After some further talk Jack Benson agreed to all this. The Italian seemed wholly honest and earnest. Moreover, he appeared as though greatly troubled and anxious to save the submarine boy from some unusually mean trick.

So Jack Benson walked on, thinking deeply and wondering much. He had no suspicion of any trap against him in the person of this seemingly very honest Italian, and so Don Melville had succeeded in laying the last wire of his despicable plan.

At half-past eight that fateful night Captain Jack found a pretext for leaving his companions. Swinging out onto the road, and down past the new Melville yard, he went on briskly to the point, well out of town, that had been named for the meeting.

"I wonder if I'm foolish?" he thought, suddenly. "Is there any trick in all this? But, pshaw! The Melvilles surely aren't that kind of people, and no one else has anything against me. It's all likely enough that Don is putting up some mean game against me down at the yard, or that he's saying something mighty mean against me. Whatever it is, these Italians are honest enough to feel disgusted, and they want to warn me.

Yet they don't want to have any Melville eavesdropper seeing them with me. That's all natural enough, for these Italians have their jobs to look out for, even if they _do_ hate the rascals who pay 'em wages."

So Captain Jack kept on his way, feeling that any suspicions of the Italians were unfounded and therefore unnecessary.

David Pollard, after wandering through the grounds around the Farnum home, that evening, and missing his friend, the owner, at last decided to go to his own room and read.

Always soft-footed, Mr. Pollard made no noise until he turned the k.n.o.b of the door to his room. There was a sudden, scurrying sound inside.

Though he was a man of very nervous temperament the inventor was no coward. He darted in, in time to see a figure making through the dark for an open window.

"Who's there Here! Stop!" thundered the inventor, rushing forward.

But the intruder did not obey.

Hidden behind a book in a bookcase was the inventor's revolver. Mr.

Pollard hauled the book out, dropping it, and, in a trice, had the weapon in his hand, racing again toward the window.

The intruder had gained the ground by the time that Mr. Pollard reached the window.

"Stop, you thief! Hold up, or I'll shoot!" warned the inventor.

However, the skulker took to his heels. Pollard fired once, the flame spitting from the muzzle of his revolver. But the figure still continued in flight, and the inventor realized that there was no further use in firing.

"That was odd," thought Pollard. "The fellow had on a uniform just such as our boys wear. If it weren't so absurd, I might be tempted to believe, despite the darkness, that it was Jack Benson. But _he_ would have no need to break in here."

Then Mrs. Farnum appeared, with the servants, for the shot had alarmed the household.

"Have you found that anything is missing from here?" inquired Mrs.

Farnum, while Mr. pollard searched and explained at the same time.

The inventor now halted before his desk, rummaging.

"Yes," he answered, dryly, though with a slight quaver in his voice. "The thief found and departed with the drawings of a most important new device, originated by Benson and his friends and finished by myself. I'd rather lose a large sum of money than those drawings."

At about this time Jacob Farnum was prowling carefully about the spot that Mr. Emerson had named. He waited there, in hiding, for a long time, ere Messrs. Melville and Emerson came along. He let them pa.s.s, then followed slyly, in accordance with Broughton Emerson's directions of that afternoon.

"Now, what on earth does this all mean?" wondered Jacob Farnum, unable, despite his curiosity, to regard this expedition without a feeling of considerable disgust with himself. "Confound it, it's unmanly, this spying on someone else! It makes me feel like a rubber-soled detective, a thug or a labor picket trying to 'warn' a workman with a lead-stuffed club! Yet Emerson is a gentleman, or I've been fooled. It must be all right, I suppose."

The night was dark, and the moon not yet quite due to rise. When it did come up above the horizon it was certain to be more or less obscured by the clouds hanging there.

While Messrs. Melville and Emerson stepped off along the road, Jacob Farnum was forced to keep behind bushes and other natural objects of cover, which increased the boatbuilder's uneasy feeling that he was, doing something well nigh dishonorable.

At last, however, the two capitalists stepped off the road, concealing themselves in a clump of bushes as though by previous understanding.

"It looks like a prearranged meeting of some sort," reflected the boatbuilder, after having crept close enough to be able to see and to overhear.

Five minutes went by. Then Don Melville, narrowly escaping running into Mr. Farnum, appeared suddenly before his father and Mr. Emerson.

"It's almost the time, now," laughed Don, speaking in a low voice, as he held his watch close to his eyes. "I'll slip right down into the road, in plain sight, where you can see what happens."

Back of all the rest, in the bushes, Jacob Farnum muttered, disgustedly, to himself:

"I like it little enough to find George Melville this. I like it still less, now that I find Don having a finger in the pie of mystery."

Smoke wafted back from a cigarette that Don was smoking. A few minutes thus pa.s.sed, when there came the sound of a low whistle. Tossing away the stub of his cigarette, Don answered with another whistle.

Broughton Emerson straightened up instantly, being well enough hidden for that, and so did Jacob Farnum, whose presence, of course, was unsuspected by either of the Melvilles.

Then out from the cover of the woods stepped a boy of sixteen, in a uniform like that worn by the submarine boys.

"Have you got the plans?" asked Don, in a low voice that was yet distinct to all the listeners.

"Yes," came in a hoa.r.s.e whisper, from the one in uniform.

"Pa.s.s them over, then," commanded Don. "That's right. Here's your money, in this envelope."

Just then ray from the rising moon struggled through the filter of clouds, the light touching lightly upon the uniformed one.

Jacob Farnum started as though he had been shot. There was a great bound at his heart.

"Jack Benson!" he throbbed. "By the Great Shark, are my eyes playing me a hideous prank?"

CHAPTER X

A RACE FOR MIXED PRIZES

As the moon's ray vanished behind a cloud Jacob Farnum was breathing hard.

Nor was it any wonder that the boatbuilder felt staggered with astonishment. He had grown to trust Captain Jack Benson to the utmost.

Now, to find him faithless came like a heavy blow on the head.

To this man's ears came Don's low but clear cut tones:

"You'll keep your eyes open, won't you, Benson, and bring us all the points you can? Anything that you think will be useful to us?"

The boy in uniform nodded. Though the boatbuilder could not see the uniformed one's face very well, he observed that nod, as did also Messrs. Emerson and Melville.

"You don't want to have anyone see us here together, then," went on Don.

"So scoot! You know how to communicate with me when you want to.