The Mystery Boys and Captain Kidd's Message

“And that fellow called this man ‘Don’ and not ‘Senor,’” Cliff added. “They may be relatives. Mr. Neale saw the man in Jamaica—he would know. I wonder where he is!”

“Ahoy, _Senorita_!” came the second hail. Nicky scrambled from his wicker chair and started for the companion door; Tom looked at Cliff and then, catching his eye, glanced at th...

The spot where the _Treasure Belle_ came to anchor was just at the lowermost point of the archipelago of coral islets. The solid land which had Cape Sable for its most Southern...

Things happened so fast and so thick that no one could have told a story of all that went on. Cliff, landing on all fours, beside Nicky, was up on his knees in an instant, tuggi...

To say that Clarence Neale, the leader at the start of the Mystery Boys’ adventure, was worried would be a tame statement of the truth. Clarence Neale was more than that. He fel...

First of all, of course, it was necessary for Tom, Cliff and Nicky to discover the key islands which formed the Dipper. This was not easy, because the channels between the islet...

Early in the morning Tom, on board the cutter with Mr. Sommerlee, his engineer and two of the patrol, decided that a brisk bit of exercise would be just about the finest appetiz...

Seated around the supper table in the plantation house, the chums could hardly contain their impatience while the colored servant removed the dishes. The abrupt twilight had pas...

Tom’s effort to destroy the carbureter had drawn the attention of the crew to the engineer’s repeated assertions that the leaky old carbureter was wasting gas, and that they oug...

Like a jackrabbit, Sam, in two moves, dived into the cabin. His first jump took him from the deck to the cockpit; his body hardly landed, facing astern, before he doubled on him...

Jamaica’s Blue Mountains, looking with their lordly heads over the wide expanse of a sunlit sea, discerned a white sail. That was no unusual sight to them; but this particular s...

That the old crone was very much “worked up” was easily to be seen. Tom and Nicky, watching uneasily, saw her fumble in her old bag and draw out with her bony fingers three quee...

The hi-jackers, after capturing Sam’s sloop, had sent her, with two men aboard, to make contact with their Little Card Sound headquarters. Nelse was there and from what he had h...

“They will help—won’t you?” said Senor Ortiga with a pleasant look that surprised the chums. “Just because they fibbed to us we can’t tie them up again! It was perfectly natural...

Nicky wasted no time going around through the door. He scrambled to the windowsill and leaped out into the darkness. Springing clear of the bushes which were planted close to th...

“While we rest,” Brownie said to Nicky, “take a good look around. There’s not so many white boys who get to see the Everglades. It’s a sight worth seeing, just at daybreak!”

The _Treasure Belle_, when they inspected her with Sam and Mr. Neale, disappointed the chums. She lay, careening to one side, in a place on the shore of a small ship basin. Her...

After a quick handclasp with the other two, Sam counseled delay. “Better to tell me what has happened to you,” he said. “There are men hiding on that ship, waiting till the men...

Although Nicky had put a brave face on a bad situation, all three chums realized how grave was their danger. Their word had been accepted without question and they were given th...

“What is the matter with that colored boy?” whispered Nicky Lane to his comrades, Tom and Cliff, “Look! He stares up at the sun and then he watches us as if he expects something...

“I see,” Cliff grinned at them. “You two are—sort of—arm-chair adventurers. You like to have the thrills without the hardships. Just look at us!” he declared. “We couldn’t be de...

Picking up the bundles of their clothes, the Seminole herded the chums along the trail; its limestone-coral hurt their tender, bare feet while they had hard work to avoid the de...

She knew that the open practice of voodoo was against all laws and she had not really meant to do any more than frighten the boys off. But Nicky’s actions caused her to dread th...

On shore a queer light appeared. It was queer in more ways than one. It was of a peculiar green, an uncanny green; it was not the light of a lantern, shining all around; it seem...

Clearly the churns saw that, although the hi-jackers had escaped for a time, they were really trapped. The _Senorita_, their cruiser, if she lay where she was until dawn, must b...

Once the anchor was dropped and the sails furled, and everything made ship-shape for an indefinite stay, the chums lost no time in tumbling into their dinghy and rowing the seve...

“Jim, see if those lads are still safe, and let them stretch a bit,” came a voice the chums recognized as that of Mr. Coleson. Jim, the colored Jamaican, came into the cabin wit...

“Oh!” replied the man, “it’s this way: we got the maps back in Jamaica, and got _El Libertad_ ready. When you tried to hire her Senor Ortiga let your chief think she was laid up...

Nicky, held, as he was, between two pairs of strong arms, with Mr. Coleson on one side of him and Tew on the other, saw that Lieutenant Sommerlee, with his two patrols in the cu...

“Look at it this way,” begged Nicky. “If we go with them we are in their hands, aren’t we? When the cutter has come and gone, without finding anything but the wrecked boat, thes...

When they awoke the three comrades found their clothes, soaked by their swim the night before, dry enough to put on. There was very little conversation during breakfast, but imm...

It was not the bullet from Nicky’s pistol that did damage—it missed the moccasin by a good foot; but the sound, pounding through the still morning air, warned and wakened the hi...