“Sure enough I smell gasoline strong!” declared Jack.

“Some odoriferous, whatever that means!” cried Arnold.  “Smells like the gas house up near Goose Island in the North Branch of the Chicago River,” he added holding his nose.

“Switch on the electric lights and see where the gasoline pipe has broken loose,” suggested Jack.  “It seems to me the feed pipe must have become broken.  That’s an awful smell!”

“I’ll venture there are gallons of gasoline in the bilge right now!” averred Harry.  “Better open the windows a bit and let it air out in here.  Suppose you get the bilge pump to work, Tom, and I’ll try to find the leak.”

“Sure, I’ll pump the bilge,” assented Tom.  “Just look here at the stuff slopping up through the floor boards,” he continued.  “It surely looks as if we’d lost some fuel.”

“That’s funny,” declared Jack.  “I wonder how it could have happened.  The pipes were all right when we fitted out and nothing we have done since could have injured them.”

A shout from Harry announced a discovery.  He was backing out of the compartment under the pilot house floor and just forward of the engines.  As he appeared his face was the picture of rage.

“What’s it?” queried Tom.  “Don’t hold your breath that way, you’re apt to choke if you do,” he laughed.

“Where is the fellow that opened that drain cock?” shouted Harry shaking his fist in the air.  “Someone deliberately drained our gasoline into the bilge.  I found the drain cock wide open!”

“Nobody opened it,” asserted Jack.  “We were all in the pilot house since dinner watching the fog and we couldn’t reach the pipe.”

“I hate to say it, Jack, but we were not all in the pilot house,” answered Tom.  “Maybe it isn’t fair to the chap, but that fellow we nearly run over doesn’t look good to me.  I rather suspect him.”

“Hush, my lad,” Jack warned.  “A good Boy Scout doesn’t accuse anyone until he has proof, and we have no proof yet of his guilt.”

“All right, Jack,” unwillingly replied Tom, “but I can’t help feel the way I feel, can I?  He didn’t impress me very favorably.”

“And then, look at Rowdy!” put in Harry.  “He spotted the fellow when he was still hanging on the cable and he tried to get back into the cabin all the time to eat up his visitor.”

“Well, let’s go back and wake him up and see what he knows,” suggested Jack.  “Maybe he can put up a good story that will satisfy even you chaps.  I can hardly believe anyone would do a thing like that.  He has no motive for attempting to cripple us like this.”

The boys moved with one accord toward the after cabin.  The Fortuna rolled viciously in the trough of the choppy sea, making their footing extremely unsteady.  Jack swung open the door.

Starting back in amazement he bumped into Tom who was following closely.  Harry was at their heels peering over their shoulders.