"Just our luck to slip a moldy to the blooming Boche and draw a blank," grumbled Mike Mowrey, who was mad as a hornet over the "miss." Ted was inclined to be a bit pessimistic, too; but Jack was sure the _Dewey_ would make good on her next try. Bill Witt started to sing: "We'll hang Kaiser Bill to a sour apple tree," but got little response. The torpedo crew were glum over their failure to bag the German raiding cruiser and in no mood for singing. "Cheer up, boys; better luck next time," called out Navigating Officer Binns as he peered into the torpedo compartment. All at once the boys were startled by a cry from Sammy Smith, who had suddenly leaped to his feet and stood swaying in the wireless room with both microphone receivers tightly pressed to his ears. Above the clatter of the _Dewey's_ engines the gunners forward could hear the electrician talking excitedly to Lieutenant McClure. "Listen, listen, other ships are coming up," Smith was shouting. "I can hear their propellers. That's the fellow we missed moving off there on our port quarter. You can hear at least two more here in the starboard microphone. We seem to have landed plumb in the nest of a German raiding party," rattled off the electrician glibly as he passed the receivers to his commander for a verification of his report. McClure snatched the apparatus and clamped it to his ears. For a moment he listened to the mechanical whirr of churning propellers, borne into his senses through the submarine telephone. "Great!" he exclaimed. "Some more of the Kaiser's vaunted navy trying to sneak away from their home base for a bit of trickery." As he rang the engine room to shut off power, the American commander added, with flashing eyes: "If we don't bring down one of these prowlers before this night is over I'll go back home and ship as deckhand on a Jersey City ferry-boat." Suspended fifty feet below the surface of the sea, the _Dewey_ floated like a cork in a huge basin while her officers took further observations on the movements of the German warships above them. Now that their presence was known the American officers realized they would be accorded a stiff reception when they next went "up top.". "I'm going to try it," announced McClure shortly. "We'll take a chance and pay our respects to one of their tubs." The _Dewey_ forthwith began to rise. At the direction of the navigating officer two hundred pounds of ballast were expelled. Tilting fore and aft like a rocking horse, the submersible responded gradually to the lightening process until at last the depth dial showed only a margin of several feet needed to lift the eyes of the periscopes above the waves. The little steel-encased clock in the conning tower showed ten minutes past one---just about the right time for a night raiding party to be getting under way.