A BIT OF PROMOTION.

"Strong," began the captain, "I sent for you to ask you a few questions. As you know, I have taken some interest in you since I witnessed your courageous behavior aboard the Rhode Island."

Ned blushed hotly, but said nothing. The captain's remark did not seem to call for a reply.

"You have ambitions, and your friend Taylor has also, I presume."

"Yes, sir," replied Ned; "we wish to advance ourselves in our chosen profession, sir."

"I am going to give you a chance," was the rejoinder. "You are, of course, acquainted with the rudiments of gunnery?"

"Yes, sir. We were schooled in the elements of gun practice at Newport."

"So I perceived by a perusal of your papers."

This was news to Ned, who had not hitherto dreamed that the commander of a vessel like the Manhattan would have time to pay any attention to two mere ordinary seamen. In this, however, he was mistaken. The officers of the United States Navy are ever on the lookout for new material, and watch any promising youngsters with keen interest, giving them every opportunity to show what they can do.

"I am going to put you and your friend Taylor on a gun crew."

"Oh, thank you, sir!" burst out Ned, his eyes almost popping out of his head, but preserving a cool exterior, nevertheless.

"Wait a minute. I have not finished yet," went on the captain, with a twinkle in his eye. "Your friend Taylor is er-er somewhat impulsive, I should imagine?"

"Well, yes, sir; but he had plenty of provocation for what he did the other day," spoke up Ned boldly. He was delighted that a chance had come to tell the facts in the case which poor Herc, in his embarrassment, had neglected doing.

"So I understood. The man Kennell, I understand, attacked him. For this reason Taylor will be released to-day. But even so, he had his recourse in reporting the matter."

"That was not all, sir," broke out Ned.

"Not all? What do you mean?"

"That I saw the man Kennell deliberately trip Herc—Seaman Taylor, I mean, sir—as he was walking the boom the day he boarded the Manhattan."

"You mean the day you dived over after him? It was pluckily done."

"Yes, sir. Kennell had been badgering him in the boat, and then deliberately tripped him."

"That chimes in with the reports I have heard about Kennell," remarked the captain. "However, that matter is past, and official action cannot now be taken. I have spoken to the gunnery officer, Lieutenant Timmons, about you two boys, and to-morrow you will be a part of the crew of the fifteen-inch guns in the forward turret."

Ned's heart was too full for utterance. He stammered his thanks, and obeying the captain's curt nod of dismissal, hastened from the cabin, his head fairly buzzing over the good luck that had come to them.

"If I am not mistaken," thought the captain, as Ned left the cabin, "I have selected two good bits of material in those lads for Timmons. Yet the experiments with that Varian gun are going to be dangerous, and perhaps I was wrong to place those two boys in peril. However, the life of a sailor is made up of risk and danger, and there is no more danger with that gun than with any other piece of modern ordnance. It is only because it is untried that it seems more fraught with possible mishap."

Had the captain possessed the gift of prophecy—— But what man or woman does? If they did, perhaps many of the experiments which have proved of the biggest ultimate benefit to the world would never have been tried.

Ned, his head fairly buzzing with his good fortune, hastened forward. He wished he could communicate with Herc and cheer up that captive by news of their good fortune. Musing thus, he had the misfortune, as he reached the fore deck, to collide with a man hastening in an opposite direction.

He looked up with a quick word of apology, and found himself gazing full into the scowling features of the Dreadnought Boys' arch enemy—Kennell!

"Out of my way, you young mucker!" glowered the man, with a look of hatred, "or I'll maul you up as badly as I did that red-headed young cub."

"You mean my friend, Herc Taylor."

"I said 'cub!'"

"And I said friend!"

Ned returned the man's glare firmly.

"I see I shall have to give you a good lesson, too, one of these days!" hissed Kennell evilly.

Ned, fresh from the presence of the captain, proud of his promotion—for so he considered it, the twelve-inch turret being the "prize detail" of the ship—had no desire to get into a fistic argument. He knew the captain was a stickler for discipline, for all his kind heart, and that with one of the Dreadnought Boys already undergoing punishment, although unjustly, it would be the worst thing that could happen for him to become embroiled with Kennell.

He therefore regarded Kennell with a cold stare and said sharply:

"Let me pass, please. I am in a hurry and have no time to waste."

Kennell planted his bulky form squarely in the Dreadnought Boy's path.

"You'll pass when I get good and ready," he grated out. "It's time you boys learned a lesson or two, and I'm going to give it to you!"

"I said let me pass," repeated Ned firmly, making a determined effort to quell his rising tide of hot anger at the fellow's evident determination to provoke him into a quarrel.

"Call me 'sir' when you address me," ordered Kennell pugnaciously. "I'm going to teach you how to address your seniors in the service."

"I only say 'sir' to men I respect," was the sharp retort, the very coolness of which stung Kennell to renewed fury. His rage was increased by the fact that a group of sailors, momentarily growing larger, began to titter at his discomfiture.

"Better leave him alone, Ralph," laughed old Tom mischievously. "He's as sharp a young file as I am an old one."

Ned took advantage of the temporary diversion to try to slip past without trouble. He had his own ideas of getting even with Kennell, and it was no part of his plan to break regulations by getting involved in a fight with him on shipboard. He stepped forward to pass on.

Kennell was too quick for him.

"Say 'sir'!" he demanded.

"I have already told you for whom I reserved that distinction," said Ned in a low voice, "and you are emphatically not in that class."

"Maybe this will teach you respect for your superiors."

A huge, gnarled fist, knotted and twisted by many a battle, shook under Ned's nose.

The undismayed boy gave a low laugh of contempt.

"You'd better put that hand to work, instead of going round trying to scare people with it," he said stingingly.

"I will put it to work. SO!"

Wh-oo-oo-f!

The fist fairly whistled as it shot out with the force of a torpedo speeding on its destructive way.

But Ned was not in its path. Thrown off his balance by the boy's quick avoidance of the sledge-hammer blow, Kennell stumbled forward.

Quick as a whip snap, Ned stepped under his guard and planted a crushing blow in the fighter's ribs.

But delivered as it was, with the full force of the Dreadnought Boy's well-trained muscle, it seemed hardly to sway the bullock-like frame of the ship's blusterer.

"I've got the fight of my life on my hands," was Ned's quick thought, as Kennell, recovering himself, prepared, with a confident grin, to annihilate his young opponent.