grinning. Jack’s eyes followed him as the captain rather staggeringly ascended the companionway.

“I don’t know much about such things,” thought the boy, while a serious look came over his face, “but it seems to me that Captain Briggs is under the influence of liquor. That’s a bad thing. Liquor is bad at all times but it’s more dangerous at sea than anywhere else.”

He finished his meal hastily and returned to his cabin to find his “wireless bell” ringing furiously. Jack lost no time in getting to work. He found that the U. S. revenue cutter Seneca, one of the craft detailed by Uncle Sam to the iceberg patrol, was flashing out signals of warning. Jack got the operator to repeat them when half a dozen or more other steamers had picked them up.

The Seneca’s operator was in a bad mood at this.

“Confound you fellows,” he flashed through space, “why don’t you pay attention and get the message from the jump?”

“I was eating supper,” Jack replied contritely.

“I haven’t had a chance to eat yet, and I’m so hungry I could gobble a boiler-plate pie,” growled the government man. “This is a dog’s life.”

“I’d trade you jobs,” flashed Jack, but the other ignored this and began thundering out his message concerning the white terrors of the north.

“Ready?” he flashed.

“Fire away!” sparked crackingly from Jack’s key. Far above him, in the night, the aërials flashed and snapped.

“Seneca, U.S. Iceberg Patrol. Str. Montrose reports from 50:47 on parallel 42, sighted three bergs, two growlers, April 6th, moving S.W. Barometer 30. Temperature 36. Overcast. Wind N.W. About 18 miles per hour.

“April 7th, 2:00 a. m., big berg, lat. 42.34, long. 48.15. Growler four miles north-west. Both moving south.”

“That’s all. Now I’ll get a chance to stow some grub—maybe,” grumpily concluded the report. Jack did not jot down these latter words.

As he made his way forward with his report, the young wireless man noticed that the fog was beginning to rise from the sea in long, wavering wreaths. They looked ghostlike under the stars. In the light breeze they danced a sort of witches’ dance. It looked as if the sea was a boiling expanse with whirling banners of steam rising from it. Even as Jack hurried forward he saw that 

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