NORTHWARD BOUND!

It was a jovial crowd that the submarine carried into Smyth Channel, practically free of the strait and ready to reach out along the coast up the western edge of two continents.

Speake was serving dinner, and all were in the periscope room with the exception of Gaines and Clackett, who had to be on duty below. But Gaines and Clackett were listening at their speaking tubes and hearing all that was taking place in the chamber overhead.

"These experiences of ours, during the last few days," said Glennie, "prove that luck wears as many disguises as those Japs."

"Dot vas some deep talk," said Carl; "so deep, py shinks, dot I can't onderstand id."

"You're getting terribly thick-headed all at once, Carl," said Dick.

"Oh, I don'd know," said Carl easily. "Who vas id got loose mit himseluf in der beriscope room und got pack der Grampus from der gonficts? Leedle Carl, I bed you. A feller vat vas t'ick-headed couldn't do dot. Hey, Matt?"

"You're right, Carl," laughed Matt. "It took a pretty bright fellow to do that; and your brightness flashed up at just the right time."

"And then flashed out again," said Dick, with a wink at Matt, "and we haven't seen it since."

"Vell, meppy," observed Carl. "Anyvay, subbose Glennie oxblains vat he means ven he say dot luck vears so many tisguises as der Chaps. I nefer see luck but in two vays—von iss goot luck, und der odder iss pad luck. I can shpot dose fellers so far as I can see dem."

"Do you know good luck when you see it, Carl?" went on Glennie.

"Don'd I say dot? Sure I do."

"Well, was meeting those convicts good luck or bad for Motor Matt and the rest of the motor boys?"

"Vat a foolish kvestion!" muttered Carl. "It vas pad luck righdt from der chump off. Ditn't Modor Matt, und you, und Tick come pooty near going off der poat drying to ged dose fellers? Vas dot goot luck?"

"Well," went on Glennie, "what was it when Captain Sandoval made up with Motor Matt and went after the Japs' steamer, thereby leaving us free to proceed north without having anything to fear from the Sons of the Rising Sun?"

"Dot kvestion iss more foolish as der odder," said Carl disgustedly; "dot vas goot luck."

"Then if we hadn't had the bad luck we couldn't have had the good luck."

"You vas gedding grazy, Glennie. I von't lisden to sooch a ignorance."

There was a general laugh at this.

"Now, wait a minute, Carl," proceeded Glennie. "I want to change your views on the subject of luck. If we had not taken the convicts aboard we should not have delivered them to Captain Sandoval; and——"

"Und oof ve hatn't telivered dem to Santoval," continued Carl, taking up the theme, "Matt vouldn't have gone on der poat und got indo drouple."

"And if Matt hadn't got into trouble, we should not have put in at Punta Arenas; and if we hadn't stopped there, we wouldn't have got Matt away from Sandoval; and if Sandoval hadn't been trying to test Matt's story about the convicts, he wouldn't have come after us when we fled from Punta Arenas; and if he hadn't found us and made his peace with Matt, he wouldn't now be chasing the Sons of the Rising Sun or——"

"Ach, himmelblitzen!" groaned Carl, clapping his fingers over his ears, "shdop it! You vill haf me grazier as a pedpug."

"Well, you see, don't you, that helping the convicts, which you called bad luck, really resulted in bringing us in touch with Captain Sandoval, who is now our friend and doing his utmost to overhaul the Japs. He will keep the Sons of the Rising Sun so busy that they won't have any chance to follow us up the coast."

"You've run the bell with your remarks, Glennie," said Dick. "We can't always tell whether things are happening to us for the better or for the worse. But, taking 'em full and by, they usually pan out what's best for us."

"My little scheme for gaining time on the Japs by sending them around the Horn didn't work," put in Matt.

"It was a clever scheme, all right," declared Glennie, "and it would have worked if the motor hadn't balked on us and compelled us to lose a day."

"We've given the Sons of the Rising Sun something to think about," said Dick. "Keelhaul me if I don't think they'll just about throw up their hands and quit after this."

