The Boy Inventors' Diving Torpedo Boat

As he spoke Jack Chadwick, a good-looking, clean-cut lad of about seventeen, sprang to his feet. His example was followed by his cousin, Tom Jesson, a youth of his own age.

“But it is impossible for me to explain to you just what the _White Shark_ is, and what I hope to accomplish with her, without affording you a view of the craft,” resumed Mr. Da...

At the foot of the stairs they found themselves within a room, narrow and high ceiled by the curved deck above, from each side of which three doors opened. In the center, suspen...

Within the breech of the gun was disclosed a chamber enclosing a small cylinder of steel. This was ribbed by metallic strips connected with electric wires and capable of being s...

“I wish that I could be as sure of that as you, Tom,” was the rejoinder; “but hark! what’s that?” he broke off suddenly. “It seems to me that we can be of aid to Mr. Dancer righ...

Both pursuers and pursued were hampered by the rather steep up-grade. But it was not long before they reached the summit, and then began an even more hair-raising exhibition of...

That night in the library of the Chadwick home, two boys and a dignified looking man, who wore a nut-brown beard slightly tinged with gray, sat poring over a pile of books and p...

It was while congratulations were still being showered on Jack,—for his father denied all credit save for his occasional aid in the construction of the model,—that a peculiar ac...

It was not long after the start, that word was sent on deck by means of the speaking tube located near the panel, that it was time to come below. The flag was lowered and one by...

The two boys exchanged glances. This meant that the instant had arrived that was to prove the success or failure of the invention. Once more Jack’s agile fingers busied themselv...

“Lan’s sakes and Moses pipes!” he cried, “what you tink ah am? Annuder Jonah at de bottom ob de ullibguitous ocean, swallowed up in de tummy ob a ombliferous whale?”

Not more than five minutes after her propellers had been set in the rising position the _White Shark_ emerged on the surface. As soon as she reached it, power was shut down and...

The boys watched curiously as he opened the envelope. Telegrams were no uncommon things at High Towers. Anxious manufacturers and inventors in quandaries of various kinds were i...

It was after dark and the two lads were returning from Camwell with the car loaded down with what they had purchased. In fact, both of them were perched on the summit of a pile...

Jack said nothing, but stood his ground firmly. However burly his opponent was, he had never been taught even the rudiments of what has been called the “noble art” of self-defense.

As if Duke had guessed the boy’s thoughts, he broke into a harsh laugh. Had it been light, the boy would have been able to see the yellow, puckered skin about the man’s nervous...

Amidst a continuous roar and rattle of thunder and flashing of vivid lightning, Jack and the still unconscious Tom were thrown, none too gently, into the old barn. Luckily, the...

Luckily, Jack had received but a small portion of the electric fluid. It was only a few minutes after the bolt had struck the barn with such a deafening crash and such startling...

Jack turned quickly and found himself facing a tall, lanky, sharp-featured man dressed in homespun clothes and cowhide boots. On his chin was a fine specimen of the type of faci...

At twenty-five knots an hour the _White Shark_ was cutting along on her voyage to the south. The sea was smooth, but it rippled just enough for the brisk, salt-laden breeze to b...

The cry that never fails to thrill the heart of every sailor rang out on the deck of the submarine, as old Silas rightly interpreted the uproar on the battleship. Far above them...

For one sickening instant the diving craft shuddered and shivered like a stricken live thing. All the while the dull whirr of the engines, the thrill of the cylinder of metal in...

Mr. Dancer worked on his odd-looking collection of levers and buttons, and the _White Shark_ obediently shot upward, but, of course, not at so sharp an angle as that at which sh...

That night the watches at the steering appliance were divided into four. Mr. Dancer who, with the exception of a few brief snatches of sleep, had been at the controls of the _Wh...

After that, the fish bit fast and furiously. It seemed that the boys had nothing to do but to bait their hooks, throw them over and pull in a fish. There were all varieties, man...

For a long time Jack tried to keep Tom’s spirits up by joking and laughing. But jokes in a situation like the one that encompassed the two boys are but sorry things, and at leng...

But Tom sat silently in the stern of the boat until he grew so sleepy that Jack told him to lie down and cover himself with the sail and take a nap.

The sea grew rougher as the wind freshened, just as Jack had feared it would. The little boat fairly flew along now, at times almost burying her lee gunwale. It was at such mome...

The lighthouse keeper’s hut was well furnished and provisioned, and they partook of a good meal. While they ate, enjoying to the full the hot coffee and crisp bacon with which t...

Jack uttered a yell which apprised the others that he had at last caught the connection he was after. The boy’s hands flew as he switched to the sending key.

The word came from Mr. Chadwick as, two days after the events narrated in our last chapter, the dim outline of a rugged coast came into view from the deck of the _White Shark_....

Not to try our reader’s patience as sorely as Jameson tried that of his auditors, we will put his narrative in brief form. In exploring the abandoned passages of the mine workin...