A STRANGE RETURN.

"You say Seaman Strong made his way after the men you suspected, and that was the last you saw of him?"

Rear-Admiral Gibbons, Captain Dunham and several other officers were seated in a room on the lower floor of the hotel at which the banquet that had ended so disastrously for the inventor, Varian, had taken place.

Herc shifted uneasily on his feet. He felt alarmed before this glittering court of inquiry that had convened as soon as it became apparent that the absence of Henry Varian, discovered shortly before midnight, was no mere accident.

"Yes, sir," he replied to Captain Dunham, who had put the question.

"Can it be possible that the man Strong was in league with the miscreants? The circumstances seem very suspicious," put in the rear-admiral.

"I think, sir," said Captain Dunham, "that we shall find, when the mysterious affair is sifted, that young Strong acted the part of a United States sailor in the matter. I have kept a careful eye on him, and should be loath to believe him anything else than an upright, honest young fellow of uncommon capability."

"Good for you," thought Herc to himself.

"And what were you doing all this time?" inquired one of the officers of the embarrassed witness.

"Picking stickers out of myself, sir."

"What! Be careful, young man; this is no time for levity."

"Well, sir, I guess if you had fallen into a tack-tus bush you'd have been picking those vegetable tenpenny nails out of your system for a while, too," replied Herc in an aggrieved tone, while suspicious twitches appeared about the corners of the mouths of several of the assembly. Rear-Admiral Gibbons got up and gazed out of the window for a moment to conceal his smiles at the naÏve rejoinder of the red-headed youth.

Suddenly he turned, with a sharp exclamation.

"Gentlemen," he exclaimed, "here comes the automobile, or one just like it, that those two precious rascals, the Pulsifers, used. I've seen it before. As it was the only one in Guantanamo, I remarked it especially."

The officers crowded to the window, and Herc would have joined them, but a marine barred his way.

"Get back, young feller," he warned, suggestively pointing his bayonet.

"Huh! I guess you never had a friend in trouble," grunted Herc, going back to his witness chair in high dudgeon.

But the auto, instead of coming up to the hotel, turned off two blocks below.

"Possibly I was mistaken," said the admiral. "Those two figures in it didn't look like the two scoundrels, but at the distance it is impossible to tell."

"In any event, sir, they cannot escape from Cuba," spoke up one of the officers. "Every port has been telegraphed. Their capture is almost certain."

This was indeed the case. An investigation of the garden had shown clear indications of the struggle that had taken place there the night before, and servants had been discovered who had seen the inventor issuing into the garden with the unsavory Pulsifers. The odor of chloroform still clinging to the grass decided the matter, and completed the chain of circumstantial evidence. Herc, too, had been able to supplement the mute testimony by his story of the convict film and the names of the conspirators. Already a launch full of marines had been sent to Boco del Toros to intercept the yacht Carl and Silas had mentioned in the lad's hearing.

This much having been done, a code message had been sent to the secretary of the navy, who had at once ordered every port in Cuba watched, and detailed secret service men in the United States to special duty to apprehend the Pulsifers if they attempted to land in America.

The examination of Herc, who was, of course, the principal witness, went on.

At its conclusion an officer of the Illinois begged permission to ask one more question.

"My man, did you or your friend talk over this step of his?"

"Not any more than I have told you, sir," rejoined Herc, somewhat puzzled.

"I submit, sir," remarked the officer, turning to the rear-admiral, "this looks somewhat as if the lad was in league with the Pulsifers. We know now, from what this lad has told us, that other members of the crew were disaffected; possibly Strong was bribed, too."

"You don't know Ned Strong, sir," spoke up Herc, "or——"

"Silence, sir!" thundered the officer.

"Huh!" grunted Herc, in a low tone, however.

"As I was saying, sir, the whole thing looks, as you said, suspicious. We know that the lad was recently placed in the forward turret of the Manhattan, and would have had an opportunity to examine the breechblock of the Varian gun. He might even have made rough drawings of it."

"What you say is plausible, Captain Stirling," nodded the rear-admiral gravely.

"I don't believe a word of it!" snapped Captain Dunham hotly. "I'll stake a good deal on that youngster's honesty, and——"

"You'll win!" came a crisp voice from the rear of the room.

The officers turned, amazed, and set up a shout of astonishment as they beheld, framed in the door which they had entered noiselessly, the figures of the inventor, and, standing, cap in hand, by his side, the Dreadnought Boy, the lad to whose pluck and resourcefulness the inventor largely owed his liberty.

"I repeat it, gentlemen," went on the inventor, for it was he who had voiced the interruption; "there isn't a finer, more capable or grittier lad in the service to-day than Ned Strong of the Manhattan."

"But, but—gentlemen, pray sit down——" began the rear-admiral. "Really this is most irregular."

He sat down resignedly as the officers pressed about the inventor and Ned. In a few moments order was restored, and the two newly escaped captives were telling their story.

"But how did you get back from the Sierra Madre Mountains so quickly?" asked Captain Dunham, who was familiar with Cuba and had recognized the location of the Pulsifers' hut from the inventor's description.

"Let Ned Strong tell that," smiled the inventor.

"Why, gentlemen, we—we borrowed Mr. Pulsifer's automobile," explained the Dreadnought Boy.

"Good for you!" burst out Herc, who had been dancing about in the background, hardly able to keep down his excitement. Of course, discipline did not permit his greeting Ned just then, and he had been on the point of exploding ever since his chum entered the room.

In the general excitement no one reproved the impulsive youth, who turned as red as a winter sunset when he realized what a sad breach of naval etiquette he had committed.

"Strong, stand forward," ordered Rear-Admiral Gibbons, as the inventor took up and concluded the story of how they had missed their road, but finally found their way into town, going first to a house occupied by some friends of Mr. Varian's before proceeding to the hotel. At the home of the inventor's friends they had got a wash and brush-up which both stood sadly in need of. Ned's leg, besides, had required dressing. It turned out to be, as he had guessed, only a flesh wound, but was sufficiently painful, though not dangerous in any way.

In obedience to his superior's command, the young seaman took two paces to the front and saluted, bringing his heels together with a smart click, despite the pain his wound gave him as he did so.

"Strong," went on the admiral, "you have done Mr. Varian and the United States Navy a great service. Had it not been for your quick, intelligent work, it might have been that the Pulsifers and the others implicated in this dastardly affair would have escaped. Mr. Varian might not have been with us this morning. I congratulate and thank you on behalf of the government and on behalf of the naval department and officers of this squadron."

Ned's lips moved. Somehow he couldn't speak. Herc's face, bisected by a broad grin, thrust itself forward among the officers till it appeared, like a whimsical moon, between the elbows of Captain Dunham and the rear-admiral.

"I shall see, Strong," went on the admiral, "that some signal notice is taken of your clever, plucky work. You are of the stuff of which real seamen are made and we want to encourage men like you in every way possible. And now, gentlemen, as we are not within hearing of Washington—or the papers—perhaps it might not be inconsistent with the occasion to give three cheers."

"Oh, those crazy Americanoes!" exclaimed the little yellow-faced Cubans, as three long, resounding naval cheers, with a zipping "tiger," rang through the stagnant tropic air and went booming over the water as far as the grim sea bulldogs of Uncle Sam, lying at anchor off the town.