The Outdoor Chums on the Gulf | Page 8

any accident. They were now stopping at a little hotel in this town on the river where the railroad crossed. It was a section of Northern Florida. The great and mysterious Gulf of Mexico, they knew, lay not a far stretch away toward the south. Indeed, Jerry had declared he could already smell salt water, though his chums laughed at him, and declared that it was more likely the odor of the mud along the bank of the narrow but deep stream down which they expected to cruise shortly.
"All the same, I'll be mighty glad to set eyes on that same gulf," said Jerry; "I've always wanted to see it, ever since I read about the doings of those old filibusters who used to lie in wait and seize the treasure ships going home from the Spanish Main."
"Listen to him, will you?" broke out Bluff, laughing. "Honest, now, I believe he expects to run across a few of those old fossil pirates, Blackbeard, Captain Kidd and their kind."
"Well, hardly, but it may be we'll meet up with a few up-to-date pirates before we get through--chaps who can charge ten prices for something you just feel you must have. The times are out of joint, boys. Things have changed a little, that's all, but the world is just as full of human sharks as ever," argued Jerry.
"I guess Jerry's right, fellows, and when that gaunt landlord of the inn presents his little bill perhaps you'll say that the buccaneer came sooner than you expected. Besides, who can say what lies before us? There are many swamps to be passed through, I'm told, and they say that more than one fugitive black, wanted for some crime, lives out in those places. We must keep our eyes open all the time."
"And depend on it, Frank knows. He's been picking up information right and left ever since we got here," remarked Will, who was, of course, carrying his beloved camera, with which he had taken many splendid pictures of the past exploits of the four chums.
"When do we get under way?" asked Bluff, eagerly, as he examined the provisions made for cooking, with a battery of little lamps fashioned to burn kerosene in the shape of gas--Bluff was always interested in all that pertained to the cooking parts of an expedition.
"Everything is ready now," remarked Frank. "We'll go back to the inn, all but Will, settle our score, and fetch what few things are left. I've got a rough chart of the river, you know, boys, on which we'll have to depend until we get to the gulf."
"And then?" asked Will.
"Oh, the Government charts will carry us, then, the rest of the way. They have everything down, up to several miles off shore, and all the bayous and cuts besides. Come on, Jerry and Bluff; get busy."
Left in charge of the boat for half an hour, Will sat there in the warm sunshine, trying to picture what it looked like up around cold, bleak Centerville just then. As he fondled his camera other memories were called up, in which it had done its share in the way of perpetuating the exciting events connected with the various outings enjoyed by the four chums.
While Will sits thus and lets his mind wander back to other scenes it may be just as well for us to take a quick survey of these same events, so as to understand something of the ties that held these four boys together.
They formed the Rod, Gun and Camera Club, and their first outing had been at the time a storm took part of the Academy roof off, allowing a short Fall vacation on the part of the scholars. At that time they had gone into the woods, and there encountered a variety of stirring adventures, as set forth in the initial volume of this series called: "The Outdoor Chums; or, The First Tour of the Rod, Gun and Camera Club."
At Thanksgiving time they planned for another little camping trip, over on Wildcat Island, which had quite a bad name on account of the ferocious animals known to exist in its dense thickets, and also because a wild man was said to have been seen there many times. What the four chums saw and did there, and the multitude of remarkable things that came to pass while they were off on this trip, from the robbery on the steamboat to the discovery about the wild man, are told in the second book of the series, entitled: "The Outdoor Chums on the Lake; or, Lively Adventures on Wildcat Island,"
In due time came the summer vacation, and as they had a couple of weeks to be together before going away to seashore or mountains with their parents, the boys arranged to spend this time