Chapter LIX - Page 2

to forget it."

"I seem to remember a scheme of yours that resulted in the capture of a submarine last year," Murphy reminded the old man. "That was a bully scheme, and I'm willing to wager that the head which produced it can produce another just as good. Tell me your plan for eliminating submarines, Mr. Ricks."

"My scheme doesn't contemplate a continuous performance," Cappy hastened to explain, "but it might work out once or twice--and in this great international emergency anything is worth trying once. I could demonstrate my theory in about two months--with your help."

"Then," declared Michael J. Murphy, "I'll wait until you give the demonstration before enlisting in the navy."

"Bully for you, Mike! I'll declare Terry Reardon in on the experiment also, for the reason that one of the ingredients required is a chief engineer with courage to spare. Now then, for my scheme: Do you know the Costa Rica?"

"That old steamer that used to run to Panama for the Pacific Mail?"

"The same."

"What about her?"

"She's in the bone yard--laid up for keeps, Mike. Her plates are so thin and soft the least jar would punch a hole in her; she's wrecked and strained from fifty years of service; her engines are worn out, her boilers are burned out, her gear is antiquated, and even in these times of abnormal freight rates she's too far gone to patch up and keep running. They kicked her up in the mud of Oakland Inner Harbor yesterday, and there she'll be stripped of everything of value and left to rot. My plan, Mike, is to buy the old Costa Rica for a couple of thousand dollars, turn Terence Reardon and his gang loose on her engines and boilers for a couple of weeks and take the old coffin out for one final voyage. She can make eight or nine knots in good weather, and if she's torpedoed the loss will be trifling. Will you run the risk and take her out for me, Mike?"

"Yes, sir. What for?"

"As a decoy."

"I don't understand."

"We'll put a hand-picked crew aboard her, Mike; we'll arm her fore and aft with six-inch guns, which we can readily get from the navy now that it's the fashion to arm merchantmen; and then go cruising in the submarine zone. You can pick up a few old navy men for a gun crew and train some of the Costa Rica's crew, can't you?"

"If we can get somebody to give me the range and manage to get the gun loaded somehow, I'll do the gun pointing; with half a chance I'll guarantee results."

"And that is exactly what I plan to give you--half a chance," Cappy declared enthusiastically. "The Costa Rica isn't worth two hoots in a hollow, but she still looks enough like a steamer to attract submarines; and during this fine summer weather we