VACATION DAYS. "Up with your helm there, Noddy! Luff her up or you'll have the Curlew on the rocks!" "That's right, luff!" cried Billy Raynor, adding his voice to Jack Ready's command. "That's what I luff to do," grinned the red-headed, former Bowery waif, Noddy Nipper, as, with a dexterous motion, he jerked over the tiller of the fine, speedy sloop in which the boys were enjoying a sail on Alexandria Bay, above the Thousand Islands. The... more...

CHAPTER I. ANTWERP, ON THE SCHELDT. "Oh! how glad I am that part of the trip is over, now we've crossed from England to Antwerp without being wrecked!" "You certainly did seem to have a bad time of it, Tubby, in the wash of the Channel!" "Bad time did you say, Rob? It was a great deal worse than anything we struck on the voyage between New York and Liverpool, let me tell you." "But now we want to forget all our troubles of the past, Tubby."... more...

CHAPTER I SCOUTS ON THE TRAIL The dark growth of scrub oak and pine parted suddenly and the lithe figure of a boy of about seventeen emerged suddenly into the little clearing. The lad who had so abruptly materialized from the close-growing vegetation peculiar to the region about the little town of Hampton, on the south shore of Long Island, wore a well-fitting uniform of brown khaki, canvas leggings of the same hue and a soft hat of the... more...

CHAPTER I. THE EAGLES AT HOME. "After all, fellows, it's good to be back home again." The speaker, Rob Blake, leader of the Eagle Patrol of Boy Scouts, spoke with conviction. He was a "rangy," sun-burned lad of about eighteen, clear-eyed, confident and wiry. His Boy Scout training, too, had made him resourceful beyond his years. "Yes, and it's also good to know that we each have a good substantial sum of money in the bank as the result of the... more...

CHAPTER I. THE EAGLE AND THE BUZZARD. "Hurrah!" The shout went upward in a swelling volume of sound as a thousand voices took up the cry. "Say, those boys can fly!" "I should say so." "Did you see that swoop!" "Did I? I thought they were goners sure." "They handle that sky-clipper like a bicycle." These admiring exclamations came in a perfect hailstorm as the big biplane air-craft, which had called them forth, swept earthward, bearing... more...

CHAPTER I. THE POLAR SHIP. "Oh, it's southward ho, where the breezes blow; we're off for the pole, yo, ho! heave ho!" "Is that you, Harry?" asked a lad of about seventeen, without looking up from some curious-looking frames and apparatus over which he was working in the garage workshop back of his New York home on Madison Avenue. "Ay! ay! my hearty," responded his brother, giving his trousers a nautical hitch; "you seem to have forgotten that... more...

CHAPTER I A REUNION "Here, Harry, catch hold." "Ouch—I dropped that cartridge box on my pet corn." "Say, you fellows, are we going to Africa or are we on a ConeyIsland picnic?" "Be serious now, Billy Barnes, you may be all right as a reporter, but as a shipping clerk you're no more good than a cold storage egg." "Well, I'm doing the best I can," was the indignant reply, "here—I've got it all down: Box 10— One waterproof... more...

CHAPTER I. THE TRAIL OF THE HAUNTED MESA. "Can you make out any sign of the mesa yet, Pete?" The speaker, a sun-bronzed lad of about seventeen, mounted on a bright bay pony with a white-starred forehead, drew rein as he spoke. Shoving back his sombrero, he shielded his eyes from the shimmering desert glare with one hand and gazed intently off into the southwest. "Nope; nary a speck, so fur. Queer, too; we ought to be seein' it by now."... more...