Part 9 (1/2)
”Wait until I'm out of the boat,” proposed the submarine boy. ”Then ask all the questions you like. Maybe you're paid to ask questions, but I'm paid to hold my mouth shut.”
It went a good deal against the submarine boy's grain to be so brusque with an inquisitive stranger, but there seemed to be no other defense.
”Oh, well, if you're ashamed of your business--” retorted the fisherman, falling into a sullen silence.
This turn of affairs just suited Benson. He compressed his lips and sat back, looking out across the bay at the tug, which was at work some three miles away.
”Can you put on a little more speed?” inquired Jack.
”No,” answered the fisherman, sulkily. ”Doin' all the gait she'll kick now.”
So Jack possessed his soul in patience until the wheezy little launch had covered the whole distance.
While still some two hundred yards off Jack caught sight of Major Woodruff coming out of the after cabin of the tug.
”Ahoy, Major!” yelled the submarine boy, holding his hands to his lips.
”Perhaps you'd better stop work until I've reported.”
Then the launch ran in alongside, and Jack stepped up to the deck of the tug, holding tightly to the loot he had taken from Millard.
The master of the launch manifested a disposition to hang about in the near vicinity, until curtly ordered away by Major Woodruff.
”I suppose you thought, Major, that I took a good deal upon myself in advising you to suspend work,” Jack hinted. ”Yet I've something to show you, and much to tell you. And I'm wagering an anchor to a fish-hook that you'll be glad you stationed me over on that neck of sand.”
Major Woodruff led the way back into the cabin. There he examined the chart, with a start of astonishment.
”The fellow was marking down all our mine positions,” came savagely from between the Army officer's teeth.
Then he picked up the book.
”A nice little a.s.sortment of notes on matters of military interest along this coast,” muttered the soldier. ”Your long-legged fellow has been busy at other points than Craven's Bay.”
Then, closing the book with a snap, Major Woodruff looked keenly at the submarine boy as he remarked:
”Mr. Benson, I think our present submarine tests can be well suspended.
We have a much more important task ahead of us--to catch this impudent thief of military secrets! And, in this undertaking, Benson, you can be of the greatest sort of help!”
CHAPTER V
SIGHTING THE ENEMY
”You can count on me, sir,” declared Captain Jack Benson, eagerly.
”I can count on every one of you submarine boys, can't I?” asked Major Woodruff, thoughtfully.
”You can count on us,” declared Benson, earnestly, ”as though every one of us were sworn into the service and had a record of being tried and tested!”