The Boy Aviators on Secret Service

leaped up at the invasion of the motor-boat intruders. Frank lit a lantern and naturally the first thing the boys hastened to investigate was whether any harm had come to

seems inexplica

ey figured we were asleep ashore and sneaked up

illy; "for unless they threw him overboard, they must hav

ure it," rejoined Frank, "not wishing to have him m

opinion them chaps in the motor-boat was the same limpets as s

of that, Ben," replied Frank, "t

sy for them in a light draught motor-boat to have kept track o

trace us to Miam

mes-traced people I mean. I guess they just looked up th

," exclaimed Frank. "It's really too mo

gly, "I'd like to get 'em quartered off this sight. I'd

r what couldn't be helped, "the thing to do at present is to finish our night's slee

in case real trouble was to come. The boys were not long, even after the exciting interruption to their slumbers, in sinking to sleep again on the transoms in the summer cabin of the Carrier Dove. As for Ben he sat up on the after deck wit

tching an hour when h

enturer's reckless heart was borne a resolve which bore fruit when at dawn, as the rim of a glorious sun poked itself over the sparkling blue expanse of waters, and showed them vacant, he drew in the Squeegee's painter and slipped lightly into her. He sculled ashore and approaching the camp crouched almost on his hands and knees. He examined the gr

the canvas-curtains of the Carrier's Dove's "main saloon". Rubbing their eyes sleepily they hastened out on deck. For a few seco

ueegee'

echoed t

ly a fraction of time before the absence of Ben Stubbs was also discovered. For a minute a dark thought

's the Sque

gh, lay their sneak-box where Ben, a

ne ashore huntin

hook hi

reason than that f

ied Lathrop, and indeed the turquoise water into whose depths one

ed Frank, pointing as he spoke to a wicked-l

d onto the back of a man-eating shark and they don't encoura

will sometimes follow ships for days to satisfy their insatiable appetites. With an ill-concealed shudder Lathrop watched

akfast r

less than the snakes

or did he once look at the transparent water about them which, as the sun got higher, began to swarm with black fins and queer ill-shaped monsters of the deep,-jew-fish, rays, and huge sun-fish,-which seen through the water looked like so many ill-shaped dragons. On shore the boys hastened at once to their camp-fire of the night before. I

gency box fitted into each canoe, they made a satisfactory breakfast, after which, as the result of their confab, it was decided to attempt to circumnavigate the island in th

nt and were working their way up the other coast. The island had turned out to be even smaller than they thought. They were opposite a pretty little bay in which, instead of the everl

neous thought and the canoes we

t still a path. They did not give much time to the consideration of their surroundings however, their minds being bent on finding Ben. Suddenly out of the brush right ahead there s

w one," remarked B

at knocked about in the sunl

nchanted land,"

g, as the hoot was repeated from a further recess of t

t, boys. It's a signal gi

n to distrust any human being they might encounter on the island. Whoever the inhabitants were th

stopping here," he added, as the "hoo-hoo" sounded uncannily

en and youths sprang out of the dense growth as if they had sprouted from the earth. They all carried ancient Winchesters and one or two even had an old-fashioned flint-lock. Their c

trangers?" demanded one

n a hunting trip,

ackers set up a lo

we reckon," remarked a gangling

n occurred. A wild-looking young woman, whose movements, despite her miserable rags, were as graceful as thos

, and you too, Amelech, and Will. Why for

ll looked

e-," be

mped her foo

an so many loons," she cried angrily. "Don't you

lous, but nevertheless

ll man who had first spoken and, with their wild escort clusterin

d not the slightest idea, but that Black Bart's influence w