“Good heavens!  I can’t keep up this pace,” groaned John Rhinds.  “These editors won’t even give me time for sleep.”

Sudden blackness came over his eyes as he sat back, trying to think it all out.

“I can’t answer any of these telegrams,” he muttered, tearing up the offending messages.  “Oh, why did Radwin have to take wings at the very time when I need him most!  Fred Radwin, with his cool nerve, his steely eyes and his glib, lying tongue, would have been ready with answers for all these questions.  But I can’t do it.  I’ll need a strait-jacket, if these telegrams continue to arrive!”

Yet several more telegrams did come in, from newspapers in various Eastern states.  Rhinds read them, groaned and tore up the messages.

Then he smoked strong cigars, one after another, but that only made his nerves worse.  When he went to bed, late that night, he slept some, yet it was mainly to dream hideous dreams.

In the early morning Rhinds sent for morning newspapers.  These contained what he had said to local reporters, but his version, with the newspapers’ comments added, only made matters worse.  “That infernal ‘Gazette,’” in especial, printed, in bold type, the account of his refusal to let a committee of newspapermen examine his boat for a secret hiding place large enough to hold an extra torpedo.

That forenoon shore boats did a thriving business in carrying people out on trips around the Pollard and Rhinds submarines.  Trains brought in folks from other towns, all anxious for a glimpse of the submarine craft.

“This will drive me wild, yet,” groaned Mr. Rhinds.  “It’s an outrageous shame.”

Still, there was little realization, on his part, that he deserved all this, and more.

* * * * * * * * * *

“Jack, my boy,” muttered Jacob Farnum, looking up from a batch of morning newspapers in the cabin of the “Hastings,” “You’ve been the means of stirring up a bigger hurricane than ever raged at sea.”

“Are you sorry?” asked the young submarine captain, coolly.

“Well, considering my private opinion of Mr. John C. Rhinds, and my belief as to what he did—­or tried to do—­to us, I can’t say I’m deeply grieved,” returned the shipbuilder.

Then time shipbuilder looked around him, at all three of the submarine boys, as he went on: 

“Lads, we’ve been cramped up on this boat long enough, so I’m going to take you ashore this evening.  But remember—­not a word to reporters, or to anyone else.  If any one of you opens his mouth on this subject, I shall consider that young man no longer a friend of mine.”

All this while Chief Ward, of the Colfax police department, was busily engaged in seeking tidings of the missing Fred Radwin.  But Radwin, after entering that adjoining room, appeared to have been swallowed up.

Jack had heard, from the chief of police, of the disappearance of Radwin.  This was one feature of the story that the newspapers had as yet failed to discover.  However, Ward believed that Radwin was now hundreds of miles away, and still traveling.  So, when the Pollard submarine party came ashore that evening, none of them gave much thought to Radwin.