“Don’t be too sure yet, sir, that the Navy has escaped having me,” smiled back Skipper Jack.

“You don’t start until eight in the morning,” went on the shipbuilder.  “Pollard got back this evening, and he goes with us.  We take both the ‘Benson’ and the ‘Hastings.’  Eph will have to command one of the boats, I suppose?”

“Yes, sir; and he’ll have to be notified at once, too,” replied the young submarine commander.

“He’s on one of the craft now,” replied Mr. Farnum.  “Lieutenant Danvers goes with us, but he’s a guest, only, and will not have to help in handling the boats.  His two men, Ewald and Biffens, will take steering turns.  We’ve a four hundred and eighty mile sail before us, down to Groton Bay.”

“I know of the place, sir,” nodded Jack, without emotion or enthusiasm.  But Jacob Farnum’s next words all but lifted the submarine boys from their feet.

“Jack, my boy, and you, too, Hal, at Groton Bay you will have to make the very efforts of your lives.  We’re to go through an official test for the United States Government.  We shall be in competition with five other types of submarine boats—­the Rhinds, the Seawold, the Griffith, and the Blackson and Day.  We shall have to meet—­and I hope, vanquish—­all the recognized types of submarine boats made in the United States.”

“And we will beat them, too!” glowed Jack Benson, his eyes flashing and his fists clenching.

“By the way, Jack,” continued Mr. Farnum, “I had two applications for work this afternoon, from men who appear to know all about gasoline marine engines.  As we’ll be shorthanded for such a long cruise, do you suppose it would be worth while to look these fellows over and make up our minds about them?”

“Great Dewey—­no!” burst, vehemently, from the young submarine captain.  “If we’re going into the test of our lives—­for our very lives, I might say—­then we don’t want aboard any strangers who show up looking for jobs at the last moment.  No, sir; I won’t have them aboard—­that is, not if I go, too!”

“I guess that’s sensible enough,” nodded Mr. Farnum.  “Well, get aboard, boys.  Lieutenant Danvers will be out by ten o’clock.  Don’t lie awake to-night, thinking too hard of what’s before you.”

“Don’t you expect us to, sir,” smiled Captain Jack.  “We need our sleep to-night, if we’ve got such work ahead of us.  It’s big, work, sir.”

“Big enough,” nodded Jacob Farnum.  “If we come out of this big official test with all the points of the game, then Uncle Sam is likely to buy all the submarine boats we can make for a couple of years to come—­and our fortunes will be made—­yours, too, boys!”

This talk of the boys’ fortunes being at stake was not a matter of idle words.  Jack, Hal and Eph well understood that, if they came out successful, they would also be at least moderately well off.  Messrs. Farnum and Pollard were not of the kind to be niggardly in giving rewards fairly won.