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                    THE OCEAN WIRELESS BOYS AND THE NAVAL CODE

                             BY CAPTAIN WILBUR LAWTON

AUTHOR OF "THE BOY AVIATORS' SERIES," "THE DREADNOUGHT BOYS' SERIES,"
"THE OCEAN WIRELESS BOYS ON THE ATLANTIC," "THE OCEAN WIRELESS BOYS AND
THE LOST LINER," "THE OCEAN WIRELESS BOYS OF THE ICE-BERG PATROL," ETC.

                     _WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY CHARLES L. WRENN_


NEW YORK
HURST & COMPANY
PUBLISHERS

Copyright, 1915,
BY HURST & COMPANY




[Illustration: "Huh, I don't think the idea's worth a cent," sniffed
Thurman.]




CONTENTS


        I. VACATION DAYS

       II. "SPEEDWAY" VS. "CURLEW"

      III. CAPTAIN SIMMS, OF THE "THESPIS"

       IV. ON SECRET SERVICE

        V. NIGHT SIGNALS

       VI. IN THE DARK

      VII. THE NAVAL CODE

     VIII. A MONKEY INTERLUDE

       IX. NODDY AND THE BEAR

        X. "WHAT DO YOU MAKE OF IT?"

       XI. A SWIM WITH A MEMORY

      XII. A TALE FROM THE FROZEN LANDS

     XIII. A NIGHT ALARM

      XIV. JACK'S CURIOSITY AND ITS RESULTS

       XV. BILLY TAKES THE TRAIL

      XVI. A "GHOSTESS" ABROAD

     XVII. ONE MYSTERY SOLVED

    XVIII. BILL SNIGGERS DECIDES

      XIX. WHAT A "HAYSEED" DID

       XX. THE "CURLEW" IN TROUBLE

      XXI. THE END OF JACK'S HOLIDAY

     XXII. "THE GEM OF THE OCEAN"

    XXIII. JACK'S BIG SECRET

     XXIV. THE NAVY DEPARTMENT "SITS UP"

      XXV. A MYSTERY ON BOARD

     XXVI. A "FLASH" OF DISTRESS

    XXVII. A STRANGE WRECK

   XXVIII. CAST AWAY WITH A PYTHON

     XXIX. CAPTURED BY RADIO

      XXX. THURMAN PLOTS

     XXXI. THE "SUITABLE REWARD"

    XXXII. THE PLOTTER'S TRIUMPH

   XXXIII. IN THE POWER OF THE ENEMY

    XXXIV. THE SEARCH FOR JACK

     XXXV. THE WIRELESS MAKES GOOD




The Ocean Wireless Boys and the Naval Code.




CHAPTER I.

VACATION DAYS.


"Up with your helm there, Noddy! Luff her up or you'll have the _Curlew_
on the rocks!"

"That's right, luff!" cried Billy Raynor, adding his voice to Jack
Ready's command.

"That's what I _luff_ to do," grinned the red-headed, former Bowery
waif, Noddy Nipper, as, with a dexterous motion, he jerked over the
tiller of the fine, speedy sloop in which the boys were enjoying a sail
on Alexandria Bay, above the Thousand Islands.

The mainsail and jib shivered, and the _Curlew_ spun round like a top
just as it seemed inevitable that she must end her career on some jagged
rocks that had suddenly loomed up ahead.

"Neatly done, Noddy," applauded Jack. "We'll forgive you even that awful
pun for that skillful bit of boat-handling."

The freckled lad grinned in appreciation of the compliment paid him by
the Wireless Boy.

"Much obliged," he said. "Of course I haven't got sailing down as fine
as you yet. How far do you reckon we are from home?"

"From the Pine Island hotel, you mean?" rejoined Billy Raynor. "Oh, not
more than ten miles."

"Just about that," chimed in Jack. "If this wind holds we'll be home in
time for supper."

"Supper!" exclaimed Bill; "I could eat an octogenarian doughnut, I'm so
hungry."

A groan came from Noddy. Although the Bowery lad had polished up on his
grammar and vocabulary considerably since Jack Ready first encountered
him as second cook on the seal-poaching schooner _Polly Ann_, Captain
"Terror" Carson commanding, still, a word like "Octogenarian" stumped
him, as the saying is.

"What's an octo-octo--what-you-may-call-'um doughnut, anyhow?" he
demanded, for Noddy always liked to acquire a new word, and not
infrequently astonished his friends by coming out with a "whopper"
culled out of the dictionary. "Is it a doughnut with legs on it?"

Jack and Billy broke into a roar of laughter.

"A doughnut with legs on?" sputtered Billy. "Whatever put that idea into
your head, Noddy?"

