Part 3

Suddenly tiring of the sport, Jack let out the mainsail, and the boat glided swiftly before the wind. Approaching a small island tangled with bushes and vines, Penny noted that the water was growing shallow. She called Jack's attention to the muddy bottom beneath them.

"Oh, it's deep enough through here," the boy responded carelessly. "I make the passage every day."

"What island are we passing?"

"Hat. The water always is shoal here. Just sit tight and quit scowling at me."

"I didn't know I was," Penny said, sinking back into the cushions.

The _Spindrift_ gently grazed bottom. Dismayed, Penny straightened up, peering over the side. The boat was running hard into a mud bank.

"About! Bring her about, Jack!" she cried before she considered how he might take the uninvited advice.

"The water is deep enough here," Jack answered stubbornly. "It's only a tiny shoal. We'll sail through it easily."

Penny said nothing more, though her lips drew into a tight line.

Jack held to his course. For a moment it appeared that the boat would glide over the shoal into deeper water. Then the next instant they were hard aground. The sail began to flap.

"We're stuck like a turtle in a puddle," commented Penny, not without satisfaction.

"We'll get off!" Jack cried, seizing a paddle from the bottom of the boat.

He tried to shove away from the shoal, but the wind against the big sail resisted his strength.

"You'll never get off that way," Penny said calmly. "Why not take down the sail? We're hard aground now."

Jack glared, and looked as if he would like to heave the paddle at her.

"Okay," he growled.

Winds which came from the head of Hat Island were tricky. Before Jack could lower the sail, the breeze, shifting slightly, struck the expanse of canvas from directly aft.

"Look out, Jack!" Penny screamed a warning. "We're going to jibe!"

Jack ducked but not quickly enough. With great violence, the wind swung the sail over to the opposite side of the boat, the boom striking him a stunning blow on the back of the head.

Moaning with pain, he slumped into the bottom of the _Spindrift_.

CHAPTER 6 SWEEPER JOE INFORMS

Alarmed for Jack, Penny scrambled over a seat to his side. He had been struck a hard blow by the swinging boom and there was a tiny jagged cut just behind his ear. A glance satisfied the girl that he was not seriously injured and that she could do nothing for him at the moment.

Turning her attention to the sail which was showing an inclination to slam over again, she quickly pulled it in and lowered it to the deck.

By then Jack had opened his eyes. His bewildered gaze rested upon her, and he rubbed his head.

"You--" he mumbled, raising on an elbow.

Penny firmly pushed him back. "Lie still!" she commanded.

Seizing the paddle, she tried to shove the boat backwards off the mud bank. Her best efforts would not move it an inch.

Slowly Jack raised himself to a sitting position. He rubbed his head. Bewilderment changed to a look of comprehension.

"I'm okay now," he said huskily. "We're hard aground, aren't we?"

"Solid as a rock," agreed Penny, wiping perspiration from her forehead. "Any ideas?"

"I'll get out and push."

"You're not strong enough. You took a nasty blow on the head."

Had not Jack looked so thoroughly miserable, Penny might have been tempted to adopt an "I told you so" attitude. There had been no excuse for running aground. Sally Barker had warned them about the shoal, and Jack deliberately had disregarded her advice.

"I guess it was my fault," Jack mumbled, the words coming with difficulty. "The water was deep enough here yesterday. I was so sure--"

His eyes, like those of an abused puppy, appealed to her for sympathy. Suddenly, Penny's resentment vanished and she felt sorry for Jack.

"Never mind," she said kindly. "We'll get off somehow. If necessary, I can swim to Shadow Island for help."

"It won't be necessary." Jack pulled off shoes and socks, and rolled up his slacks above his knees. "I got us into this, and I'll get us out. Just sit tight."

Despite Penny's protests, he swung over the side, into the shallow water. Applying his shoulder to the _Spindrift's_ bow, he pushed with all his strength. Penny dug into the mud with the paddle.

The boat groaned and clung fast to the shoal. Then inch by inch it began to move backwards.

"We're off!" Penny cried jubilantly.

Jack pushed until the _Spindrift_ was safely away from the shoal. Wet and plastered with mud, he scrambled aboard.

"No use putting up the sail," he said gloomily. "The centerboard is damaged. When we went aground I should have pulled it up, but things happened so fast I didn't think of it."

