they could find room, for a battleship at sea, with her full complement
of officers and men on board, is a crowded affair.

No other ship of the American fleet was in sight, but two operators,
constantly on duty in the wireless room, kept the "_Long Island_"
in constant touch with a score of vessels of the United States Navy.

"Have you any idea what we're doing here?" asked Danny Grin, as
he and Dave met on the superstructure.

"No idea whatever," Ensign Darrin admitted. "I have noticed,
though, that the officers on the bridge keep a constant lookout
ashore. See; two of them, even now, have their binoculars trained
on the shore."

"I don't see anything over there," replied Dalzell, "except a
house or a small village here and there. I looked through the
binoculars a little while ago, and to me it appeared a country
that was about nine-tenths swamp."

"In the event of sending landing parties ashore," Dave hinted,
"we might have to fight in one of those swamps. When it comes
to fighting in the tangles and mazes of a swamp, I fancy the Mexicans
have had a whole lot more experience than we have had."

"Why should we have to send landing parties so far from Vera Cruz?"
Dan demanded, opening his eyes.

"We're only forty or fifty miles east of Vera Cruz," Darrin went
on. "Danny boy, Vera Cruz is supposed to have a garrison, at