i><br />
<br />
<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Dear Sirs: Enclosed please find</i> ___________________________ <i>cents for which send me</i>:</span>
</td></tr>
<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
<tr><td><b>TIP TOP WEEKLY,</b></td><td class="tdc"><b>Nos.</b></td><td class="br">______________________</td>
<td><b>BUFFALO BILL STORIES,</b></td><td class="tdc"><b>Nos.</b></td><td>______________________</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>NICK CARTER WEEKLY,</b></td><td class="tdc"><b>"</b></td><td class="br">______________________</td>
<td><b>BRAVE AND BOLD WEEKLY,</b></td><td class="tdc"><b>"</b></td><td>______________________</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>DIAMOND DICK WEEKLY,</b></td><td class="tdc"><b>"</b></td><td class="br">______________________</td>
<td><b>MOTOR STORIES,</b></td><td class="tdc"><b>"</b></td><td>______________________</td></tr>

<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="6" class="tdc">
<i>Name</i> ________________ <i>Street</i> ________________ <i>City</i> ________________ <i>State</i> ________________<br />
</td></tr></table>
<hr class="chap" />




<h2><a name="A_GREAT_SUCCESS" id="A_GREAT_SUCCESS">A GREAT SUCCESS!!</a></h2>

<hr class="full" />

<p class="center huge u">MOTOR STORIES</p>


<p>Every boy who reads one of the splendid adventures of Motor
Matt, which are making their appearance in this weekly, is at once
surprised and delighted. Surprised at the generous quantity of
reading matter that we are giving for five cents; delighted with the
fascinating interest of the stories, second only to those published
in the Tip Top Weekly.</p>

<p>Matt has positive mechanical genius, and while his adventures
are unusual, they are, however, drawn so true to life that the reader can
clearly see how it is possible for the ordinary boy to experience them.</p>


<hr class="full" />

<p class="center"><b><i>HERE ARE THE TITLES NOW READY AND THOSE TO BE PUBLISHED</i>:</b></p>

<blockquote>

<p>1&mdash;Motor Matt; or, The King of the Wheel.</p>

<p>2&mdash;Motor Matt's Daring; or, True to His Friends.</p>

<p>3&mdash;Motor Matt's Century Run; or, The Governor's
Courier.</p>

<p>4&mdash;Motor Matt's Race; or, The Last Flight of the
"Comet."</p>

<p>5&mdash;Motor Matt's Mystery; or, Foiling a Secret
Plot.</p>

<p>6&mdash;Motor Matt's Red Flier; or, On the High Gear.</p>

<p>7&mdash;Motor Matt's Clue; or, The Phantom Auto.</p>

<p>8&mdash;Motor Matt's Triumph; or, Three Speeds
Forward.</p>

<p>9&mdash;Motor Matt's Air Ship; or, The Rival Inventors.</p>

<p>10&mdash;Motor Matt's Hard Luck; or, The Balloon
House Plot.</p>

<p>11&mdash;Motor Matt's Daring Rescue; or, The Strange
Case of Helen Brady.</p>

<p>12&mdash;Motor Matt's Peril; or, Cast Away in the
Bahamas.</p>

<p>13&mdash;Motor Matt's Queer Find; or, The Secret of the
Iron Chest.</p>

<p>14&mdash;Motor Matt's Promise; or, The Wreck of the
"Hawk."</p>

<p>15&mdash;Motor Matt's Submarine; or, The Strange Cruise
of the "Grampus."</p>

<p>16&mdash;Motor Matt's Quest; or, Three Chums in
Strange Waters.</p></blockquote>

<p class="center small">To be Published on June 14th.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>17&mdash;Motor Matt's Close Call; or, The Snare of Don
Carlos.</p></blockquote>

<p class="center small">To be Published on June 21st.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>18&mdash;Motor Matt in Brazil; or, Under the Amazon.</p></blockquote>

<p class="center small">To be Published on June 28th.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>19&mdash;Motor Matt's Defiance; or, Around the Horn.</p></blockquote>

<p class="center small">To be Published on July 5th.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>20&mdash;Motor Matt Makes Good; or, Another Victory
for the Motor Boys.</p></blockquote>


<p class="large center">PRICE, FIVE CENTS</p>

<p class="center">At all newsdealers, or sent, postpaid, by the publishers upon receipt of the price.</p>

<hr class="full" />

<table summary="scaffold" style="width: 50%;">
<tr class="medium"><td style="width: 33%">STREET &amp; SMITH,</td><td class="tdc"><i>Publishers</i>,</td><td class="tdr" style="width: 33%">NEW YORK</td></tr>
</table>
<hr class="chap" />
</html>