place and they are almost always dressed as sailors."

"That's because the papers don't know anything," commented Tommy indignantly. "Why, the marines are the oldest branch of the service; older than the Navy or the Army. Aren't they, Dick?"

"Well, to tell the truth," Dick answered, "I'm a bit hazy about marines myself. Of course I've seen them around town and on the ships all my life, off and on, but I've been so much more interested in the work of a sailor that I haven't paid much attention to the military end of it."

"The marine is 'soldier and sailor too,'" said Tommy, sententiously. "That English poet, Kipling, says he can do any darned thing under the sun; and if all my uncle tells me is true, it must be so. He was a volunteer officer of marines in the war with Spain and fought in Cuba with them."

"Well, if they are soldiers also, why don't they stay ashore with the army?" persevered Robert, wishing to understand more about the men who had excited his interest.

"It's a pretty long story to tell you in a minute," answered Tommy; "besides, I may not get it all straight."

"That will be all right, Tommy," Gordon called out. "I do not know anything about them, either, and I suppose I had better learn everything I can about the Navy now. I've made up my mind, boys, that I do want to be an officer on one of these ships, and I am going to tell my father so to-night, as I know it will please him. So, Tommy, I propose that when we start for the boat-house, as you will have nothing else to do but steer, you tell us all you know about these 'Sea Soldiers.' Is my motion seconded?"

As Gordon finished speaking they were lying a little off the starboard quarter of the flagship, idly tossing in the short choppy sea that the breeze from the Sound had stirred up. A whistle from the deck now attracting their attention, the boys looked up in time to see a small marine with a bugle in his hand run along the deck and, after saluting the naval officer who had summoned him by the shrill blast, receive some instructions from the officer. After giving another salute to the officer, a second or two later the little trumpeter blew a call, the meaning of which was unknown to the silently attentive lads in the rowboat.

All the boys had some remark to make at this.

"Hello, look at Tom Thumb blowing the bugle," called Tommy, and he added, "If all the marines are his size, I should think someone had been robbing a nursery."

"Wonder what all the excitement means, anyway?" inquired Donald, as he saw various persons on the ship running about, evidently in answer to the summons of the bugle.

"You know all the bugle calls, Dick, because you were the best bugler in the Boy Scouts when we belonged; what was the call?" Gordon asked.

"You've sure got me buffaloed," answered Dick. "I learned every call in the Instruction Book for Boy Scouts, and I know every army call, but that one wasn't among them."

During this time their little boat was drifting slowly astern again when suddenly a long heavy motor boat rounded the battleship, just clearing her, and at terrific speed bore down on the drifting rowboat.

Instinctively the occupants of the rowboat sprang into action.

A warning cry was shouted to them through a megaphone from the deck of the battleship, the coxswain of the fast flying motor boat sounded two short blasts on his whistle, threw his helm hard over, and the crew shouted loudly. Tommy Turner in the excitement of the moment mixed his tiller ropes and sent his frail craft directly across the sharp bow of the approaching vessel.

With a smashing and crashing of wood the heavy motor boat practically cut the rowboat in two, forcing it beneath the surface and passing over it, and more quickly than it has taken to relate it the five boys were thrown into the sea.