The Boy Chums in the Florida Jungle or, Charlie West and Walter Hazard with the Seminole Indians

"GOLLY! I'm getting powerful tired ob dis. Fish what just clusterers 'round youah bait an' won't bite at hit noways is jest trifling and noaccount. I reckon dey's too ornery an'...

FOR a few minutes there was entire silence while the four devoted their whole attention to the delicious meal Chris had prepared, and, during this lull, the reader has time to o...

THE working of the powerful machine had been observed from a distance. As the little party drew nearer, they could see more plainly the heaps of mud and wet dirt left in the wak...

"Oh, I guess he owns the stuff out there, all right," said the agent. "The point is, that in a year's time he has only completed ten miles of the road, and, if you have read the...

THE camp was soon plainly in view of all, and the reason for Charley's exclamation apparent. Although it was not nearly noon, groups of negroes were gathered around the various...

"WHERE do all you boys come from?[A] I've been pretty well over the Bahama Islands, but I can't quite place you chaps," Charley said, smilingly. "What island are you from, anyway?"

"I AM not the boss of this outfit," said the Missourian, with a smile. "I do what I am told to do. Rooney and McGill ordered me to pile the wood on that side, so I've been doing...

"I DON'T like the idea of Charley going in alone with that gang," Captain Westfield said uneasily. "It's a bad crowd he's got along with him, and they may make him trouble."

IT was strange sounds coming out of the mists that had drawn the lads' attention. They were not kept long in suspense as to the nature of the noises, for it soon became plain th...

A FEW feet in front of McCarty lay a little mound of soft dirt, thrown up by a gopher when digging its hole down deep into the earth. It was the stirring of this mound of sand t...

McCarty grinned. "I spent lots of my spare time hunting," he explained, "and most of it was done in a worse country than this, where one could get lost within a couple of hundre...

CHARLEY stopped the car in front of the camp and jumped nimbly out, followed by the two white men, whom he introduced to the two boys as "Bob Bratten and Will Kitchner, our new...

AS soon as our little party got back to camp, Charley called together the Spaniards not yet assigned to duty, and had the Captain select the three men he wanted for graders. Alt...

FORTUNATELY for Charley the newly-leveled road was still so unpacked and soft that the mule quickly tired, with its feet at every stride sinking to the fetlocks, and, before it...

"THIS mystery business just seems to get thicker and thicker," Captain Westfield remarked, when Charley had finished relating his experience of the day. "Smokeless powder and Ma...

MIDNIGHT and the silence of sleep hung over the little camp, when suddenly there came the shriek of the whistle from the machine, four long blasts--the distress signal--and from...

WALTER stepped back of the machine, where he could not be seen, and watched the little man approach. He was curious to see if Mr. Jones would attempt to speak to the engineer af...

SUNRISE found the boys well on their way to Indiantown. By nine o'clock they were entering the jungle where Charley had been fired at on his previous trip. Before entering it, h...

NOT long after leaving Indiantown the boys passed into a higher country, where the road wound in and out among great towering live oaks, under which the ground was thickly strew...

FOR a few minutes Charley was almost a prey to vague, suspicious fears, which lie hidden deep in most of mankind. The suddenness of his chum's disappearance, the ages-old stocka...

THE tired-out boys slept soundly until awakened by the rays of the morning sun. Rising, they enjoyed a good swim in the cool waters of the lake, and then, stirring up the dying...

MUCH downcast by his failure to secure the sheriff's aid, Charley made his way to the building where most of the lawyers of the county had their offices. Selecting one of the of...

EVEN before they reached the guard line, the little party could plainly hear the groans that had so frightened the Spanish sentinel. The sounds came from a point some two hundre...

"I have never been out in this country before," he said. "It seems wonderfully strange and interesting to me. So unlike anything I have ever seen in the North. I suppose that th...

ACCORDING to agreement, as soon as night fell, Charley, taking two of the Spaniards with him, went out to stand guard on the machine for the night, while Walter and the other tw...

THE Spaniards sharing the sick man's tent willingly complied with Charley's request and moved their belongings to the other tents in which there was plenty of room for them. Wit...

"I really believe that dye business is going to work out to our advantage," Charley remarked to his chum. "Those Spaniards will not be so likely to get frightened next time at a...

WHEN night came Charley and Walter had to go on the picket line alone, for the two remaining Spanish guards would have to join the grading gang in the morning. They adopted the...

THE two lads next visited the hospital tent, where they found the fever patients much improved but the three machine men suffering greatly from their burns, while Bob Bratton an...

ONE and all in the camp now began to look forward to the coming of Canady with the mules. The Spaniards because, until a new light was installed, they could only work half time...

"No questions, no questions, until we have had something to eat," protested the lawyer good-humoredly, as our little party crowded around him. "We haven't had a bite to eat sinc...

"Very well," said the lawyer. "I am glad of that, for I must confess I have carried things with a pretty high hand in this matter. I am almost afraid to tell you the whole truth...