We sailed on August 2 from Devonport, three days before _Renown_ and _Dragon_ left Portsmouth, and when one of us suggested that this was a happy idea to get us to St. John's, Newfoundland, in order to be ready for the Prince, he was told: "Not at all, we're out looking for icebergs." We were to act as the pilot ship over the course. We found icebergs, many of them; even, we nearly rammed an iceberg in the middle of a foggy night, but we found other things, too. We found that we had got onto what the Navy calls a "happy ship," and if anybody wants to taste what real good fellowship is I advise him to go to sea on what the Navy calls "a happy ship." However much we had disturbed them, the officers of the _Dauntless_ did not let that make any difference in the warmth of their hospitality. We were made free of the ward-room, and that Baltic tobacco. We were initiated into "The Grand National," a muscular sport in which the daring exponent turns a series of somersaults over the backs of a line of chairs; and we were admitted into the raggings and the singing of ragtime. We were made splendidly at home. Not only in the ward-room that did a jazz with a disturbing spiral movement when we speeded up from our casual 18 knots to something like 28 in a rough sea, but from the bridge down to the boiler room, where we watched the flames of oil fuel making steam in the modern manner, we were drawn into the charmed circle of comradeship and keenness that made up the essential spirit of that fine ship's company. The "damned reporters," on a trip in which even the weather was companionable, were given the damnedest of good times, and it was with real regret that, on the evening of Friday, August 8, we saw the high, grim rampart wall of Newfoundland lift from the Western sea to tell us that our time on the _Dauntless_ would soon be finished. Actually we left the _Dauntless_ at St. John's, New Brunswick, where we became the guests of the Canadian Government which looked after us, as it looked after the whole party, with so great a sense of generosity and care that we could never feel sufficiently grateful to it. CONTENTS CHAPTER