Navy Boys Behind the Big Guns | Page 5

next he was not there at all!
"By St. Patrick's piper that played the last snake out of Ireland!" gasped
Frenchy, "he ain't there no more."
"You poor fish!" ejaculated Al in disgust, "you scared him off with
your squealing. Who do you suppose he was?"
"And what is he doing over there?" added Ikey Rosenmeyer.
"Funny thing," observed Whistler. "Must be something important up on
that dam he was looking at through his glasses."
"Might as well drive on," growled Al, punching the starter button again.
"This Frenchman from Cork would spoil anything."
"Aw--g'wan!" muttered the abashed Michael Donahue.
"Well, that chap was no guard, that is sure," Whistler said.
They drove slowly on across the bridge. All of them searched the base
of the dam--or as much of it as could be seen, for the fringe of trees and
shrubs that masked it--but not a moving figure did they see. The water
poured over the flashboard with a splashing murmur at that distance,
and ran down under the bridge in a rocky bed. It was clear and cool
looking. Below the factories the river water was of an entirely different
color, and people in Seacove had begun to object to the filth from the
Elmvale mills being dumped into the cove.
Al Torrance stopped the car at the side gate of the biggest munition
works just as the noon whistle blew. Seven Knott got out and began to
look about for his friends to whom he had tried to talk enlistment.
He soon spied two of them, and beckoned them near. Others followed.
Whistler and his chums were introduced by the boatswain's mate, who
left the talking to the youths after he had introduced his friends.
In five minutes there was a very earnest enlistment meeting going on at

the gate of the munition factory. Perhaps no harder place to gain
recruits could have been selected. In the first instance, all the boys
working here were earning big money. And there was, too, some
excitement in the work. As one of them said:
"You Jackies haven't anything on us. We don't know but any moment
we may be blown sky-high."
"True for you," put in Frenchy smartly. "But you don't get any fun out
of your danger. We do. And we get promotion and steadily increased
pay and a chance to get up in the world."
"Sure!" broke in Al. "Some day we're all going to win gold stripes;
aren't we, fellows?"
His chums declared he was right. But one listener said doubtfully:
"You won't ever win commissions if you get sunk or blown up, on one
of those blamed old iron pots."
"Say!" put in Ikey Rosenmeyer hotly, "you fellows won't get no
advance in rating at all, and you may get blown up any time. We've got
something to work for, we have!"
"We've got money to work for," declared one of the munition workers.
"Oi, oi!" sneered Ikey. "What's money yet?" A sneer which vastly
amused his chums, for Ikey's inborn love for the root of all evil was
well known.
As the group stood talking, along came a man, walking briskly from the
direction the Seacove boys had come in their automobile. Two or three
of the munition workers spoke to the man, who was broad-shouldered,
walked with a brisk military step, and was heavily bewhiskered.
Whistler stopped talking to a possible candidate for the blue uniform of
the Navy, and looked after this stranger.
"Who is he?" he asked.

"That's Blake. Works in our laboratory. Nice fellow," was the reply.
"Oh! I didn't know but he was one of the men guarding the dam,"
Whistler murmured.
"Shucks! there aren't any guards up there. There are soldiers here at the
factories, though."
"Is that so?" questioned Whistler. "Where's he been, do you suppose?"
"Who? Blake?"
"That man," said young Morgan grimly.
"Oh, he's a bug on natural history, or the like. Always tapping rocks
with a hammer, or hunting specimens, or botanizing. Great chap. Hasn't
been here in Elmvale long. But everybody likes him."
Phil made no further comment aloud, but to himself he said:
"He wasn't botanizing through that field-glass; or knocking specimens
off of rocks. His interest was centered on the face of the dam. I wonder
why?"
For the military looking man, called Blake, was the individual he and
his friends had seen in the bushes as they drove along the Upper Road,
and who had seemed desirous of being unobserved by the passers-by.
CHAPTER III
THE WATER WHEEL
Phil Morgan was no more suspicious by nature than his chums. Merely
a thought had come into his mind that had not come into theirs; and he
disliked to be annoyed by anything in the nature of an unsolved
problem. He always wanted to