With another impatient frown Mr. Melville held his watch out before Mr.
Farnum's eyes. That younger man hardly saw the dial. He was looking
past, out beyond the mouth of the little cove or harbor. As he did so,
Mr. Farnum beheld what, at first, looked like a big ripple spreading
over the placid water. Then the top of a steel conning tower shot up
into sight. It was followed by the emergence of the upper hull of a
strange looking cigar-shaped craft.

"Two minutes before the hour, did you say?" asked Jacob Farnum, placidly.
"Well, there's the 'Pollard,' just up from the depths, and gliding in
to anchorage."

Don Melville had strolled away from the pair, but now, at a call from
his father, he turned to watch the oncoming craft, which was none other
than the new submarine torpedo boat, the "Pollard."

The elder Melville was judge enough of boats and of boat-handling to
understand that the submarine was being brought into harbor in a very
clever, seamanlike manner.

"She's still running under electric power, you know," explained Mr.
Farnum. "The distance is so short that Captain Benson doesn't consider
it worth while to start the gasoline engine."

Now, the boat came to a stop, with a slight reversing of her propellers.
At this moment the manhole cover of the conning tower was raised. Out
onto the platform deck surrounding the tower Captain Jack Benson nimbly
stepped. As he took the wheel in the open, the craft glided on with
hardly perceptible motion to a mooring buoy a few yards distant. Out
hopped another boy, in dark blue naval uniform and visored cap. This