Boy Scouts on Motorcycles

Scouts on Motorcycles, by G.
Harvey Ralphson

Project Gutenberg's Boy Scouts on Motorcycles, by G. Harvey
Ralphson This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and
with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away
or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
Title: Boy Scouts on Motorcycles With the Flying Squadron
Author: G. Harvey Ralphson
Release Date: March 6, 2004 [EBook #11469]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BOY
SCOUTS ON MOTORCYCLES ***

Produced by Sean Pobuda

Boy Scouts on Motorcycles
Or
With The Flying Squadron

By G. HARVEY RALPHSON
CHAPTER I
BOY SCOUTS IN A STRANGE LAND
"Fine country, this--to get out of!"
"What's the difficulty, kid?"
Jimmie McGraw, the first speaker, turned back to the interior of the
apartment in which he stood with a look of intense disgust on freckled
face.
"Oh, nothin' much," he replied, wrinkling his nose comically, "only
Broadway an' the Bowery are too far away from this town to ever
amount to anythin'. Say, how would you fellers like a chair in front of
the grate in the little old Black Bear Patrol clubroom, in the village of
N. Y.? What?"
The three boys lying, half covered with empty burlap bags, on the bare
earth at the back of the apartment chuckled softly as Jimmie's face
brightened at the small picture he drew verbally, of the luxurious Boy
Scout clubroom in the City of New York.
"New York is a barren island as compared with this place," one of the
boys, Jack Bosworth by name, declared. "Just think of the odor of the
Orient all around us!"
Jimmie wrinkled his nose in disdain and turned back to the window out
of which he had been looking. The other boys, Ned Nestor, of the Wolf
Patrol, and Jack Bosworth and Frank Shaw, of the Black Bear Patrol,
all of New York, pulled their coarse covering closer under their chins
and grinned at the impatient Jimmie, who was of the Wolf Patrol, and
who was just then on guard.
It wasn't much of a window that the boy looked out of, just an irregular
hole in a bare wall, innocent alike of sash and glass. Away to the east

rolled the restless waters of the Gulf of Pechili, which is little more
than a round bay swinging west from the mystical Yellow Sea.
To the south ran the swift current of the Peiho river, on the opposite
bank of which lay the twin of Taku, Chinese town where Jimmie stood
guard. Tungku, as the twin village is named, looked every bit as forlorn
and disreputable as Taku, where the boys had waited four days for
important information which had been promised by the Secret Service
department at Washington.
The gulf of Pechili and the Peiho river glistened under the October sun,
which seemed to bring little warmth to the atmosphere. Junks of all
sizes and kinds were moving slowly through the waves, and farther out
larger vessels lay at anchor, as if holding surveillance over the mouth of
the stream which led to Tientsin, that famous city of the great Chinese
nation.
"Look at it! Just look at it!"
Jimmie pointed out of the opening, his hand swinging about to include
the river and the gulf, the slowly moving boats and the picturesque
streets.
"'Tis a heathen land!" the boy went on. "They wear their shirts outside
of their trousers an' do their trucking on their shoulders. Say, Ned," he
added, "why can't we cut it out? I'm sick of it!"
"Cut it out?" laughed Jack Bosworth, "why, kid, we've just got to the
land of promise!"
"Most all promise!" replied Jimmie. "We've got nothin' but promises
since we've been here. Where's that Secret Service feller that was goin'
to set the pace for us?"
"Perhaps he's lost in the jungle," laughed Frank Shaw. "He certainly
ought to have been here three days ago. What about it, Gulf of Pechili
and the Peiho river Ned?" he added, turning to a youth who lay at his
side, almost shivering in spite of his shaggy burlap covering.

Ned Nestor yawned and threw aside his alleged protection from the
growing chill of the October day. The boys, fresh from a submarine in
which they had searched an ocean floor for important documents as
well as millions of dollars in gold, had arrived at Taku five days before
this autumn afternoon.
After concluding the mission on the submarine, Ned had been invited
to undertake a difficult errand to Peking, in the interest of the United
States Secret Service. Even after landing at Taku, he had confessed to
his chums his utter ignorance of