The Submarine Boys on Duty Part 20

Then to the wrecked ones Jack called:

"How long since you capsized?"

"Since just after sundown," replied the younger of the pair clinging to the hull. Again his voice was sulky.

"There's something queer about this," whispered Benson to Mr. Pollard.

"They don't seem a bit glad to be pulled off that hull. Besides, they must have been the worst sort of lubbers to capsize a boat in any breeze that has been blowing this day. I don't see how they managed it."

"Throw them a line," directed Mr. Farnum, who had just come out on deck.

Jack made the cast, doing it cleverly. The long, light rope lay across the overturned hull. But the younger man of the wet pair, in reaching for the line, pushed it off into the water.

"Clumsy!" muttered Jack, under his breath. "And look there! They have life preservers on. It must have been a leisurely capsizing to give them time for that."

"It _does_ look queer," agreed Jacob Farnum.

Having rapidly hauled in the line, Jack made another cast.

"Try to get that," he shouted. Yet once more, in some unaccountable way, the younger man on the capsized boat managed to bungle so with the line that it went overboard into the water.

"I can put a stop to that," muttered Jack Benson, pulling off cap and coat and dropping them down through the manhole. "I'm going to swim over there. When I get there, Hal, throw me a line."

With that the young submarine boy stepped over the rail, poised his hands at the side and dived. An excellent swimmer, it was not long before he touched the overturned hull. Neither of those whom he sought to rescue offered him a hand. But Jack climbed up out of the water, seated himself on the keel between the strange pair, and stared hard at them, each in turn.

The older man appeared to be about fifty years of age. He wore a closely-cropped beard that had in it a sprinkling of gray. The younger man, who appeared to be about twenty-five years of age, was smooth-faced and sulky-looking. Both were dressed well, and looked like people of means. Jack guessed that they must be father and son.

"Well, have you got through looking at us?" demanded the younger man.

"I guess so," nodded Benson. "I was thinking that your boat must have taken several minutes in doing the capsizing trick. You both had time to adjust life-preservers nicely, and you, sir," turning to the older man, "must have found time to pack the satchel that you're holding so carefully."

The older man's jaw dropped. He looked haggard. But the younger one demanded, fiercely:

"Is all this any of your business?"

"Not a bit," admitted Jack Benson. "All I'm here to do is to rescue you, or help in it."

"Humph!" grunted the younger man.

"Heave a line, Hal!" shouted the submarine boy, signaling with one hand. "Drive it straight. I'll get it."

Swish! Whirr--rr! It was a splendid cast. As Jack leaped to his feet the slender rope fell over one shoulder. Benson caught it with both hands.

"I'll help you," called the younger stranger with startling suddenness, reaching forward. He grabbed at the submarine boy. The next instant Jack Benson lost his footing on that wet, slippery sloop bottom. He pitched, threw up his hands in an effort to regain his balance, then toppled, disappearing beneath the waves.

"They're trying to drown Jack!" rang Hal Hastings's excited voice.

"That was a deliberate trick!"

CHAPTER XIII

A HIGH-SEA MYSTERY

Splash! Without a word as to his intentions Hal Hastings went overboard.

His head showed above the waves almost immediately, as he swam toward that other craft of mystery.

Jack Benson did not immediately reappear. When he did come up, it was under the over turned hull. He was obliged to make a half-dive in order to come out and up in the open.

By the time he did appear, his chum was close to him.

"Hurt?" hailed Hal.

"Not a bit," responded Jack, after blowing out a mouthful of water.

"Then climb aboard with me, and see what these prize lunatics mean by their behavior," requested Hal, not caring who heard him.

The sulky young man made no effort to oppose their boarding the hull.

Probably he feared to make too plain an opposition, with that dark-hulled, sombre, ugly-looking submarine torpedo boat lying so close at hand.

"Now, heave us a line, Eph!" hailed Hal. The line came, and was caught.

Hal slipped over the further side with it, vanishing under water long enough to make it fast to one of the submerged cleats of the sloop's rail.

"That will hold," he reported, clambering back on to the bottom of the sloop. "Now, sir," turning to the older man, "since you have a life preserver on, you can easily get over to the submarine boat by holding to the line and pulling yourself along."

"I'm afraid I can't get across and keep my satchel," whined the older man, nervously.

"I'll take that and swim over with it," proposed Hal, briskly, reaching out his hand for the bag.

"Oh, no, no!" protested the man. "I'd sooner stay here. The satchel doesn't go out of my hands."

"Better take to the water, father, and do the best you can," advised the younger man in a growl. "These fellows belong to the United States Navy, and they're determined to rescue us. Trust yourself to the water, and I'll keep along with you. These people will take us by force if we refuse any further."

If mistaking the crew of the "Pollard" for members of the United States Navy would make matters move any more quickly, there was no need to disabuse the mind of either of these queer men. But Jack and Hal gave each other a queer, amused look.

The old man took to the water, without difficulty. Buoyed up by his life preserver, he was able to hold to his satchel with one hand, pulling himself along the slightly sagging rope with the other. His son swam along lazily beside him, Eph, outside the rail, but holding to it with one hand, employed his other in helping the father and son up to the deck. When this had been accomplished, Hal threw off the line, after which he and Jack swam back. Eph drew them up to the platform deck.

"Go down below, and hear their account of themselves, if you want to,"

said David Pollard, leaning against the wheel. "For myself, I'm sick of that pair already."

Jack and Hal had quite enough boyish curiosity to go below. Eph soon followed. The father, dripping wet and still clutching his satchel with one hand, sat on one of the long seats of the cabin, while the son, scowling, paced back and forth.

"It seems to me that I know you," Farnum was saying, to the elder man.

"I--I am very sure you don't," replied the one addressed, uneasily.

"Don't you know who I am?" pursued the boat-builder.