The Boy Scouts on Picket Duty | Page 5

some unexpected quarter. Mark and Roy Norton lounged in the
bow and lazily swapped fishing stories, not at all averse to leaving the
work to the rest.
With the departure of the Petrel on her return to the waters near Snipe
Point, and with a barely-perceptible rise of wind, the sloop Arrow laid a

zigzag course toward the Ten Thousand Islands and came abreast of
them about five o'clock. Beyond a broad inlet that led into the bay, a
white sand beach, sparsely overgrown with crabgrass and waving
palmettos, indicated to Dave that they were near one of his old camping
places. He called Captain Vinton's attention to it, hinting that it would
be a good place to spend the night.
"Why not aboard the sloop?" queried Vinton, though he knew perfectly
well that Dave would seek any excuse to stretch his unseaworthy limbs
on terra firma in preference to tossing on the bosom of old ocean.
"Bad weather comin',---windy to-night," said the Seminole prophet,
pointing to a bank of jagged slaty-gray clouds that was rising in the
west over the gulf.
"Reckon you're right, Dave. If that brings half the wind its looks
promise, I'd ruther have these keys between it and us---eh? There's
anuther squall brewin' out yonder. Come on, let's go ashore, lads."
Making in shoreward, the Arrow presently cast anchor off a shallow
cove "inside" the nearest bar. All five boys got into the sloop's dory,
and after landing the others on the beach, Hugh rowed back to the sloop
to bring the captain, Norton and the guide ashore. When they landed,
they discovered Billy and Alec, Chester and Mark engaged in
examining a big battered tin box, locked, with its cover sealed up with
black sealing wax, which they had found half buried in the sand.
"What is it? What have you got there?" Hugh asked quickly, running
forward.
"It looks like part of Captain Kidd's buried treasure!" said Billy, whose
eyes were sparkling with anticipation.
"Nothing of the sort!" declared matter-of-fact Chester. "It's probably a
lot of old maps and charts."
"Let's open it and see," was Alec's advice.

But the captain interposed.
"Let it alone, boys," he said. "It's marked with a small initial 'B.' That
may stand for Bego or---bait."

CHAPTER III
ON A LONE SCOUT
The captain's oracular advice mystified the boys until, seated by their
evening camp fire of driftwood, he explained to them that the
mysterious box might be filled with articles such as Juan Bego and his
men were both hiding and collecting.
"I dunno as he's been as far up the coast as this," Vinton added, "but
'twouldn't be hard for a sly old sea-dog like him to creep along these
keys at night time 'most any distance."
"Are we far from the Everglades?" asked Billy, cautiously stirring the
fire; for, in spite of the spring warmth, there was a decided chill in the
air so close to the ocean.
"Well, the 'Glades are a good stiff hike from here," replied the captain.
"Eh, Dave; how about it?"
The guide made no answer. Wearied with doing nothing all day, save
lying around on the deck of the Arrow a prey to seasickness, he had
fallen asleep. Above the splash of the surf and the rustle of the wind in
the palmettos, his snores could be heard distinctly, making night
hideous. Alec was on the point of waking him with a nudge in the ribs,
when Hugh restrained him.
"Let him sleep, Alec," he whispered. "Poor old Injun, he's comfortable
at last!"
"So am I," added Chester, stretching himself out on the warm sand.
"This is better than those stuffy little bunks in the cabin, isn't it?"

The next minute he regretted those words, for Captain Vinton looked at
him with an aggrieved expression, as if peeved to hear any
disparagement of the Arrow. The good captain was inordinately proud
of his sloop, which he preferred to all other craft; indeed, had he been
offered the command of one of the gigantic Atlantic liners, it is likely
that he would have declined the honor.
Presently Vinton rose and, beginning to stroll up and down the beach,
looked all around him and up at the sky in the scrutinizing way which
seafaring men have when they retire for the night or turn out in the
morning, to ascertain what sort of weather they may expect.
Overhead, he saw large masses of clouds scudding across the starry
heavens, driven by the wind which bid fair to continue all night and all
the next day. Off on the lagoon loomed the dark hulk and slender mast
of the sloop, rising and falling on the choppy waves, her bow light
gleaming across the water like a watchful eye. At his feet lay the dory,