Boy Scouts in the Philippines

Scouts in the Philippines, by G. Harvey Ralphson

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Title: Boy Scouts in the Philippines Or, The Key to the Treaty Box
Author: G. Harvey Ralphson
Release Date: December 29, 2006 [EBook #20208]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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Boy Scouts in the Philippines
Or
The Key to the Treaty Box
By Scout Master G. Harvey Ralphson
Author of "Boy Scouts in Mexico; or On Guard with Uncle Sam." "Boy Scouts In the Canal Zone; or The Plot Against Uncle Sam." "Boy Scouts in the Northwest; or Fighting Forest Fires."
Copyright 1911. M. A. Donohue & Company. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Eleotrotyped, Printed and Bound by M. A. Donohue & Co.

[Illustration: Boy Scouts in the Philippines; or The Key to the Treaty Box.]

CONTENTS
I. Black Bears and Wolves
II. It's Up to the Boy Scouts
III. The Midnight Visitor
IV. The Signals in Grass
V. On the Rim of the China Sea
VI. The Low Call of a Wolf
VII. A Missing Motor Boat
VIII. Wigwags from the Beach
IX. Two Keys to the Treaty Box
X. A Hot Night in Yokohama
XI. A Fairy History of Japan
XII. Pat Takes a Big Chance
XIII. Of the Wild Cat Patrol, Manila
XIV. The Senator's Son Seeks a Key
XV. Signal Lights in the China Sea
XVI. For Piracy on the High Seas
XVII. The Flare of a Rocket
XVIII. The Man Behind the Door
XIX. Boy Scouts Unearth Plot

Boy Scouts in the Philippines
OR
The Key to the Treaty Box
CHAPTER I.
BLACK BEARS AND WOLVES.
"Wake up--wake up--wake up!"
Frank Shaw, passenger on the United States army transport Union, San Francisco to the Philippines, awoke in his cabin to find the freckled face of Jimmie McGraw grinning above him.
"What's the use?" he demanded, sleepily and impatiently. "It will be only another roasting day on a hot deck on an ocean fit to stew fish in. What's the use of getting up? I'm going to sleep again."
Frank's intentions were all right, but he did not go to sleep again. As he turned over and closed his eyes, Jimmie seized him deftly by the shoulders and dumped him out on the scarlet rug which covered the floor of the stateroom.
Frank was seventeen and Jimmie was younger, and so there was a mixture of legs and arms and vocabulary for a moment, at the end of which Jimmie broke away and made for the door, which he had thoughtfully left open as a means of retreat.
Left thus alone on the tumbled blankets of the bunk from which he had been hustled, Frank rubbed his eyes, threw a pillow at his tormentor, and began making his way toward his cozy nest, much to Jimmie's disgust.
"Aw, come on!" the boy urged, still standing in a safe place by the doorway. "It's hot enough to melt brass in here, an' the siren's been shoutin' for half an hour! That means land--the Philippines! Perhaps you think you're lookin' for Battery Park, in little old New York! Get up an' look out of the port, over the rollin' sea, to the land of the little brown men!"
Looking through the doorway, over the boy's shoulders, Frank smiled serenely at what he saw and sat waiting for something to happen. Then Jimmie was propelled headlong into the room, where he landed squarely on top of the drowsy boy he had dragged out of bed. There was another scramble for points, and then two boys of about seventeen showed their faces in the doorway, laughing at the mix-up on the floor.
The transport's siren broke out again in its long, shrill greeting of the land which lay above the rim of the sea, and Frank, catapulting Jimmie against the wall at the back of the bunk, hastened to the open port and looked out.
The boys who had entered the cabin so unceremoniously were Ned Nestor and Jack Bosworth, who were traveling with Frank and Jimmie to the Philippines, the party being under the direction of Major John Ross, of the United States Secret Service.
They had left Panama about the middle of April, and it was now not far from the first of June, the transport having been delayed for a week at Honolulu, where she had put in for supplies. The boys had enjoyed the trip hugely, but were, nevertheless, not displeased at the sight of land.
Leave it to the lads themselves, and this was a Boy Scout expedition, although there was a serious purpose