The boys stood leaning on the rail as the stately steamer passed through the vast array of shipping on either side of the river, slipped by the colossal figure of Liberty and, bidding farewell to the Sandy Hook lightship, breasted the waves of the Atlantic. They were ardent patriots, and, as the irregular skyline of the great city faded from their view, they felt the pang that always comes to one on leaving his native land. But in the “bright lexicon of youth” there’s no such word as melancholy, and as they thought of all that lay before them their hearts swelled with anticipation. Adventure beckoned them, glory tempted them, hope inspired them.

“We’re starting out with colors flying,” said Dick. “Here’s hoping we come back the same way.”

“If we don’t it’ll be the first fizzle,” said Bert. “This is the fourth time Uncle Sam has sent his boys abroad and they’ve never yet come back empty-handed.”

“Yes,” added Tom, “they’ve never had to slink back and spend the rest of their lives explaining why they didn’t win. It has always been the glad hand and the big eats and the brass bands and the procession down Broadway.”

“I can see Bert already sitting in one of the swell buzz-wagons with the Marathon prize alongside of him and trying to look unconcerned,” chaffed Dick.

“You’ve got good eyesight,” retorted Bert, drily. “I may be only one of the ‘also rans.’”

“Such shrinking modesty,” mocked Tom. “Tell that to the King of Denmark.”

“Speaking of kings,” went on Dick, “I suppose we’ll see plenty of them on the other side.”

“Likely enough,” said Bert. “There were several of them at the last games. As for princes and dukes, they’ll be thick as blackberries. Perhaps we ought to be overwhelmed at the prospect of seeing so many high mightinesses, but somehow I can’t get much worked up over it.”

“Neither can I,” said Dick. “I’m afraid I haven’t much more reverence than the old sailor on an American ship that was being inspected by a lot of royalties. He came up to the captain and touched his cap. ‘Beggin’ your pardon, capting,’ he said, ‘but one of them there kings has fell down the hatchway.’”

“Well,” returned Bert, when the laugh had subsided, “some of ‘them there kings’ are pretty decent fellows, after all. The German Emperor, for instance, is all right. Nobody in Germany works harder than he does. He’s always on the job and even if we don’t agree with his views we have to hand it to him. He’s the biggest figure in Europe to-day. I like him because he isn’t a mere figurehead like the rest of them. He throws himself right into the game and he’s there all the time from start to finish. He’s taking a lot of interest in the Olympics and I hear he’s going to open them in person. And no doubt he’ll be the one to give out the prizes at the end.”

“Well, if he does he’ll have a chance to shake hands with quite a bunch of American sovereigns,” said Dick, “for there’ll surely be a big raft of them up there standing in line when the trophies are handed out.”

“The Germans are certainly making great preparations for the games,” said Tom. “I hear that the stadium at Berlin is going to be the biggest thing in that line that ever happened. They dedicated it the other day and all Berlin turned out to see it. The Kaiser himself was there and made a speech, and just as he got through they released thirty thousand doves who flew in a great white cloud over the field. Rather artistic idea you see—‘the dove of peace,’ and all that sort of thing.”

“The idea is all right,” rejoined Dick, cynically, “and yet you notice that England keeps building dreadnoughts, and France is increasing her term of service from two years to three, and Germany herself this year is raising an extra billion of marks for new troops. The ideas don’t jibe very well, do they?”

“No,” assented Bert. “When I hear them talk of doing away with war altogether, I think of that saying of Mark Twain’s that ‘the day may come when the lion and the lamb will lie down together, but the lamb will be inside.’”

“Don’t say anything that suggests eating,” chimed in Tom, “for this sea air is making me feel already as though I were starving to death.”

“That’s your normal state, anyway,” laughed Dick. “Don’t try to put it off on the air. But there goes the steward’s gong now. Let’s go down and see what kind of a training table they set.”

A very good table they found it to be, despite the absence of luxuries that are usually to be found on ocean liners. Wines and liquors of all kinds were banished, together with rich pastries and many kinds of starchy foods. But there was a royal abundance of meats and fruit desserts that made them forget the absence of the richer indigestibles. And the way the food melted away before the onslaught of these trained athletes made the stewards gasp.

“Let us eat, drink and be merry,” quoted Drake, “for to-morrow we get seasick.”

“Don’t tell that to able-bodied sailors like us,” retorted Dick. “We got our sea legs long ago on the Pacific. After the typhoon we went through off the Japanese coast, I don’t think that any shindig the Atlantic can kick up will worry us much.”

“Well, you’re lucky in having served your apprenticeship,” returned Drake, “but for lots of the fellows this is their first trip and it’s a pretty safe bet that there won’t be as many at the dinner table to-morrow as there are to-day.”

“Oh, I don’t think it will bother them,” said Bert. “It’s the fellows with a paunch who have been living high that usually pay the penalty when they tackle a sea trip. Our boys are in such splendid shape that it probably won’t upset them.”

After dinner they made the round of the ship. Training was not to start until the next morning, and the rest of the day was theirs to do with as they liked.

