An American admiral invented a new torpedo, which tests proved to be one of the most destructive projectiles ever invented. A submarine or torpedo boat destroyer, while out of a battleships guns could launch this torpedo at the battleship and destroy its powerful antagonist. The invention made it possible for a small American fleet to defend the coast against a powerful squadron of vessels. “We must secure the plans of the torpedo,” the head of a foreign secret service said to Captain Rudolph, one of his trusted aides. In America the foreign officer appeared in the guise of an American naval officer, who had been reported killed in the Philippine Islands several years before. Captain Rudolph looked like the missing officer, and he accounted for his long absence by saying that he had been held prisoner by the Moros and had just escaped. He was welcomed back to the navy and assigned to a post on the Admiral’s flagship. As time passed, the member of the foreign secret service gained the confidence of the Admiral, and the love of the latter’s daughter, but one person distrusted him, the niece of the Secretary of the Navy. It seemed to her that she had met him when she was in Europe. One day a man who had served in an army abroad, met the naval officer, recognized him, and gave him the stiff military salute characteristic of the foreign army, receiving an answering salute before the officer realized he had betrayed himself. Then the naval secretary’s niece saw the act, and when she recollected how she had met him while she was abroad last summer. Her first impulse was to inform the naval authorities and cause the officer’s immediate arrest, and then knowledge that the Admiral’s daughter loved the guilty man caused her to stay her hand. She decided to tell “Captain Rudolph” that his identity was known, and permit him to make his escape before he had accomplished any mischief. It seemed that her merciful decision was misplaced, for that evening she learned from the Admiral that the plans of the torpedo had disappeared, and that several of the officers of the warship, including the man she knew to be Captain Rudolph, were under suspicion. She had discovered the man who carried away the plans and knew where he had taken them. Should she denounce the officer, or should she try to secure the stolen documents and permit him to escape? Consideration for the admiral’s daughter prompted her to adopt the latter course for not even the overwhelming evidence against her sweetheart could make the girl believe that he was guilty. The two girls gained admittance to the headquarters of the foreign spies, and by a daring ruse gained possession of the missing documents, but before they could escape, one of the band who was a trusted member of the American secret service, arrived and exposed them. The spies decided to place the girls on a steamer bound for South America, to ensure their silence until their captors could escape from the country, but as this plan was about to be carried into effect, “Captain Rudolph” appeared and took charge of the situation. He did not seem to care at all for the open scorn with which the two girls regarded him, and coldly told his subordinates that he would himself see that the two girls were safely placed on shipboard, but before he could leave the room with the girls a most unexpected message came over the telephone, which resulted in the spies making “Captain Rudolph’’ their prisoner. Then the girls learned the truth about the mysterious officer. While “Captain Rudolph” had been in the foreign secret service for several years he really was the officer who had been reported killed in the Philippines, but the American government desired information concerning a powerful European government, and he succeeded in hoodwinking the foreign secret service, and succeeded in being sent to secure information concerning the new torpedo. He was suspected at last, and now he was a prisoner in the hands of his country’s enemies. The girl he loved and her friend who had suspected him, bitterly regretted their unjust suspicions, and they realized that he would probably bay for his bravery with his life, but they did not know that the house was surrounded by agents of the American government, who swarmed into the place a few minutes later and took the spies into custody. The arrival of the Admiral cleared up the mystery. The spies had not secured the plans at all, but merely blank paper which had been substituted for the real documents, to trap the spies for whom the government was searching for months, but it took “Captain Rudolph” to turn the trick. The young naval officer was complimented for his daring, but it did not seem to please him half so much as the fact that he was soon to wed the admiral’s daughter, while as for the naval secretary’s niece, strange to say, she never was in love with the young officer, and was sincerely glad that he was to wed the girl of his choice.