“Now, see here,” protested Benson, good humoredly, “as I understand it, you’re paid to take me over to the Army tug—­not to ask questions.  Am I right?”

“You’re right,” nodded the fisherman, then surveyed the boy’s uniform curiously.

“Your uniform looks like you was in the Navy?” suggested the man at the stern of the boat.

“Does it?” queried Jack.

“Are you in the Navy?” persisted the boat man.

“Just now, I’m serving with the Army,” Captain Jack replied, evasively.

“Are you—­” started in the human interrogation point, anew.

“See here,” broke in the submarine boy, “I thought we agreed you had just one job to do for me, and that questions formed no part of it.”

“That’s right,” agreed the fisherman.  “But say, there’s just one question I wish you’d answer me.  Are you—­”

“No!” interrupted Benson, decisively.  “I am not.  I never was.”

“You didn’t let me finish,” complained the man.

“Wait until I’m out of the boat,” proposed the submarine boy.  “Then ask all the questions you like.  Maybe you’re paid to ask questions, but I’m paid to hold my mouth shut.”

It went a good deal against the submarine boy’s grain to be so brusque with an inquisitive stranger, but there seemed to be no other defense.

“Oh, well, if you’re ashamed of your business—­” retorted the fisherman, falling into a sullen silence.

This turn of affairs just suited Benson.  He compressed his lips and sat back, looking out across the bay at the tug, which was at work some three miles away.

“Can you put on a little more speed?” inquired Jack.

“No,” answered the fisherman, sulkily.  “Doin’ all the gait she’ll kick now.”

So Jack possessed his soul in patience until the wheezy little launch had covered the whole distance.

While still some two hundred yards off Jack caught sight of Major Woodruff coming out of the after cabin of the tug.

“Ahoy, Major!” yelled the submarine boy, holding his hands to his lips.  “Perhaps you’d better stop work until I’ve reported.”

Then the launch ran in alongside, and Jack stepped up to the deck of the tug, holding tightly to the loot he had taken from Millard.

The master of the launch manifested a disposition to hang about in the near vicinity, until curtly ordered away by Major Woodruff.

“I suppose you thought, Major, that I took a good deal upon myself in advising you to suspend work,” Jack hinted.  “Yet I’ve something to show you, and much to tell you.  And I’m wagering an anchor to a fish-hook that you’ll be glad you stationed me over on that neck of sand.”

Major Woodruff led the way back into the cabin.  There he examined the chart, with a start of astonishment.

“The fellow was marking down all our mine positions,” came savagely from between the Army officer’s teeth.