"Well, don't octo-octo-thing-a-my-jigs have legs?" inquired Noddy.

"Oh, you mean octopuses," cried Jack, with another laugh. "Billy meant
an eighty-year-old doughnut."

"I'll look it up when we get back," remarked Noddy gravely; "it's a good
word."

"Say, fellows, we are sure having a fine time out of this holiday,"
remarked Billy presently, after an interval of silence.

"Yes, but just the same I shan't be sorry when Mr. Juke's new liner is
completed and we can go to sea again," said Jack, "but after our
experiences up north, among the ice, I think we had a holiday coming to
us."

"That we did," agreed Noddy. "Some difference between skimming around
here in a fine yacht and being cast away on that wretched island with
nothing to eat and not much prospect of getting any."

"Yes, but if it hadn't been for that experience, and the ancient
treasure we found, we couldn't have taken such a jolly vacation," argued
Jack. "It's made Uncle Toby a rich man and put all of us on Easy
Street."

"Yes, it was certainly worth all the hardships we went through," agreed
Noddy.

"I guess we are in for a long spell of quiet now, though," remarked
Jack, after a pause, during which each boy thought of their recent
adventures.

"Not so sure of that," replied Noddy. "You're the sort of fellow,
judging from what you've told us, who is always tumbling up against
something exciting."

"Yes, I feel it in my bones that we are not destined to lead an
absolutely uneventful time----" began Billy Raynor. "I--hold hard there,
Noddy; watch yourself. Here comes another yacht bearing down on us!"

Jack and Billy leaped to their feet, steadying themselves by clutching a
stay. Billy was right. Another yacht, a good deal larger than their own,
was heading straight for them.

"Hi! put your helm over! We've got the right of way!" shouted Jack,
cupping his hands.

"Look out where you're going!" cried Billy.

But whoever was steering the other yacht made no motion to carry out the
suggestions. Instead, under a press of canvas, she kept directly on her
course.

"She'll run us down," cried Noddy. "What'll I do, Jack?"

"Throw her over to port lively now," sang out Jack Ready. "Hurry up or
we'll have a bad smash-up!"

He leaped toward the stern to Noddy's assistance, while Billy Raynor,
the young engineer, did the same.

In former volumes of this series the previous adventures of the lads
have been described. In the first book, devoted to their doings and to
describing the fascinating workings of sea-wireless aboard ocean-going
craft, which was called "The Ocean Wireless Boys on the Atlantic," we
learned how Jack became a prime favorite with the irascible Jacob Jukes,
head of the great Transatlantic and Pacific shipping combine. Jack's
daring rescue of Millionaire Jukes' little girl resulted in the lad's
obtaining the position of wireless man on board a fine ship, after he
had looked for such a job for months in vain. But because Jack would not
become the well-paid companion of Mr. Jukes' son Tom, a rather sickly
youth, the millionaire became angry with the young wireless man.
However, Jack was able, subsequently, to rescue Mr. Jukes from a
drifting boat after the magnate's yacht had burned in mid-ocean and,
following that, to reunite the almost frantic millionaire with his
missing son.

Other exciting incidents were described, and Jack gained rapidly in his
chosen profession, as did his chum, Billy Raynor, who was third
assistant engineer of the big vessel. The next volume, which was called
"The Ocean Wireless Boys and the Lost Liner," told of the loss of the
splendid ship "Tropic Queen," on a volcanic island after she had become
disabled and had drifted helplessly for days. By wireless Jack managed
to secure aid from U. S. vessels, and it came in the nick of time, for
the island was destroyed by an eruption just after the last of the
rescued passengers had been taken off. Wireless, too, secured, as
described in that book, the capture of a criminal much wanted by the
government.

The third volume related more of Jack's doings and was called "The Ocean
Wireless Boys of the Ice-berg Patrol." This book told how Jack, while
serving aboard one of the revenue cutters that send out wireless
warnings of ice-bergs to transatlantic liners, fell into the hands of a
band of seal poachers. Things looked black for the lad for a time, but
he found two good friends among the rough crew in the persons of Noddy
Nipper and Pompey, an eccentric old <DW52> cook, full of superstitions
about ghosts. The _Polly Ann_, as the schooner was called, was wrecked
and Jack and his two friends cast away on a lonesome spot of land called
Skull Island. They were rescued from this place by Jack's eccentric,
wooden-legged Uncle, Captain Toby Ready, who, when at home, lived on a
stranded wooden schooner where he made patent medicines out of herbs for
sailors. Captain Toby had got wind of an ancient treasure hidden by a
forgotten race on an Arctic island. After the strange reunion they all
sailed north. But an unscrupulous financier (also on a hunt for the
treasure) found a way to steal their schooner and left them destitute.
For a time it appeared that they would leave their bones in the bleak
northland. But the skillful resource and pluck of Jack and Noddy won the
day. We now find them enjoying a holiday, with Captain Toby as host, at
a fashionable hotel among the beautiful Thousand Islands. Having made
this necessary digression, let us again turn our attention to the
situation which had suddenly confronted the happy three, and which
appeared to be fraught with imminent danger.

