Page:Barbour--For the freedom from the seas.djvu/41

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WITH THE COAST PATROL

my father. The last time was in the Fall. The Germans got her."

"Got her! You mean sank her? Where was this? What ship was she?"

"The Jonas Clinton, sir. We were shelled about live hundred miles from the coast on the voyage back."

"The Clinton! Of course, I remember that! So you were the captain's son that was picked up by a British destroyer, eh? I remember reading about it. That was in November, wasn't it?"

"October, sir: the sixteenth when we were picked up. They got the schooner about midnight of the fourteenth."

"Yes, yes, they found four of you in a small boat——"

"Five, sir, and a dog."

"Was it five? I remember about the dog. The papers made a sort of hero of you, didn't they? Had you risking your life to get the dog off, or something."

"The papers," replied Nelson Troy gravely, "printed a good deal that wasn't so. I couldn't very well leave Pickles! behind, you see. And I guess there wasn't much danger."

"But, I say, Troy, your father!" The en-

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