"Can't it be repaired?"

"Oh, sure, but it means hauling the boat out of water for several days. And the race will be held in a week. I'll have no chance to practice."

"It's a bad break," Penny said sympathetically. "Perhaps the centerboard isn't much damaged."

They paddled to the Shadow Island dock. There with the help of the Gandiss chauffeur, Jack tied ropes under the bottom of the _Spindrift_ and by means of a hoist and crane, lifted the boat a few feet out of water. A piece had been broken from the centerboard and the bottom was so badly scratched that it would have to be repainted before the race.

"I call this wretched luck!" Jack fumed. "It will take days to repair and repaint the _Spindrift_."

The accident had a subduing effect upon the boy, and the remainder of the day he tried to make amends to Penny. They swam together and played three sets of tennis. In each contest Penny won with ease.

"You're about the first girl who ever beat me at anything," Jack said ruefully. "Guess that rap on the head did me no good."

"How about the sailboat race?" Penny tripped him. "Didn't Sally win the lantern trophy?"

Grudgingly, Jack admitted that she had. "But the race was a fluke," he added. "The wind was tricky and favored Sally's old tub. It won't happen twice."

Annoyed by the youth's alibis, Penny turned and walked away.

At dinner that night, Mr. Gandiss suggested that Mr. Parker and his daughter might like to visit his steel plant and airplane factory on the mainland. Despite vigorous protests, Jack was taken along.

The buildings owned by Mr. Gandiss were situated across the river in the town of Osage. Occupying many city blocks, the property included an airplane testing ground, and was protected by a high guard fence electrically charged.

"Every employee must pass inspection at the gate," Mr. Gandiss explained as the taxi cab approached the entrance to the main factory. "We operate on a twenty-four hour basis now, and even so can't keep abreast of orders."

Lights blazed in the low rows of windows, and from the chimneys of the steel plant, fire leaped high into the dark sky.

"Will we be able to see steel poured from the furnaces?" Penny asked eagerly. "I've always wanted to watch it done."

"You may tour every building if your feet hold out," Mr. Gandiss chuckled.

A squat, red-faced man with pouchy eyes, halted the taxi cab at the gate.

"No visitors allowed here at night," he began in a surly voice, and then recognized the plant owner. His manner changed instantly. "Oh, it's you, Mr. Gandiss! How are you this evening?"

"Very well, thank you, Clayton. I have some friends with me who wish to see the plant."

"Drive right in," the gateman invited, swinging open the barrier.

The taxi rolled through the gate, and drew up in front of one of the buildings. Inside, fluorescent lights gave the effect of daylight. Overhead carriers were lifting newly blanked and formed airplane parts from power presses, carrying them to sub-assembly lines.

"Raw materials, brought up-river by boats, enter one end of the building," Mr. Gandiss explained proudly. "Miraculously they come out the other end as finished airplanes ready for testing."

The plant had four main assembly lines along which the wings, fuselages, engines, tail surfaces, pilot and bombardier floors were assembled, he explained. In one room the party paused to watch row upon row of fuselages being put together ready for transfer to the main assembly line.

"You have a wonderful factory here, Mr. Gandiss," Penny's father praised, much impressed. "It must be a job to keep tab on the personnel."

"Oh, everything has been reduced to a system. One department meshes into another. But if production falls down in any one department, results could be serious." Mr. Gandiss frowned and added: "Now take those petty brass thefts. In a way it is a trivial matter, but the practice is spreading."

"The disappearance of parts hasn't curtailed production to any extent?"

"Not as yet, but it has caused our stockrooms serious annoyance. Then the loss on a yearly basis will become considerable. The guilty persons must be caught, and the organizers broken up before it gets more serious."

Mr. Gandiss escorted the visitors into another large room where hundreds of girls in slacks, their hair bound by nets, worked over machines with concentrated attention.

"Our beginners start here," he explained. "Strangely, we lose more brass and copper from this shift than anywhere else in the plant."

"How do you explain it?" Penny asked.

"The girls are new and we are convinced they are being misled by someone. The entire situation has us baffled."

Few of the workers paid the visitors heed as they wandered along the rows of machines. However, a slovenly, sharp-eyed man with a push broom, watched them with deep interest. Known as Joe the Sweeper, though his real name was Joseph Jakaboloski, he once had been a skilled mechanic. Two of his fingers were missing, and he no longer did any useful work.