As compared with the Fearless, the steamer on which they had made the voyage to China, the Northland was a giant. Apart from the splendid athletic equipment that made it unique, it ranked with the finest of the Atlantic liners. The great prow towered forty feet above the water. The ship was over seven hundred feet in length and nearly eighty feet wide. Great decks towered one above the other until it resembled a skyscraper. She was driven by powerful double screw engines of the latest type that could develop thirty-six thousand horsepower and were good for over twenty knots an hour. The saloons and cabins were the last word in ocean luxury. Ample provision had been made for safety. There were enough lifeboats and collapsible rafts, including two motor boats, to take care of every one of the passengers and crew in case of need. The lesson of the Titanic disaster had not been forgotten, and there was a double hull extending the whole length of the ship, so that if one were ripped open the other would probably be left intact. There were thirty-two water-tight compartments divided by steel bulkheads that could be closed in an instant by pressing a button either from the bridge or the engine room. The bridge itself was eighty feet above sea level, and it made the boys dizzy to look down at the great swells that slipped away smoothly on either side of the prow. Her length enabled her to cut into three waves at once so that the tossing motion was hardly perceptible. She rode the waters like a veritable queen of the sea. Her captain was a grizzled old veteran, who had been thirty years in the company’s employ and enjoyed their fullest confidence.

To the eager boys, always on the lookout for new impressions, their exploration of the ship was of the keenest interest. They were constantly coming across something novel. Their previous trip on the Fearless, when Bert had been the wireless operator, had of course made them familiar with most things pertaining to a ship. But the Fearless had been designed chiefly as a trading craft and the passenger feature had been merely an incident. Here it was the main thing and as each new fad and wrinkle came to their attention it awoke exclamations of wonder and approval.

“It’s the real thing in boats,” declared Dick, emphatically.

“That’s what it is,” echoed Tom. “It’s brought right up to the minute.”

“We’re getting a pretty nifty sea education,” remarked Bert. “By the time we get through this cruise, we ought to know a lot about the two greatest oceans in the world.”

“Yes,” replied Dick; “there’ll only be the two Arctics and the Indian Ocean left. The Arctics I don’t hanker after. There’s too much cold for yours truly, and seal meat and whale blubber don’t appeal to me as a steady diet. The Indian, on the other hand, is too hot, but after some of those days on the Pacific when the pitch fairly started out of the deck seams, I guess we could stand it.”

“Well, if we never get any more sea life than what we’re having, we’ll be way above the average,” said Bert. “And now let’s get down to the wireless room.”

And here Bert felt thoroughly at home. All the old days came back to him as he looked around at the wireless apparatus and saw the blue flames spitting from the sounder, as the operator sat at the key, sending and receiving messages from the home land that was so rapidly being left behind. Again he heard the appeal of the Caledonian, on fire from stem to stern, as her despairing call came through the night. Once more he was sending messages of cheer and hope to the battered liner whirling about in the grip of the typhoon. And, most thrilling of all, was the memory of that savage fight with the Chinese pirates when the current from the dynamo had shot its swift death into the yelling hordes just when their triumph seemed assured. What a miracle it all was, anyway—this mysterious force that linked the continents together—that brought hope to the despairing, comfort to the comfortless, life to the dying—this greatest of man’s discoveries that seemed almost to border on the supernatural!

The operator then on duty—one of three who worked in shifts of eight hours each, so that never for a moment of day or night was the key deserted—a bright, keen young fellow, but little older than the boys themselves, was pleased at their intelligent interest in his work, and, in the intervals between messages, fell into conversation with them and rapidly became chummy. When he learned that Bert himself was one of the craft, he suggested that he try his hand at sending and receiving a few, while he sat by and rested up. Bert assented with alacrity, and the little smile of good-natured patronage with which he watched him quickly changed to one of amazement, as he saw the swiftness and dexterity with which Bert handled the messages. Especially was he struck by the facility which he displayed at writing down the Marconigrams with his left hand while keeping the right on the key.

“Great Scott!” he exclaimed, “you’re a dandy. That two-handed stunt is a new one on me. It would make my work twice as fast and twice as easy if I could do it. Where did you get the idea?”

“Old Nature’s responsible for that,” laughed Bert. “When I was a kid I found it was almost as easy for me to use my left hand as my right, and I fell into the habit.”

“It’s a mighty good habit all right and don’t you forget it,” said the operator, emphatically. “I’m going to try to get it myself. If I do, I may be able to hit the company for a raise in salary,” he grinned.

“Here’s hoping you get it,” replied Bert, and after a little more talk and a cordial invitation to drop in whenever they could, the boys went out in the open.

The breeze freshened as night came on and the waves were running high, but the Northland was as “steady as a church.” After supper there was a concert in the great saloon and there was no dearth of talent. Some of the fellows were members of mandolin and banjo clubs and had brought their instruments along. Others had fine bass and tenor voices, and glee clubs were improvised. The amateur theatrical contingent was not lacking, and, what with song and sketch and music, the evening passed all too rapidly. The trainers, however, who never let pleasure interfere with business, came now to the fore and packed the boys off to their staterooms to have a good night’s rest before real work began on the morrow.

“Well,” said Bert, the next morning, as, after a hearty breakfast, he sat on the edge of his berth, getting into his running togs, “here comes one more new experience. There’s certainly nothing monotonous about the racing game. I’ve run up hill and down, I’ve run through the woods, I’ve run on the cinder paths, I’ve run round the bases, and, when the savages chased us last year, I ran for my life. Now I’m to run on a ship’s deck. I’ll bet there isn’t any kind of running I haven’t done. I’ve even run an automobile.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Dick, flippantly, “you haven’t run up a board bill.”

“No,” added Tom, “and you haven’t run for office.”

A well-aimed pillow that made him duck ended these outrages on the English language, and, as Reddy poked his head in just then to summon his charge, they tumbled up on deck.