CHAPTER I. – ON THE BROAD PACIFIC

Twenty days out from San Francisco in the vast, heaving desert of the sea, twenty days of storm, sunshine and calm, the Sea Gypsy, the great white yacht of Jacob Jukes, head of the big Atlantic and Pacific Shipping Combine, was making her way lazily through the dreamy South Seas. The vessel was capable of great speed, being known as one of the fastest craft of her kind. But she was bound on a mission which might take a long time to consummate, and economy of coal, which was piled even on her decks, to re-enforce the supply in the bunkers, was necessary.

What this mission was remained, so far, a mystery to every one on board except Mr. Jukes himself, the iron-jawed and impenetrable organizer of the expedition. Up to this time he had shown no inclination to unburden himself of his secret, and although the craft was equipped with powerful wireless of the most modern type, the yacht had received no messages, nor had she sent any, under orders from Mr. Jukes.

On this particular evening Jack Ready leaned against the door of the wireless-room, a converted deck cabin, and covertly watched the heavy-shouldered, bull-necked form of the millionaire shipping man as the latter gazed over the rail across the vacant waters at the gorgeous sunset.

It was a true pageant of the heavens, such as is only to be seen in the Southern ocean. Great cloud-masses rose in wondrous forms, like glorified castle walls and turrets, glowing with purple and gold and red. Jack found himself following Mr. Jukes’ gaze. Although such spectacles had been almost nightly ones since they had steamed into the tropics, there was something wild and sinister about the present one that thrilled him.

Captain Septimus Sparhawk, the brown, gaunt captain of the yacht, whose thin face was decorated by two little dabs of grayish whiskers forward of each ear, passed by.

“Nothing to do but to look at the sky, eh?” he asked Jack, as a suspicion of a smile crept over his face.

“That’s about all, sir,” rejoined Jack, with a laugh. “I expect to see spiders spinning webs on my instruments every day. I haven’t touched the key since we sailed.”

The captain shook his head. He was an old and loyal employee of the shipping man, and not much given to words. But, apparently, now he felt called upon to express himself.

“It’s a queer business, lad,” he said, “and it may get queerer still before we find out what it’s all about. I’m as much in the dark as you or the cabin boy. But right now that sunset worries me more than anything else.”

“You’re on the look-out for a storm?” asked Jack, noting a sudden look of anxiety in the captain’s pale blue eyes, surrounded by a network of tiny wrinkles, due to long gazing into salty gales.

“Worse than that, Ready,” was the rejoinder. “This is the hurricane season in these parts and the glass, – I’ve just taken a squint at it, – is dropping as if it never meant to stop.”

“If I could use the wireless – ” began Jack.

“We could probably get a weather reading from some other ship,” interrupted the captain, starting off, “but as it is, we might as well not have it on board at all. The thing’s got me stumped.”

He carried himself off on his long, thin legs but paused to speak to Mr. Jukes. The ship-owner, although Jack could not hear what was said, appeared to be agitated somewhat by the captain’s words, for he began puffing rapidly at his after-dinner cigar, sending out smoke like the exhaust of a locomotive funnel, a sure sign, as Jack had observed, that he was disturbed.

“I’ll make all snug, sir,” the boy heard the captain say, as he turned away, “and then we will be prepared for whatever happens.”

“Very well, Sparhawk,” answered Mr. Jukes, in a somewhat louder voice than he had used hitherto, “and be sure to see to it that the deck load of coal is secured safely. They tell me the bunkers are running low.”

As has been stated, the Sea Gypsy’s decks were piled high fore and aft with coal, kept in place by wooden bulkheads, which did not add to the appearance of the ship and encumbered progress from bow to stern. Only amidships, where the cabins were situated, was the deck clear. As the captain ascended the bridge he turned and gave an order to a petty officer and presently the crew could be seen at work lashing big tarpaulins down over the coal which was so important to keep the Sea Gypsy moving on her mysterious mission.

The news that the coal supply was running low in the bunkers was a surprise to Jack. He made for Billy Raynor’s cabin where the young chief engineer of the yacht was writing up his “log.”

“Yes, it’s right,” he rejoined to Jack’s question, “the loss of that deck load would be a serious matter. We’re a good many hundred miles from land and will have to tap the supply before long.”

“Billy, what on earth do you suppose is the object of this voyage?” demanded Jack abruptly.

“Blessed if I know, but I’m well satisfied with my promotion and job,” declared Raynor. “Cruising these wonderful seas in a yacht that’s a beauty, even if her decks are all littered up like a cattle boat’s, just about suits me.”

“That’s all right, you’ve got something to do,” complained Jack. “But look at my case. I have to polish up my instruments every day to keep them from getting rusty.”

“Serves you right for not stopping ashore and enjoying yourself,” chuckled Raynor teasingly. “Since you sold that ‘Universal Detector’ of yours to the government you could surely afford to.”

“Just as if I could kick my heels on shore doing nothing,” was Jack’s indignant reply, “but it does seem as if it’s about time we knew something of what this voyage is for.”

“Maybe it’s just a pleasure cruise to allow Mr. Jukes to get away from his business troubles,” hazarded Raynor.

Jack shook his head in decided negative.

“There’s more in it than that,” he declared positively. “Mr. Jukes is first of all a man of business. He wouldn’t come skylarking across the Pacific for three weeks if he was just out for a cruise. He’d go where he could keep in touch with the market and Wall Street.”

