Their engine broke down and their small boat, beaten by the waves, was leaking rapidly when they were picked up. One of the men was unconscious from lack of nourishment and the other in a state of utter exhaustion from bailing, in an all but futile effort to keep the frail little craft above water. After being resuscitated, one of the men gave a vague account of having encountered a waterlogged life-boat containing several people who had perished from exposure, and of certain papers and possessions found on one of them. Later when a reporter made an effort to see the men for confirmation of this statement, neither could be found. Both are said to have carried considerable money on their persons, but this was explained by the exceptionally large catches of fish which they sold, during their fishing trip. No means of tracing them is known since the boat, in which one of them resumed his journey home after repairs, had no license number. Maybe you think I didn't read that article twice. And it made me wonder a lot of things about that fishing trip. One thing, it looked as if they might have had more adventures than Lieutenant Donnelle had told me about, and maybe he didn't want to tell me everything--that's what I thought. Anyway, he didn't say anything about a life-boat, that's sure. But maybe he forgot to. Just the same I wondered if maybe he had any other reason for being in such a hurry and so excited, kind of. Then I remembered how he said he would tell me all about it some day. Anyway, I said, he's had a lot of adventures, that's sure. You bet I'd like to have a lot of adventures like that. CHAPTER V TELLS ABOUT SKINNY'S MERIT BADGE The next day was Sunday and two things happened, not counting dinner. Early in the morning we drew lots to see who'd be deck steward for the day, and Skinny was the one. That meant he'd have to sweep up the deck and wipe the rail and do everything outside like that. Anyway, there wasn't much to do. At about twelve o'clock I went into the galley to cook dinner and Charlie Seabury and Brick Warner went along to help me. While we were peeling the potatoes, Skinny came in and showed me three or four dimes and some pennies, and said he found them on the deck, when he was sweeping. He said, "I've been to every fellow in the troop and nobody lost any money. Are they yours?" I told him no and so did Brick and Charlie and we said he had better give them to Mr. Ellsworth. "One of them is a French coin," Brick said, and he showed it to me and I saw that it was. "I guess one of the fellows dropped some change climbing over the rail," Charlie said, "and maybe didn't miss it on account of not losing all he had, hey?" "He'd know if he had a French coin and lost it," Brick said.