cackled. “Skipper gave you the rough side of his tongue, eh? Well, you’ll get used to it. Here, let me show you two below.”

They went down, down and down, to the lowest hold, and as they descended the ladder, Sandy Steele wondered to himself if he could ever possibly get used to an insulting man like Captain West. He was thinking the same thing as he and Jerry tumbled wearily into the bunks which occupied almost all the space in their tiny cabin. Jerry slept below, and Sandy above.

The more Sandy thought of Captain West, the more convinced he became that he and Jerry should leave the ship before the James Kennedy cast off her moorings and got under way. But, no, he thought again, that would be too much like quitting. Still, what were they to do? For some unexplained reason, Captain West despised them and was determined to make their voyage as unpleasant as he could. But why? Sandy could not understand it. He forced his tired brain to go over all the events of the day. He could recall seeing Captain West twice at his father’s field station. Then, he had seen him again when Mr. Kennedy brought them aboard ship. Apart from that, he had never seen the man before.

Suddenly, in a tiny corner of Sandy Steele’s brain, a light flashed. Astounded, unable to believe what he remembered seeing, Sandy shot erect. His head struck the overhead a painful blow, and below him Jerry James sputtered out of a sound sleep.

“Sandy! Sandy, what happened?”

“I just hit my head, but never mind that, Jerry,” Sandy whispered. “Listen, remember when Mr. Kennedy was saying so sadly that the Kennedy boats would have another name soon?”

“Yes?”

“Can you remember the other name?”

“Sure. It was Chadwick. He said he was completing a deal with Paul Chadwick.”

Jerry James heard a sharp hiss above him, and then the rustling of bedclothes. Then, to his surprise, a pair of long, lean-muscled legs dropped down in front of his eyes. In the next instant, Sandy Steele was crouching in his underwear alongside Jerry’s bunk, whispering excitedly.

“Chadwick! That’s it! Listen, Jerry, when I came in to Captain West’s cabin tonight, I interrupted him as he was writing a letter. I didn’t mean to see who it was addressed to, but I did.” Sandy paused dramatically. “It was addressed to Mr. Paul Chadwick!”

For a long second, there was a silence in the little cabin, a silence broken only by the heavy breathing of the two youths. Then, as Jerry James scrambled quickly from his bunk, Sandy whispered, “We’ve got to get out of here and warn Mr. Kennedy, Jerry. I’m positive that Captain West is working for the Chadwick shipping interests, and against Mr. Kennedy. He’ll never tell Mr. Kennedy about the deposits Dad discovered! And Mr. Kennedy will go right ahead and sell his boats for practically nothing!”

“You’re right, Sandy,” Jerry whispered, hastily pulling on his dungaree pants. “Good thing you found out about Captain West before it was too late. Our ship doesn’t sail until to—”

Jerry James cut short his sentence with a groan. In their mad rush to get dressed, Sandy and Jerry had not noticed the steady shuddering of the James Kennedy’s sides. They had paid no heed to the regular throbbing of her motors.

The James Kennedy had put out on Lake Superior ten minutes ago.