“Oh, but this is great news!” he gasped.  “We’ve finally got the Navy Department awake.  This dispatch inquires how soon we can be ready to run the ‘Pollard’ through an exhaustive trial trip with a board of Naval officers aboard.  Do you grasp it, Jack?  If the trial succeeds we’ll sell our first boat to the Government and be on the high road to success and fortune!  Oh, this is the grandest news!  It overshadows everything else!”

It truly did.

CHAPTER XIII

ON TRAIL AS YOUNG EXPERTS

Very early the next morning Jacob Farnum sent the following telegram to the Navy Department at Washington: 

"Send board of officers as soon as you desire.  Everything in readiness.  Advise me promptly, and how many will be in party."

Then, knowing that he could not expect to hear from the national capital for at least several hours, and feeling that he simply must have something absorbing on his, hands, the boatbuilder turned his attention to following up the business of the night before.

He soon learned, through means of his own, that Don Melville had engaged a driver and had left Dunhaven during the night.

“Pooh!” snapped the boatbuilder.  “If we want that young man, detectives will find him sooner or later.  Or else, he’ll be compelled to hide at the ends of the earth, so that he’ll give us no further trouble.”

The young stranger at the lock-up steadfastly refused to admit that he was David Pollard’s burglar of the night before.  Naturally, therefore, he failed to disclose what had become of the envelope of drawings stolen from the inventor’s room.

Yet the lawyer engaged by Mr. Farnum had strong hopes that, eventually, the prisoner would be forced to reveal all that he knew.  Another attorney, engaged, presumably, by Mr. Melville, had also seen the prisoner, and probably had succeeded in making the young man feel that he would be well paid for silence.

During the forenoon the prisoner’s case was called in the local justice’s court, but Farnum’s lawyer had no difficulty in having the hearing postponed.  The prisoner gave the name of James Potter, which undoubtedly was fictitious.  No bail was offered for “Potter.”  If Mr. Melville felt inclined to do that, he undoubtedly dreaded that such an act would be construed as a tacit admission of Don’s connection with the strange business.

Captain Jack was sent, with an officer, to see whether he could identify the two Italians who had trapped him the night before.  Though all the workmen of the yard were rounded up, Jack could not find his recent assailants among them.

“And now,” cried Mr. Farnum, when Captain Jack returned to the Farnum yard, “you will have to get busy with any preparation on board the boat that has to be made.”

“No preparation is necessary,” replied Benson, “except to remove the automatic closer from the after port of the torpedo tube, so the Navy men won’t see it.  That can be done in ten minutes or less.  The ‘Pollard’ is all ready for inspection or any kind of tests, sir.”