Like their own craft, the other boat carried a single mast and was
sloop-rigged. But the boat was larger in every respect than the
_Curlew_. She carried a great spread of snowy canvas and heeled over
under its press till the white water raced along her gunwale.

As she drew nearer the boys saw that there were two occupants on board
her. One was a tall, well-dressed lad in yachting clothes, whose face,
rather handsome otherwise, was marred by a supercilious sneer, as if he
considered himself a great deal better than anyone else. The other was a
somewhat elderly man whose hair appeared to be tinged with gray. His
features were coarse, but he resembled the lad with him enough to make
it certain he was his father.

"Sheer off there," roared Jack at the top of his lungs, to the occupants
of the other boat; "do you want to run us down?"

"Get out of the way then," cried the boy.

"Yes, sheer off yourselves, whipper-snappers!" came from the man.

"We've got the right of way!" cried Jack.

"Go chase yourselves," yelled Noddy, reverting in this moment of
excitement, as was his habit at such times, to his almost forgotten
slang.

"Keep her on her course, Donald; never mind those young jack-a-napes,"
said the man in the other sloop, addressing the boy, who was steering.

"All right, pop," was the reply; "they'll get the worst of the smash if
they don't clear out."

"Gracious, they really mean to run us down," cried Jack, in a voice of
alarm. "Better sheer off, Noddy, though I hate to do it."

"By jinks, do you see who they are?" cried Bill Raynor, who had been
studying the pair in the other boat, which was now only a few yards off.
"It's that millionaire Hiram Judson and his son Donald, the boy you had
the run in with at the hotel the other day."

But Jack made no reply. The two boats were now almost bowsprit to
bowsprit. As for Noddy, the freckles stood out on his pale, frightened
face like spots on the sun.




CHAPTER II.

"SPEEDAWAY" VS. "CURLEW."


But at the critical moment the lad at the helm of the other craft, which
bore the name _Speedaway_, appeared to lose his nerve. He sheered off
and merely grazed the _Curlew's_ side, scraping off a lot of paint.

"Hi, there! What do you mean by doing such a thing?" demanded Jack,
directly the danger of a head-on collision was seen to have been
averted.

The other lad broke into a laugh. It was echoed by the man with him,
whom he had addressed as "pop."

"Just thought I'd see how much you fellows knew about handling a boat,"
he sneered. "It's just as I thought, you're a bunch of scare-cats. You
needn't have been afraid that I couldn't keep the _Speedaway_ out of
danger."

"You risked the lives of us all by running so close," cried Billy
indignantly.

"Never attempt such a thing again," said Jack angrily, "or----"

"Or what, my nervous young friend?" taunted the elderly man.

"Yes," said the lad, with an unpleasant grin, "what will you do?"

"I shall feel sorely tempted to come on board your boat and give you the
same sort of a thrashing I gave you the other day when I found you
tormenting that poor dog," said Jack, referring to the incident Billy
Raynor had already hinted at when he first recognized the occupants of
the _Speedaway_.

"You'll never set foot on my boat," cried Donald Judson, with what he
meant to be dangerous emphasis; but his face had suddenly become very
pale. "You think you got the best of me the other day, but I'll fix you
yet."

The two craft were out of earshot almost by this time, and none of the
three lads on the _Curlew_ thought it worth while to answer Donald
Judson. The millionaire and his son occupied an island not far from the
Pine Island Hotel. A few days before the incident we have just recorded,
Jack, who hated cruelty in any form, had found Donald Judson, who often
visited the hotel to display his extensive assortment of clothes,
amusing himself by torturing a dog. When Jack told him to stop it the
millionaire's son started to fight, and Jack, finding a quarrel forced
upon him, ended it in the quickest way--by knocking the boy flat.

Donald slunk off, swearing to be revenged. But Jack had only laughed at
him and advised him to forget the incident except as a lesson in
kindness to animals. It appeared, however, that, far from forgetting his
humiliation, Donald Judson was determined to avenge it even at the risk
of placing his own life in danger.

"I wonder if he followed us up to-day on purpose to try to ram us or
force us on a sandbar?" mused Noddy, as they sailed on.

"Looks like it," said Billy.