"If Sandoval gets them," returned Glennie, "he'll keep them in Punta Arenas until we reach Mare Island."

"And if he don't get them," queried Matt, "what then?"

"There's no doubt about his getting them, old ship!" exclaimed Dick. "The war ship is a faster boat than the steamer."

"But Sandoval hasn't the cunning nor the brains that the leader of those Japs has!"

"That may be, but it doesn't take much cunning or brains for a straight-away race. The fastest boat will win, and I'm banking on the Salvadore. You don't mean to say, matey, that you're expecting to meet the Young Samurai somewhere up the coast?"

"I'm not expecting it, Dick," answered Matt, "but I'm not going to let anything surprise me. The things you least expect are the things those Japs are certain to do."

"I hope like anyt'ing dot der resdt oof dis gruise don'd vas going to be some Suntay-school bicnics," piped Carl grewsomely. "I vould like to haf a leedle chincher shdill lefdt in der expetition."

"I guess we'll have ginger enough left, Carl," said Glennie, "even if we don't have anything more to do with the Sons of the Rising Sun."

"Where's our next port of call, matey?" queried Dick, directing the question at Matt.

"You know what Brigham said we were to do when we mentioned any place where we were to put in with the Grampus?" laughed Matt.

"He said," replied Glennie, "that we ought to go down in the deepest part of the ocean and then whisper it."

"Vat dit he mean by sooch grazy talk as dot?" inquired Carl.

"He meant," said Matt, "that the Japs were full of guile, and that the plans we least expected them to overhear would be the very ones they discovered. We came down the east coast of the continent from Brazil and the River Plate, and laid in at Gallego Bay. If we hadn't done that, we shouldn't have discovered that the Japs were following us, their boat newly painted and two wireless masts on her deck. Those lads had their wits about them when they did that wireless work; and it was only an accident that enabled us to catch their messages, and answer them, putting them on a wrong tack."

"But that isn't telling us, mate, where our next port of call is to be."

"I was trying to emphasize Mr. Brigham's advice of keeping such matters to ourselves."

"But it isn't necessary, now that the Sons of the Rising Sun are out of the running."

"Possibly it isn't. Well, we shall have to have more gasoline about the time we reach Valparaiso. You can draw your own inferences from that."

"That means," said Dick, "that we put in at Valparaiso. That will do, fine. I've been there a lot of times, and I'm a Fiji if I wouldn't like to renew some old acquaintance among the Chilians and the English colony. Let's lay over a day or two, Matt, when we get there, and not just paddle ashore, get the gasoline, and put to sea again."

"How long we stay in the place, Dick," returned Matt, "will have to depend on circumstances. We've got to make good, you know, by delivering the Grampus safely at Mare Island Navy Yard."

"Well, I guess we've nothing but plain sailing ahead of us," said Dick. "You won't have to set a pattern of defiance for the rest of us again, or use our wireless apparatus to send a disguised Jap steamer around the Horn."

"When we ought to have gone around the Horn ourselves," added Matt.

"I don't agree with you there," said Glennie. "By coming through the strait you took the most dangerous passage, and it will count more as a test of the submarine's capabilities than rounding the Horn."

"I agree with you on that point, Glennie," returned Matt, "and I am glad you take that view of a case that was practically forced upon us by the Sons of the Rising Sun."

"To their own undoing," finished Glennie.

THE END.

THE NEXT NUMBER (20) WILL CONTAIN

Motor Matt Makes Good;

OR,

Another Victory for the Motor Boys.

Off the Chilian Coast—Hurled into the Sea—Saved by a Torpedo—Weighing the Evidence—A Surprising Situation—Another Attack—A Bad Half Hour—Chasing a Torpedo—Northward Bound—A Halt for Repairs—Dick Makes a Discovery—A Wary Foe—Pluck that Wins—A Little Work On the Inside—A Star Performance—Conclusion.

NEW YORK, July 3, 1909.

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