"See that man?" Mr. Gandiss said in an undertone. "Shortly after he started working for us, two years ago, he had an accident that was entirely his own fault. We immediately put him in an easy job and still pay him his former salary. But he doesn't even sweep a room properly."

"Why not let him go?" Mr. Parker questioned.

Mr. Gandiss smiled and shook his head. "He was injured while working for us, so we are responsible for looking after him. We would like to pension him off. You see, he constantly stirs up trouble among the new employes."

Joe the Sweeper had been watching Mr. Gandiss with concentrated attention, though too far away to hear what was said. With amusing haste, he swept his way closer to the group. Finally he smirked and sidled up to the factory owner.

"Can I see you alone fer a minute, Mr. Gandiss?" he asked, his voice a whine.

"I am very busy," the factory owner discouraged him. "What is it you want?"

Joe edged even closer, dropping his voice so that it was barely audible above the clatter of the machinery.

"You been losin' copper and brass from your factory, ain't you?"

The direct approach startled Mr. Gandiss. He gazed at Joe keenly, then nodded.

"Well, maybe I kin help you. What's it worth?"

Mr. Gandiss was careful not to show his dislike for the man. "If you are able to provide information which will lead to the apprehension of the thieves, I'll see that you get a substantial salary increase."

Joe blinked and grinned. "Last night I seen a girl in this room stick a piece of brass into her shirt front. She carried it off with her."

"Who was the girl?"

"Dunno her name. A blond piece in blue slacks."

"I'm afraid your information is of no value," Mr. Gandiss said impatiently. "Unless you know who she is--"

"She's a new gal that's only been workin' here a few nights," Joe supplied hastily. "You'll give me that salary raise if I turn her in?"

"If your information proves correct."

Joe's eyes brightened with a crafty light and he jerked his head toward the left.

"You can't see her from here," he muttered, "but you can get her name easy enough. She's the gal that operates machine No. 567."

CHAPTER 7 _NIGHT SHIFT WORKER_

"I detest a stool pigeon," said Mr. Gandiss after Joe the Sweeper had slouched away. "However, his information may be valuable. I can't afford not to investigate it."

Not wishing to attract comment from the other employes, the factory owner made no attempt to see the girl under suspicion. Instead, he escorted the party to his private office. Ringing a buzzer, he asked one of the foremen to bring the operator of Machine 567 to him.

Presently she came in, a thin, wiry girl in ill-fitting blue slacks and sweater. Her hair was bound beneath a dark net and she wore goggles. As she faced Mr. Gandiss, she removed the latter. Everyone stared.

For the girl was Sally Barker.

"You sent for me, Mr. Gandiss?" Subdued and embarrassed, her eyes roved from one person to another.

"Why, Sally," said the factory owner in astonishment. "I had no idea you were working here on the night shift. When were you employed?"

"A week ago."

Perplexed, Mr. Gandiss stared at the girl's factory badge. There could be no mistake. Plainly it bore the number 567.

"You like the work?" he asked after an awkward silence.

"Not very well," she confessed truthfully. "However, I can use the pay I receive."

"During the daytime I believe you help your father aboard the _River Queen_," Mr. Gandiss resumed, trying to be friendly. "Rather a strenuous program. When do you sleep?"

"Oh, I get enough rest." Sally spoke indifferently, though her eyes were red and she looked tired. "Pop didn't want me to take the job, but I have a special use for the money."

"Pretty clothes, I suppose--or perhaps a new sailboat?"

"A college education."

Mr. Gandiss nodded approvingly, and then, recalling the serious charge against the girl, became formal again. "You wonder why I sent for you?"

"I know my work hasn't been very good. I've tried, but I keep ruining materials."

This gave Mr. Gandiss the opening he sought. "What do you do with the discarded pieces?" he inquired.

"Why, I just throw them aside." The question plainly puzzled Sally.

"You may have heard that we are having a little trouble here at the factory."

"What sort of trouble, Mr. Gandiss?"

"Small but valuable pieces of copper and brass seem to disappear with alarming regularity. Most of the thefts have been attributed to workers on the night shift."

