"She most certainly is," agreed Ensign MacMasters. "She is some speed
boat!"

"Why!" Frenchy cried, "she must be faster than the admiral's hydroboat
we saw at Newport."

"No, no!" said the ensign. "Those hydroboats have got every other craft
in the Navy beaten to a standstill. And about all they use 'em for is
pleasure boats."

"They'll be dispatch carriers maybe?" suggested Whistler.

"What do they want of dispatch carriers in a day of wireless?" returned
the ensign, and went about his duty of conning the S. P. 888 as she shot
through the breach between the claw-like capes that defended the cove,
and so straight out to sea in a southeasterly direction.

The "bone in her teeth," as sailors call the white water under the
ship's bows, became a windrow of sea, foamed-streaked and agitated,
parted by the knife-sharp bows, and rolling away on either hand. The
S. P. 888 traveled so swiftly that at a distance "shark" really was
the name for her.

She was not camouflaged, as were the hull and upperworks of many Navy
vessels with which the four friends were familiar; but her dull coloring
made her well nigh unobservable at a few miles' distance when she lay at
rest. When she was in action no amount of deceiving paint would hide
her, because of the water she disturbed.

The motor boat Phil had suspected had more than an hour and half's