"I wonder why Mr. Seaton is so mightily interested in him? What does Seaton mean by hinting at ruin and tragedies?"

"Do you know what I think, Hank?" queried the young skipper, quietly.

"What?"

"I think it would be downright impudence on our part to get too inquisitive about the affairs of the man who employs us. We looked Mr.

Seaton up, and found he had the reputation of being an honest man.

That's as much of his business as we have any right to want to know."

Hank colored, though he went on, in an argumentative way:

"I s'pose that's all true enough, Tom. Still, it's human nature, when you smell a big mystery, to want to know the meaning of at least some of it. And I'm mighty curious, because I scent something unusually big in the air."

"So do I," admitted the young skipper, giving the wheel another turn in order to hold the fast-moving boat to her course.

"Then what----"

"Hold on, Hank! Don't be downright nosey. And, as for guessing----"

"Why, Seaton as good as hints that there's been a downright attempt to kill this man Clodis," broke in Hank, who could not be repressed easily. "And Seaton is surely mightily worked up about it. And sending us out to take a pa.s.senger off a steamer bound for South America! Tom, do you s'pose that criminals are----"

"Hank," broke in the young skipper, half-severely, "there's something squeaking on one of the motors. For goodness' sake don't let us break down on what we've been told is a life-and-death trip! Get below and see what's wrong. Stand by to watch the performance of the motors."

Hank vanished, inwardly grumbling, for his curiosity was doing two hours' work every minute.

Captain Tom, after measuring on the chart, had figured on meeting the "Constant" in two hours and twenty minutes. Now, at every turn of the twin shafts the young skipper's blood bounded with the desire to do his full duty in arriving on time. Yet there was not wanting pleasure, mixed with the anxiety. How good the fresh, salty air tasted, out here on the broad sea, with the low coast-line already nearly out of sight!

Tom Halstead sniffed in breath after breath. His eyes danced as they beheld the spraying of white water cut and turned up by the boat's fast prow. Oh, it was great to be out here on the deep, one hand guiding the course of one of the nimblest yachts afloat!

Joe, as he came forward, felt this same wild exhilaration. Quiet, dutiful and law-abiding as both these Motor Boat Club boys were, there must have been much of the old Norseman Viking blood in their veins, for this swift dash over the rolling swell of the ocean was like a tonic to them both.

"Say, isn't it all grand?" demanded Joe, his cheeks glowing, as he paused on the bridge deck, taking in great whiffs of the purest air supplied to man.

"Great!" admitted Skipper Tom, in a tone that was almost a cheer. Then he asked, gravely:

"Any news?"

"Mr. Seaton knows we have started, and expresses his pleasure. I've signaled the 'Constant,' and she's still keeping to the same course, and will so continue."

"And the patient, Clodis?"

"Still alive, Tom; but the ship's surgeon offers no hope, and will be glad to have us take him onto the 'Restless.'"

"It must be something terrible to make Mr. Seaton so anxious about the man," observed Tom, thoughtfully.

"Yes," nodded Joe. Then: "Say, Tom, I've just struck an easy scheme for connecting one of the armatures of the Morse register, aft, to a buzzer in the engine room. Then if I happen to be in the engine room when wireless messages are traveling through the air I shall know it."

In the next hour all three of the boys, though they did not talk much about it, were wondering about this tragedy of the deep sea that had called them into action. Though they could not as yet guess it, this present affair of theirs was but the start of a series of adventures more amazing than any they had ever dreamed of. Now, at the most, they were curious. Soon they were to know what it meant to be astounded; they were soon to know what it felt like to feel haunted, to find themselves a.s.sailed by dread after dread. Undoubtedly it was merciful for them that they could not, at this moment, peer behind the curtain of the immediate future.

So, ignorant of what fate and destiny held in store for them, they were mainly intent, now, upon intercepting at the right point the big liner cruising swiftly southward.

In another hour they made out smoke on the horizon where Skipper Tom judged the "Constant" to be. Later the spars of the steamship were visible through the marine gla.s.ses. Then the hull appeared. A few minutes later Captain Tom ran the "Restless" dashingly in alongside the great black hull of the liner, along whose starboard rail a hundred or more pa.s.sengers had gathered.

Turning the wheel over to Hank, Captain Tom Halstead s.n.a.t.c.hed up the megaphone as the larger vessel slowed down.

"'Constant,' ahoy!" bellowed the young skipper. "This is the yacht 'Restless,' sent to receive your injured pa.s.senger, Clodis."

"'Restless' ahoy!" came the response from the liner's bridge. "We'll lower our starboard side gangway, if you can come alongside safely."

The Motor Boat Club boys were at the threshold of their strangest, wildest succession of adventures!

CHAPTER II

SOME OF THE MYSTERY UNRAVELED

"IF we can come alongside safely," echoed Hank, disgustedly. "I'll show 'em--and in a smooth swell of sea like this, too!"

As the big steamship lay to, Hank steered in until Captain Tom, boathook in hand, made fast temporarily. Then Hank hurried up with a line with which he took a fast hitch.

"Hey, there, you'll pull away our side gangway," roared down a mate, whose head and uniform cap showed over the rail above.

"You don't know us," grinned Joe Dawson, quietly.

By this time Tom Halstead was running lightly up the steps of the gangway. He reached the small platform above, then pa.s.sed to the deck.

He was met by Captain Hampton, who inquired:

"Where's your sailing master, young man?"

"Right before you, Captain."

"You?"

"Yes, sir."

"Who are your owners?" demanded Captain Hampton, much astonished by Tom's quiet a.s.surance.

"I'm captain and half-owner of the 'Restless,' sir," Halstead continued, still smiling at the other captain's very evident astonishment. "The other owner is the engineer, Joe Dawson, my chum."

Captain Hampton swallowed something very hard. Several of the pa.s.sengers were smiling. A man who has followed the sea for years knows the capacity and efficiency that boys often display on shipboard, but it is unusual to find a boy acting as master of a yacht.

However, there was the "Restless," and there was Tom Halstead in the captain's uniform. These were facts that could not be disputed.

"You have a pa.s.senger, a Mr. Clodis, that you want to have me take off?" resumed Tom.

"Yes; you have come for him, then?"