Sally's blue eyes opened wide, but she returned Mr. Gandiss' steady gaze. Her chin raised. "I've heard talk about it among the girls," she replied briefly. "That's all I know."

"You have no idea who may be taking the materials?"

"Not the slightest, sir."

An awkward silence fell. Mr. Gandiss started to speak again, then changed his mind.

"Was there anything else?" Sally asked stiffly.

"Nothing."

"Then may I return to my work?"

"Why, yes." It was Mr. Gandiss' turn to appear awkward and ill at ease. "We hope you will enjoy your work here, Sally," he said, feeling that a friendly word was necessary to end the interview. "If you should learn anything that will lead to the arrest of the thieves, I hope you will give us the information."

Sally inclined her head slightly in assent. With dignity, she walked from the office.

No one spoke for several minutes after the girl had gone. Then Mr. Gandiss drew a deep sigh.

"I had no idea Sally was working here," he said, frowning.

"Father, you shouldn't have accused her of stealing!" Jack burst out.

"My dear boy, I accused her of nothing."

"Well, Sally is proud. She took it that way. You don't really believe she would stoop to such a thing?"

"I confess I don't know what to think. Joe the Sweeper may not be a reliable informer."

"If he saw her hide brass in her clothing as he claims, why didn't he report her last night?" Jack demanded. "Sally is no thief. I've known her since she was a kid. I get mighty sore at her sometimes, she's so cocky. But she never did a dishonest act in her life."

"I'm glad to hear you defend her, Jack," Mr. Gandiss said quietly. "Certainly no action will be taken without far more conclusive evidence. Now suppose you and Penny amuse yourselves for a few minutes. Mr. Parker and I have a few business matters to discuss."

Thus dismissed, Penny and Jack wandered outside.

"Want to see the steel plant?" Jack asked indifferently. "They should be pouring about this time."

At Penny's eager assent, he led her to another building, up a steep flight of iron stairs to an inner balcony which overlooked the huge blast furnaces. In the noisy, hot room, conversation was practically impossible.

Gazing below, Penny saw a crew of men in front of one of the furnaces, cleaning the tapping hole with a long rod.

In a moment a signal was given and the molten steel was poured into a ladle capable of holding a hundred and fifty tons. An overhead crane, operated by a skilled worker, lifted the huge container to the pouring platform.

Next the molten mass was turned into rectangular ingots or molds.

"The steel will cool for about an hour before it is ready to be taken from the mold," Jack shouted in Penny's ear.

Moving on, they saw other ingots already cooled, and in a stripping shed observed cranes with huge tongs engage the lugs of the molds and lift them from the ingots.

"Each one of those ingots weighs twenty thousand pounds," Jack said, surprising Penny with his knowledge. "After stripping, they are placed in gas-heated pit furnaces and brought to rolling temperature."

To see fiery ribbons of steel rolled from cherry red ingots was to Penny the most fascinating process of all. She could have watched for hours, but Jack, bored by the familiar sight, kept urging her on.

Leaving the steel plant, they returned to the main factory buildings, and without thinking, sauntered toward the room where Sally worked. A portable lunch cart had just supplied hot soup and sandwiches to the employes. Sally sat eating at her machine. Seeing Jack, she quickly looked away.

"Now she's really sore at me, and I can't blame her," Jack commented. "Who is Joe the Sweeper anyhow? Riff-raff, I'll warrant."

Though somewhat amused by the boy's staunch defense of Sally, Penny was inclined to agree in his second observation. Although she knew nothing of the man who had turned informer, she had not liked the sly look of his face.

Before the pair could approach Sally, the brief lunch period came to an end. A whistle blew, sending the girls back to their machines.

"You'll have to step on it," a foreman told Sally. "You're behind in your quota."

Her reply was inaudible, but as she adjusted her machine and started it up, she began to work with nervous haste.

"This is no place for Sally," Jack said, obviously bothered. "She never was cut out for factory work. And that foreman, Rogers, who is over her! He's a regular slave driver!"

"I thought you didn't like Sally," Penny teased.

"I want to see her get a square deal, that's all," Jack replied, his face flushing.

Joe the Sweeper sidled over to the couple. "What's the verdict?" he asked in a confidential tone.

Jack pretended not to understand.

"Is the gal going to get fired?"

"I'm sure I don't know," Jack answered coldly. "Why does it mean so much to you?"

