The Boy Scouts of Creston, although expert in nearly all water sports, and familiar with the gently flowing Hudson, and the quiet inland tides of bay and Sound, had had no experience as yet of ocean travel. The Alaska trip was the first test of their sailor-like qualities. In the “Inside passage” are two stretches of twenty and forty miles, where the full sweep of the Pacific rollers is felt, and it was while crossing one of these stretches that the “Queen” took on those erratic motions that sent Dick Pepper and Don to the open air so quickly and caused not a few of their fellow travelers considerable discomfort.

Strange as it may seem, none of the other boys were affected by the rough waters, and they quickly followed their chums to the deck to offer aid and comfort. It has always been one of the peculiarities of seasickness that, however important and serious it may seem to the victim, it is prone to arouse ridicule and humorous suggestions in those who are not subject to its attacks, and while Rand, Jack and Gerald did what they could for their unfortunate companions, they could not resist the temptation of an occasional sly reference to their chums’ poor qualities as sailors, that under any other circumstances would have driven the combative Pepper frantic.

“Wa’ yo tellin’ me, hoeny, tha’ wa’ some great scenery, ovah da’?” suggested Rand, falling into a broad Southern dialect that he used at times.

Poor Dick, whose interest centered in the dark blue of the water beneath him, attempted a glare of indignation with poor results, while Don made no attempt to express the briefest kind of an “opeenion.”

“Faith, and this the celebrated mal de mer, is it?” said Gerald, gazing with mock curious interest at his wilted chums.

“That’s brutal, Gerald,” exclaimed Jack, “seasickness is bad enough, without any of your Celtic High School French.”

“Begorra, it’s about all of it I remember, and maybe I’ll never get a chance to use it again.”

“I wish it was catching, like the measles or mumps,” gulped Pepper in a fury, “and I’d give it to you all.”

“What, French?” asked his brother.

“Naw, seasickness,” yelled Pepper, and bolted for his stateroom to be soon followed by his two companions in misfortune. A couple of hours in their bunks with some little attention from their now rather repentant critics, and the steamer having passed again into still water the patients were soon restored to normal health, with, if possible, greatly increased appetities.

Two days later, Jack, who was ever on the alert for something new and had made friends with several of the officers, thus getting the run of the ship, was exploring the lower decks, and walked through the quarters of the third class passengers. These were largely made up of laboring men going “in” for the summer work. A few miners who had spent all their money in the Pacific coast cities, and were going back to try their luck again, and a few of the class whom the police of those and other cities had simply told to “move on.”

The steerage quarters were rather dark, and hearing voices Jack stepped aside into a narrow passageway between the bunks to let a couple of men pass. The two turned into the same passageway which concealed Jack, and the latter recognizing the voice of Dublin sank down into one of the further berths as the others sat down on a couple of bunks near the entrance.

“I tell ye it’s a better game than the other,” said Dublin, “and we’re goin’ in for anything we can make.”

“I’m not strong for any new game that I don’t understand,” whined the voice of Rae, “and we’re in bad on this boat, as it stands. We’ll find games enough of our own when we git to Skagway.”

“Don’t lose yer nerve,” said Dublin, “with a good chance to make a stake in sight. These folks is takin’ in a lot of fine machinery, and that Yukon country is a long ways from where that machinery is made, and every nut and bolt in it will be worth its weight in coin by the time they’ve got it in there. All we got to do is to cop off a piston and a valve or two and this army man will be willin’ to pay several hundred dollars to get ’em back rather than wait for months to get ’em in from the outside.”

“Well,” replied Rae, “ye know that stealin’ up in this country is bigger crime than murder, and they don’t fool with the courts much.”

“Aw, this ain’t stealin’,” sneered Dublin, “it’s only kidnappin’ and holdin’ for ransom. I know just whereabouts in the hold this stuff was stored at Seattle, and that kid, Monkey, of yours, can get at it in ten minutes if he has the nerve. The stuff is not a hundred feet from us, and I can show him tonight how to do it.”

Rae, who was more or less of a coward, made further protest, but finally yielded, and the pair slipped out of the passageway and walked away still discussing the proposed scheme. Jack, glad to be released from the rather odorous confinement of the bunk into which he had crowded himself, left the third-class quarters and made for the upper deck.

His newspaper training, of which he had received a considerable amount in the intervals of his school days in the office of his father’s paper in Creston, included an acute sense of analysis, and he at once arrived at the opinion that the conspiracy he had heard referred to the freight which Colonel Snow was taking North, and his first impulse was to lay the matter before him for such action as he might see fit to take.

Then a foolish ambition to handle the thing alone, born possibly of that newspaper desire to bring off a “scoop” as an exclusive publication is called, coupled with the usual boyish longing to become a hero, incited him to circumvent the plot singlehanded and alone, prevented him from speaking to either the leader of the party or his chums. In addition, his journalistic training had instilled deeply one of the first rules of the profession, accuracy, and to tell the truth he was rather ashamed to go to Colonel Snow with so little evidence to back up his story, and so he determined to “keep tabs,” as he called it, on Monkey Rae, and knowing he could handle that young man physically to capture him redhanded and take him in dramatic fashion before the Captain.

Jack had no doubt that Dublin would carry out any scheme he had in mind at the first opportunity, and that the attempt to get into the hold would be made at a hatchway on the same deck with the steerage. The hold at this part of the ship being filled with machinery and other heavy freight, the hatch cover was not battened down and most of the time was left partially off in order to give a circulation of air through that part of the hold under the steerage.

About ten o’clock that night, Jack slipped away from his companions, and descended to the engine room deck, where he took up his place behind some packing cases, and awaited developments. Nearly all the steerage passengers were in their quarters, for the night was keen and there was little enjoyment in the open air.

