The Submarine Boys on Duty Part 8

"I got your note, Mr. Farnum," began the ex-foreman. "What's the matter? Find you need me here, after all?"

"Not for long," replied Mr. Farnum, coldly. "Owen, before you gave your keys in to Mr. Partridge you must have taken an impression of one of them and must have fitted a key to the pattern. Why were you here last night?"

"Me? I wasn't here last night--nor any other night," Josh Owen made haste to answer, though a look of guilty alarm crept into his face. All of the workmen had ceased their toil, and stood looking on at this unusual scene.

"You say you weren't here last night?" demanded Mr. Farnum, sternly.

"And you didn't use any false key to get into this shed?"

"Of course I didn't," retorted the ex-foreman, defiantly. "You wrote a note to me that, if I'd come around here this morning, I'd hear of a job.

I didn't come here to be insulted."

"The job I mentioned in my note," rejoined Mr. Farnum, with a meaning smile, "is over at the penitentiary. Owen, you did come here last night.

You scaled the fence at the west side, crossed the yard, opened the door of this building with this key--"

Here the yard's owner held out the false key, that all might see it.

"--and," finished Mr. Farnum, "you came in here and went to work to damage a sea-valve forward on this craft. The valve shows, this morning, very plain traces of having been tampered with."

Josh Owen was summoning all his courage, all his craft. Instead of looking frightened, he glared boldly at his accuser.

"Who says I did such a thing?" he demanded, hotly.

"Benson and Hastings saw you at your rascally work, my man."

"Humph!" snorted the ex-foreman. "Who? Those boys?"

"Yes."

"Humph! I wouldn't believe those boys under oath, and you'll make a huge mistake if you do, Mr. Farnum," continued Josh Owen, hotly.

"Then you deny that you were here, and that you tampered with a sea-valve last night?" insisted the yard's owner, looking his man keenly in the eyes.

"I'll deny it with my dying breath," a.s.serted the former foreman, boldly.

"As for those lying boys--"

"Do you believe _this_ can lie?" inquired Mr. Farnum, pa.s.sing the accused man a photograph print.

Josh Owen took the print, staring at it hard. In an instant his eyes began to open as wide as it was possible for them to do. A sickly, greenish pallor crept into the man's face. Beads of cold perspiration appeared on his forehead and temples.

"You see, your face shows up very clearly," went on the yard's owner, in the same cold, crus.h.i.+ng voice. "Moreover, it shows you right at one of the sea-valves, and in the very act of tapping with a hammer. You didn't know that Benson and Hastings are very fair photographers, did you?"

"I don't care what they are," cried Owen, in a pa.s.sionate voice, as before the print to small bits. "That isn't a photograph of me, even if it does look like me, and I wasn't here last night. I--"

"Any judge and jury will believe the evidence against you, my man,"

cried Farnum, sternly. "As for the boys, maybe you don't like them, nor they you. They've reason enough for not liking you. Besides, they couldn't photograph anything that wasn't here to be photographed."

"Then it was that flash--" began Josh Owen.

He stopped instantly, biting his lips savagely.

"Yes, they took the picture by flashlight, and you've just admitted remembering the flash that interrupted your rascally labor," exclaimed Mr. Farnum, triumphantly. "As for the print you've just torn up, Owen, it doesn't make any difference. There are other copies of it. Now, my fine fellow, you've been trapped just as nicely as the law requires, and, in addition, you know you're guilty of the whole thing. Now--"

But Owen leaped up the spiral staircase, shouting:

"I won't be taken alive! I--"

Andrews, O'brien and another workman sprang forward to seize the fellow, but Mr. Farnum called them back. Josh Owen got down from the platform deck, and out of the shed in a twinkling.

"Let him go," ordered, the yard's owner. "He won't be seen around Dunhaven after this. If he is, I can quickly enough put the law's officers on his track. But he'll vanish and stay vanished."

"I shan't soon forget the absolutely dumfounded look on his face when he saw that photograph," laughed Mr. Pollard. "It was a look of complete, incredulous amazement."

"I'm sorry for the wretch's family," sighed Mr. Farnum. "However, if Owen clears out promptly, and stays away from this part of the country, I'll give him an opportunity for a new chance."

Then the work went on again. Even with the thorough examination of the sea-valve that had been, tampered with, there was not so much to be done, for this was the last day of the work. On the morrow Dunhaven was to be more or less alive, for the "Pollard" was to be launched then. Many visitors, including a swarm of newspaper men, were expected.

An officer of the United States Navy was also booked to be present, to witness the launching, and to note how the "Pollard" might sit on the water afterwards.

Before four o'clock the last stroke of work had been done. Mr. Farnum, the anxious, inventor, the foreman and the others went all over the submarine marine craft, inside and out, locking for any detail of the work that might have been slighted.

"It's all done--finished," cried David Pollard, nervously.

"And, Mr. Andrews, you'll have a real guard here to-night to help you keep watch," announced Jacob Farnum. "We've heard the last of Owen, without a doubt, but we won't take a single chance to-night. Now, men, all be here at seven in the morning, ready for work. The launching is to be at ten o'clock, but at the last moment we may find that something needs overhauling. Now, you've all worked hard and faithfully." "Here's a little present for each of you, with much more to come if the boat proves the success we hope."

As the men pa.s.sed him, Jacob Farnum handed each a crisp ten-dollar banknote. Even Jack and Hal were thus remembered.

"But we haven't been here, sir, long enough to earn this present,"

protested Jack Benson.

"You haven't been here long, perhaps," smiled Mr. Farnum. "But think of what you did last night. By the way, Benson, and Hastings, I want to see you at my office at once."

Wondering somewhat, the youngsters followed their employer, and David Pollard accompanied them.

"Now, then, boys," began their employer, seating himself at his desk, "I want to say to you that my friend Pollard hired you on the strength of your general appearance and the impression you both made. At the same time Pollard was careful to write to the references you gave in your home town. This noon he received letters from your former school teacher and your minister. Both speak in the nicest terms of you both, as honorable, upright, hard-working young men."

"It's fine to know that one is remembered in that way," Jack replied, his face, and Hal's, showing their pleasure.

"Now, to go on," continued Mr. Farnum, "as soon as the boat is in the water there comes up the question of a crew for the 'Pollard.'

Some of our good hands, especially those with families, say very frankly that their taste doesn't run to going down in diving boats, on account of the possible chance that the Pollard might not be able to get up to the surface again. But Pollard tells me that you've applied for a chance to belong to the crew of the boat."

"That's our biggest wish, gentlemen!" cried Jack Benson, his eyes glowing.

"Nothing else could give us half the delight," confirmed Hal Hastings.

"Then we're going to give you the chance," announced Mr. Farnum, while David Pollard nodded. "But, of course, you're not blind to the fact that, even on the most perfect submarine torpedo boat, there's some risk to your lives."

"One isn't wholly safe, either," retorted Jack, coolly, "in crossing a crowded city street."

"Then you're both alive to the danger, but not afraid to chance it?"