“That’s so,” Raynor was compelled to agree. “Well, I suppose when he gets ready to spill some information he’ll do it. In the meantime my job just suits me. But what made you ask about the deck coal?”

“Because Captain Sparhawk says we’re in for a bad blow, maybe a hurricane.”

Raynor’s usually cheerful face became suddenly serious.

“When did he say that?” he asked.

“Just now. They’re putting tarpaulins over it now. If we dropped it, we’d be in a bad fix, eh, Billy?”

“We’d have about coal enough left for two or three days,” rejoined Raynor.

“And after that – ?”

“It would be a case of ‘merrily we drift along.’”

The door gave a sudden sharp slam. A puff of wind, sweeping suddenly over the hitherto breathless sea, had banged it shut.

Jack jumped up and swung it quickly open again.

“Here she comes,” he cried excitedly.

At the same instant the Sea Gypsy gave a sidelong lurch that sent both lads helter-skelter across the cabin. Outside came a sudden bawling of voices and a distant, disquieting roar that grew louder every second.

CHAPTER II. – THE OCEAN IN A RAGE

Directly they recovered their sea legs, both lads made for the cabin door. A wonderful but alarming spectacle met their eyes. The sunset had been blotted out as if by magic. In its place was a ragged, inky-black cloud curtain that was being swept across the sky as if invisible, titanic hands were swiftly pulling it.

The sea immediately about them was heaving wildly in great swells that tumbled the Sea Gypsy, rendered less stable by her top-heavy load, from side to side. Far off, under the rushing black cloud, the forefront of which was almost over them by this time, was a jagged line of white.

Mr. Booth, the second mate, bundled up in oilskins, ran past the boys on his way to the bridge.

“Better get under cover,” he advised as he passed. “This is going to be a hummer.”

But, fascinated by the majestic sight, both boys stood still, clutching the rail and bracing themselves for the shock they felt was coming, for both had guessed that the jagged white line in the distance was a giant wave. Like a cliff of water it grew as it swept toward them, accompanied by a howling of the wind that sounded like a witches’ carnival. So swift was its advance that the boys had hardly time to run toward the cabin when it broke upon them.

The Sea Gypsy heeled like a ship that had been struck a mortal blow. For one instant she hung balanced as if she was about to capsize. The door of the cabin in which the boys had taken refuge was ripped from its hinges by the terrific force of the impact as if it had been matchwood.

The next moment both lads were struggling for their lives in a surging, sweeping smother of water that filled the cabin to the roof. Jack felt himself clutched by the hands of his chum. Fighting to keep himself above water, Jack saw that Raynor had been hurled against some object and been wounded. There was a jagged cut in his forehead.

He had hardly noticed this, when the Sea Gypsy staggered back to an even keel. As she did so the water swept out of the cabin like a millrace, carrying both boys helplessly with it.

Jack felt Raynor torn from his arms, and the next thing he realized he was struggling for his life in the waves that reared and roared above the floundering yacht.

A month before the events we are describing took place, Jack Ready, the young wireless operator of the Sea Gypsy, and his inseparable chum, Billy Raynor, had been summoned to Mr. Jukes’ New York office and told that they were detached from duty on the big Columbia, the crack liner of the Jukes’ ships, and ordered to pack their things forthwith and meet the ship-owner at the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco within a week. Neither had demurred, supposing some interest of the ship-owners called for their presence there. But, much to their bewilderment, they had each been handed a substantial check by Mr. Jukes on his arrival in the western metropolis, told to outfit themselves for a long voyage, and nothing more. Two days later the Sea Gypsy cleared the harbor.

The acquaintance of Jack and Mr. Jukes had its beginning in certain events which took place near Jack’s quaint home, which he shared with an eccentric uncle on an old schooner in the Erie Basin in New York. The rescue by Jack of Mr. Jukes’ little daughter, and the result on his affairs, were fully detailed in the first volume of this series, which was called “The Ocean Wireless Boys on the Atlantic.” This is not the place to re-tell all the exciting adventures that befell Jack and young Raynor, who was third engineer on the steamer to which Jack was assigned, in fulfillment of his ambition to be a “wireless man.”

Nor can we do more here than to hint at the contents of the second volume. This was called “The Ocean Wireless Boys and the Lost Liner,” and set forth the fate of the Tropic Queen. In this book we found Jack and his inseparable chum steadily progressing in their chosen professions, and also met several other characters, all of whom had an important bearing on the events of the boys’ lives. Mr. Jukes took formal recognition of the part Jack played in the disaster that overtook the Tropic Queen, and inwardly resolved that his heroism and devotion to duty had made him a lad worth watching.

Still a third volume followed, describing the boys’ further adventures. In the “Ocean Wireless Boys of the Iceberg Patrol,” much interesting information about the manner in which the ocean lanes are guarded from the white menace of the north, was given. The boys shared in many thrilling adventures also, and ended by discovering something that an expedition, at the head of which was Jack’s Uncle Toby, had almost lost through the tricks of a band of hard characters.

The fourth book setting forth their doings was called “The Ocean Wireless Boys and the Naval Code.” Captain Simms of the U. S. N., after devising a novel code for the use of this government, through the machinations of a band of daring rascals, found himself robbed of it. Wireless played a big part in the recovery of the documents in the long run, Jack acquitting himself to the delight of the naval officials and the government by his work in this connection. Some of the miscreants, whose tricks Jack had helped to frustrate, were sent to prison but others got free. These latter the boys, though they little suspected it, were destined to meet again.