“That was for a caution.  The next shot will be to hit!” panted the pursuer.

“I wonder if you can do it?” Jack taunted backward over his shoulder.

There was method in the submarine boy’s tactics.  He hoped, by making the stranger angry, to spoil his aim.

Crack!  The bullet sped by, fanning the fugitive’s face.  The close aim, however, had the reverse of the effect expected by the marksman.  It roused all the submarine boy’s anger.  He might be hit, but he would stop, now, only if a bullet laid him low.

Two more shots sped after the fugitive.  Their aim was too close for comfort, though not true enough to score a hit.  Each of the shots sounded a bit further back, too.

“He’s getting winded,” gritted the running submarine boy.  “With his long legs that chap ought to get over ground faster than I. The difference is that that fellow is out of condition, and my hard work keeps me about up to the mark of condition all the time.  He—­”

Crack!  Jack happened to turn, just as the fellow fired, and the boy was able to see that the bullet struck the ground behind him.

“Out of range!” clicked Benson.  “What’s the good of carrying a pocket revolver for service work?  Now, if he had a dozen shots more left he would be wasting his cartridges to fire at me.”

In fact, it was plain enough that the pursuer had given up the chase for the time being.  Not only was he out of range of his quarry, but the long-legged one lacked the wind to keep on on foot.

“Say, what a fool I’d have been, to give up this plunder!” cried Jack, mockingly.  “That chap couldn’t catch me; he couldn’t hit me.  So I’ve gotten away with the stuff he was so anxious to have—­and which the Army, I’ll bet, would a thousand times rather he didn’t have!”

“Now, how am I going to get back to the Army people?” wondered young Benson, slowing down to a walk, though keeping a vigilant lookout to the rear.  “I don’t want to walk something like a million miles to find a place from which I can get across the bay.”

It was desolate country, over here.  Jack and the long-legged one, well to his rear, now, might be the only human beings within some miles.  The outlook was not an encouraging one.

“Say!  Wow!  Whoop!  Blazes!” uttered Captain Jack, suddenly.  “Now, I remember Long-legs!  Millard was the name he gave when he came to us, at Dunhaven, last Fall.  He was the chap who wanted to work on the submarine construction.  Said he’d do any kind of work, but Grant Andrews put him in a separate shed, sorting and counting steel rivets, and never let him get near a submarine boat.  That’s the same fellow—­Millard.  Or, at least, that was the name he gave them.  But, when Millard found he wasn’t going to do anything but take care of rivets, he threw up the job four days after.  He had pretended to be mighty hard up, too, and wanted work at any sort of wages.”