you boys on land."




CHAPTER VII

FOG HAUNTED


The S. P. 888 was shaking throughout her structure before she came
square with the exit of the cove. If a destroyer is "a tin box built
around a mighty big engine," the term even more nearly fits one of these
chasers.

The four Navy boys from Seacove were amazed by the quickness with which
she got under way and the brief time it took to tune her up to top-notch
speed.

"She's a hundred and ten feet long," said Mr. MacMasters, "about as wide
as a happy thought, and can make her thirty-five knots an hour without
any particular effort."

"No effort?" muttered Torry. "And it feels as though she was shaking
herself to pieces!"

"She's faster than the _Colodia_," observed Whistler, somewhat as though
he felt pained by that fact. That any other craft should be a sweeter
sailer than his beloved destroyer seemed to him almost a crime.