"Why, it don't," the sweeper muttered. "She ain't no skin off my elbow."

Penny and Jack walked on through the workroom, aware that many pairs of eyes followed them. Sally, bending over a grinding machine, looked up self-consciously. She was grinding pieces of metal, measuring each with a micrometer. There was a streak of grease across her cheek and she looked very tired.

Suddenly as Sally threw the wheel in, there was a loud clattering noise. The foreman came running. He threw the wheel back.

"What did I do?" Sally gasped, shaking from nervousness.

"You forgot to pull this lever." The foreman said curtly. "Ruined a piece of work too! Now try to think what you're doing and get down to business."

Penny and Jack moved away, not wishing to add to the girl's embarrassment. But a few minutes later, in leaving the workroom, they again passed close to Sally's machine. This time she did not see them until they were almost beside her.

"How is it going, Sally?" Jack asked in a friendly way.

Sally raised her eyes, and in so doing forgot her work. As she automatically placed the metal in line with the wheel, she held her fingers there without thinking. Another instant and they would have been mangled.

Horrified, Penny saw what was about to happen.

"Sally!" she cried. Acting instinctively, she reached and jerked the girl's hand away from the swift turning machinery. The wheel had missed Sally's fingers by a mere fraction of an inch.

The foreman came running again, obviously annoyed. Shutting off the machine, he demanded to know what was wrong.

Sally leaned her head weakly on the table, trying to regain composure. Her face was drained of color and she trembled as from a chill. "Thanks," she said brokenly to Penny. "I--I don't know what's the matter with me tonight. I'm not coordinated right."

"Go take a walk," the foreman advised, not unkindly. "A nice long walk. Get a drink or something. You'll be okay."

"I'll never learn," Sally said in a choked voice.

"Sure, you will. Everyone has to go through a beginner's stage. Get yourself a drink. Then you'll feel better."

"Let me go with you," Penny said, taking Sally by the arm.

Without conversation, they made their way between the long rows of machines to the locker room. There Sally sank down on a bench, burying her face in her hands.

"I'm nervous and upset tonight," she excused herself. "I can't seem to get the hang of machine work."

"Why not give it up? Do you really need the money so badly?"

"No," Sally admitted truthfully. "I've set my heart on a college education, but Pop could raise the money somehow. It's just that he's had financial troubles the past year, and I wanted to help out."

"Some persons aren't cut out to be factory workers," Penny resumed. "Do you realize that you nearly lost several of your fingers tonight?"

"Yes," Sally agreed, her freckled face becoming deadly sober. "I'll always be grateful to you. What Mr. Gandiss said in his office upset me. I wasn't thinking of my work."

"I thought that might be it. Well, forget the entire matter if you can."

Sally nodded and getting up, drank at the fountain. "I'll have to go back to work now," she said with an effort. "First, I'll get myself a clean hanky."

With a key which she wore on a string about her neck, the girl opened her locker. On the floor lay a leather jacket that had fallen from its hook.

As Sally picked it up, a heavy object slipped from one of the pockets, thudding against the tin of the locker floor.

She stooped quickly to retrieve it, and then, embarrassed, tried to shield the article from view. But she could not hide it from Penny who stood directly behind. The object that had fallen from the jacket was a small coupling of brass!

CHAPTER 8 _OVERHEARD IN THE GATEHOUSE_

"Why, where did that come from?" Sally murmured as she fingered the piece of metal. "I never put it in my locker."

Confused, she raised bewildered eyes to Penny. Just then the locker room door opened and a forelady came in. Miss Grimley's keen gaze fastened upon the brass coupling in Sally's hand. Awkwardly, the girl tried to hide it in a fold of her slacks.

"What do you have?" the forelady asked, moving like a hawk toward the girls.

"Why, nothing," Sally stammered.

"Isn't that a piece of brass?" Miss Grimley demanded. "Where did you get it?"

"I found it in my locker."

"In your locker!"

"I don't know how it got there," Sally said quickly, reading suspicion in the other's face. "I'm sure I never put it there."

Miss Grimley took the brass from her, inspecting it briefly.

"This looks very much like one of the parts that has been disappearing from the stockroom," she said, her voice icy.

"But I've never been near the stockroom!" Sally cried. "In the few days that I've been employed here, I've barely left my machine."