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, drawn up on the sand and moored by a line fastened to a palmetto, well out of reach of the rising tide.
Behind him sparkled the ruddy camp fire with the recumbent figures of the five scouts, Norton and the Indian grouped around it, and nearby lay the neat little pile of provisions and utensils covered with a tarpaulin. What matter if rain should chance to fall during the night? They had brought light blankets and rubber ponchos from the sloop, so they would be well protected.
Everything was safe and in order; he was satisfied and at peace with all mankind,---even with the smugglers who had roused his righteous wrath,---and his
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