Project Gutenberg's The Boy Scouts on Picket Duty, by Robert Shaler

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Title: The Boy Scouts on Picket Duty

Author: Robert Shaler

Release Date: July 19, 2004 [EBook #12946]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOY SCOUTS ON PICKET DUTY ***

Produced by Jim Ludwig

THE BOY SCOUTS ON PICKET DUTY

by Scout Master Robert Shaler

CONTENTS

CHAPTERS
I. The Mysterious Steamer
II. A Contraband Cargo
III. On a Lone Scout
IV. The Hut on the Beach
V. Kidnapped by Smugglers
VI. The Flight of the "Arrow"
VII. A Gathering of the Clan
VIII. The Blazing Beacon
IX. Deeds in the Darkness
X. The End of the Raid
XI. Aboard the "Arrow"
XII. A Surprising Adventure

CHAPTER I

THE MYSTERIOUS STEAMER

In the wake of an easterly squall the sloop _Arrow_, Lemuel Vinton
master and owner, was making her way along the low coast, southward,
from Snipe Point, one of the islands in Florida Bay about twelve
miles northeast of Key West.

With every sail closehauled and drawing until the bolt ropes creaked
under the strain, the _Arrow_ laid a fairly straight course toward
Key West. She bore a startling message, the nature of which her
captain had considered of sufficient importance for him to prolong
a cruise he had undertaken and to hasten back to the port whence
he had sailed, twenty-four hours previously, to inform the authorities.

The sloop had not sped far from the Point, and the receding shore
line had scarcely grown dimly blue on the horizon under a peculiar
yellow-gray sunrise, when Captain Vinton's crew began to make
their appearance on deck. The crew consisted of five Boy Scouts,
an older companion who was in charge of them, and a Seminole Indian
guide, called Dave, who had been hired to conduct the boys on
a brief exploration of the Everglades. Four of the boys belonged
to a troop of scouts who had their summer headquarters at Pioneer
Camp, far away among the New England hills. They had, however,
formed a resolution to spend the present summer not at Pioneer
Camp, where most of their younger comrades would be, but in seeing
some new sections