"I believe he is actually sore enough to sink our boat if he could, even
if he damaged his own in doing it," said Jack.

"To my mind his father is as bad he is," said Noddy; "he made no attempt
to stop him. If I----Look, they've put their boat about and are
following us."

"There's no doubt that they are," said Jack, after a moment's scrutiny
of the latest maneuver of the _Speedaway_. The Judsons' boat, which was
larger, and carried more sail and was consequently faster than the
_Curlew_, gained rapidly on the boys. Soon she was within hailing
distance.

"What are you following us for? Want to have another collision?" cried
Jack.

"Do you own the water hereabouts?" asked Donald. "I didn't know I was
following you."

"We've a right to sail where we please," shouted Judson.

"Yes, if you don't imperil other folks' boats," agreed Jack. "If you've
got any scheme in mind to injure us I'd advise you to forget it," he
added.

"Huh! What scheme would I have in mind? Think I'd bother with
insignificant chaps like you and your little toy boat?"

"You keep out of our way," added the man.

"Yes, just do that little thing if you know what's healthy for you,"
chimed in Donald Judson.

His insulting tone aroused Jack's ire.

"It'll be the worse for you if you try any of your tricks," he roared.

"What tricks would I have, Ready?" demanded the other.

"Some trick that may turn out badly for you!"

"I guess I don't need you to tell me what I will or what I won't do."

"All right, only keep clear of us. That's fair warning. You'll get the
worst of it if you don't."

"So, young man, you are going to play the part of bully, are you?"
shouted Donald's father. "That fits in with what I've heard of you from
him. You've been prying around our boat for several days. I don't like
it."

"Well, keep away from us," cried Billy.

"Yes, your room's a lot better than your company," sputtered Noddy. "We
don't care if you never come back."

"Really, what nice language," sneered Donald. "I congratulate you on
your gentlemanly friend, Ready. He----"

"Look out there," warned Jack, for Noddy, in his indignation, had sprung
to his feet, entirely forgetting the tiller. The _Curlew_ broached to
and heeled over, losing "way." The _Speedaway_ came swiftly on. In an
instant there was a ripping, tearing sound and a concerted shout of
dismay from the boys as the sharp bow of Judson's larger, heavier craft
cut deep into the _Curlew's_ quarter.

"Now you've done it!" cried Billy Raynor.

"I--er--it was an accident," cried Donald, as the two boats swung apart,
and there was some justification for this plea, as the _Speedaway_ was
also damaged, though not badly.

"It was no accident," cried Jack, but he said no more just then. He was
too busy examining the rent in the _Curlew's_ side.

Still shivering, like a wounded creature, from the shock of the impact,
the _Curlew_, with the water pouring into the jagged rip in her side,
began slowly to sink!




CHAPTER III.

CAPTAIN SIMMS OF THE "THESPIS."


Silence, except for the inrush of water into the damaged side of the
_Curlew_, followed the collision. The three lads on the sinking craft
gazed helplessly at each other for a few seconds.

"Get away as quick as you can," whispered Donald's father to the boy who
had wrought the damage, and now looked rather scared. The _Speedaway_
swung out and her big mainsail began to fill.

"We are going to the bottom," choked out Billy, the first of the party
to recover the use of his vocal organs.

"I'm afraid there's no doubt of that," said Jack. "Donald Judson," he
shouted, raising his voice and throwing it across the appreciable
distance that now separated the two craft, "you'll pay for this."

"It was an accident, I tell you," yelled back the other lad, but in a
rather shaky voice.

"You'll do no good by abusing us," chimed in his father.

"What'll we do, Jack?" demanded Noddy, tugging at Jack's sleeve.

"Steer for the shore. There's just a chance we can make it, or at least
shallow water," was the reply.

"Doesn't look much as if we could make it," said Billy dubiously,
shaking his head and regarding the big leak ruefully, "but I suppose we
can try."

The wounded _Curlew_ began to struggle along with a motion very unlike
her usual swift, smooth glide. She staggered and reeled heavily.

"Put her on the other tack," said Jack. Noddy followed his orders with
the result that the _Curlew_ heeled over on the side opposite to that
which had been injured, and thus raised her wound above the water line.
Billy began bailing, frantically, with a bucket, at the water that had
already come in.

"Shall we help you?" cried Donald.

"No, we don't want your help," answered Jack shortly. "We'll thresh all
this out in court later on," he added.

"I'm a witness that it was an accident," shouted the elder Judson.

"You'll have a swell time proving I ran you down on purpose," added his
son.

Seeing that it was useless to prolong such a fruitless argument at long
distance, Jack refrained from making a reply. Besides, the _Curlew_
required his entire attention