An hour passed and Jack was becoming weary of his vigil, especially in view of the uncertainty of the coming of his quarry. Then, from the passageway leading to the steerage a slim figure emerged and by the dim light of the lamp which illuminated this part of the deck, Jack was just able to recognize Monkey, who carried in one hand a hatchet, and something like a policeman’s club in the other. Monkey glanced rapidly around the deck, looking for the watchman who at times visited every portion of the ship, but the coast was clear.

Crossing the deck the boy slipped easily between the partly raised hatch cover and the combing, and down the stationary iron ladder into the dark hold. As he did so a ray of light appeared in the hitherto dark hold. Glancing around to be sure that neither Dublin nor Rae were standing sentinel for the young marauder, Jack slipped noiselessly over the deck, and followed Monkey down the ladder.

A glance showed him that what Monkey carried in his right hand was a portable electric light and with this he was carefully searching for the marks upon some packing cases.

Jack tiptoed quietly toward him, intending to take him unawares, failing in his eagerness to make the capture to allow Monkey to make an attack upon the case with his hatchet sufficiently to “clinch” his evidence.

Just as Jack put out his hand to grasp the arm that held the hatchet his foot struck an unseen coil of rope, and he plunged head foremost into Monkey. The latter pitched forward three or four steps and Jack landed on his hands and knees, an accident that probably saved him serious injury, for at the moment the terror-stricken Monkey turned and aimed a furious blow at whatever had struck him.

At the same time he dropped the electric light, which promptly went out as the spring was released, and the hold was in darkness. Jack dared not move for fear of the hatchet, and all he could hear was the loud breathing of the terrified Monkey, who carefully began to grope for the lost lamp. The search was vain, and Jack was slowly backing away from the vicinity toward the ladder, intending to bar Monkey’s egress when he heard a movement that seemed to indicate that Monkey was climbing up the piled-up freight. Then there were two loud blows with the hatchet on the deck above them which formed the floor of the steerage quarters.

Scarcely a minute passed before a man with another electric light swarmed down the ladder, and Jack was in the hands of the powerful Dublin. At the same moment, Monkey dropped his hatchet and dashed past them to the ladder, where he hung like his simian namesake, calling shrilly for the night watchman. Jack made an effort to twist himself loose from the hands of Dublin, but in vain.

“What are ye doin’ down here, ye thief? Tryin’ to get at the cargo? Call the quartermaster there, Monkey.”

Realizing the trap into which he had fallen, Jack made no further effort to release himself until he reached the deck above, when he jerked away from Dublin and faced the quartermaster and the watchman. There they were joined by Rae and some of the other steerage passengers.

“Well, well; if it ain’t one o’ them boy Scouts; them amateur soldiers. Where d’ye find him, Monkey?”

“I seen him hanging round this deck and when he slipped down in the hold with a hatchet and a ’lectric light. I followed him. He jumped onto me and I run back to the ladder and yelled for Dublin, and he come and got him.”

“How about this, young feller?” asked the quartermaster. “What were you doin’ down that hold this time o’ night. Ain’t ye one of Colonel Snow’s party?”

“I am,” said Jack, “and this man’s story is a straightout falsehood. It was I who followed this boy down into the hold on information that I got”—

A burst of laughter from both Rae and Dublin interrupted Jack’s story, and both men swore vehemently that Monkey had been in his berth up to a few minutes before he had called for Dublin. Jack, recognizing his folly in not having notified Colonel Snow and the Captain of the conspiracy, and also the way in which the tables had been turned upon him in his attempt to “go it alone,” said:

“I will explain this thing to the Captain; I think he will understand it.”

“I guess you’d better,” said the puzzled quartermaster; “but we can’t wake him up tonight. I’ll see ye up to yer stateroom and you can explain in the morning. And you,” he said, sharply, turning to Dublin and Monkey, “you be on hand with your story. Meantime,” to the watchman, “put on that hatch cover and lock it.”

As early the next morning as possible, Jack sought an interview with Col. Snow and told him the whole story. The latter was greatly interested, but said plainly that Jack should not have undertaken to handle the matter by himself.

The Captain was not so easily pacified. He heard both stories and grinned quietly as both Rae and Dublin tried to make a hero out of Monkey.

“I’ve told you fellows you’re too much in evidence on this boat and I don’t want to hear anything more from you until we get to Skagway.” Col. Snow’s intercession arranged matters for Jack but he did not get off any too easily.

“I haven’t any doubt but that your story has a good foundation, but it would hardly go as evidence in a court of law, and even if the Colonel here thought it worth while, I don’t suppose he cares to be bothered with a prosecution in courts that are three years behind with their cases. I shall take occasion to draw the attention of the authorities to this crowd, when we reach Skagway, however.

“I should like to say, however, that in a case like this, your first duty was to have informed me, and let me police my own boat. I am the superior officer here, as you know. I understand you belong to that excellent organization, the Boy Scouts, and if I am not mistaken, there is one little line in the ritual devoted to discipline. Good morning.” And despite the rebuke which brought the flush to Jack’s face, the captain smiled, and shook hands pleasantly.

The story could not be kept from the chums, who were rather inclined to resent Jack’s failure to let them take a hand in the capture of Monkey Rae. They rallied Jack not a little on his grand effort at heroism and Rand even dug up an old schoolbook quotation about an engineer who had been hoist with his own petard. The boys took their disappointment out in various good natured gibes, and mock congratulations to “the Sherlock Holmes of the good steamer Queen” were a daily occurrence until the arrival at Ketchikan and new scenes drove the incident from the boys’ memories. It was to be recalled in much more serious form a little later.