"We'd better put your man back on the boat, hadn't we, Mr. Benson?"
inquired the marine lieutenant.
"I'm not such weak stuff as that, sir," almost grumbled the machinist.
"I can stand a few minutes more in wet clothes, and I want to go along to
see where this wire leads."
"Good enough," nodded Lieutenant Foster, he gave the order to row along
slowly, while two marines in the bow of the cutter slowly gathered
in the wire, at the same time signaling back the direction in which it
lay.
Only a few minutes were needed thus to follow the trail straight to the
clump of bushes on shore.
"Nobody leave the boat until we have a lantern ready," directed
Lieutenant Foster. "We don't want to tramp out the trail of the rascals
who laid that mine."
The marine lieutenant himself was the first to step ashore, and Jack
Benson was with him.
"Here are the footprints of the rascals," announced Foster, as the two
stepped cautiously into the bushes.
"Yes; there were just two of them here, apparently," replied Jack, after
studying the prints, and discovering the marks of only two different
sizes or kinds of shoes.
"Here's the imprint of a box," added Foster. "Good heavens, the
scoundrels had a regular magneto battery, insulated wire and all, for
firing that mine from the shore.
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