"Luff a little, Merritt " "Luff it is, Rob. And let me tell you right now that if this head wind keeps on growing stronger, we're going to have it nip and tuck to get home before dark sets in. These November, days have a quick end, you know. Steady now, everybody; we'll have to come about." "On the next leg, Merritt, run in as close to the shore as you can," continued the boy who was handling the sheet of the sailboat, and who seemed to be in command, though he had given up his place at the helm to a comrade.

The dark growth of scrub oak and pine parted suddenly and the lithe figure of a boy of about seventeen emerged suddenly into the little clearing. The lad who had so abruptly materialized from the close-growing vegetation peculiar to the region about the little town of Hampton, on the south shore of Long Island, wore a well-fitting uniform of brown khaki, canvas leggings of the same hue and a soft hat of the campaign variety, turned up at one side. To the front of his headpiece was fastened a metal badge, resembling the three-pointed arrow head utilized on old maps to indicate the north. On a...

"Seems to me, Rob, I ought to know that old tub of a motorboat we're overhauling." "Why, yes, Andy, it's Captain Jerry Martin's Sea Gull. Time was when she had a reputation for speed, but her engine is a back number now." "Huh that must have been away in Noah's time, I reckon, Rob. Why, we could make circles around her, if we chose to drive our little Tramp to the limit."

Farmer Hiram Applegate had just finished breakfast. For this reason, perhaps, he felt exceptionally good-humored. Even the news he had read in his morning paper (of the day before) to the effect that his pet abomination and aversion, The Boy Scouts, had held a successful and popular review in New York and received personal commendation from the President failed to shake his equanimity. Outside the farmhouse the spring sun shone bright and warm. The air was crisp, and odorous with the scent of apple blossoms. Robins twittered cheerily, hens clucked and now and then a blue bird flashed among...

"Hullo, Rob; what's up?" Merritt Crawford stopped on his way past the Hampton post-office, and hailed Rob Blake, the leader of the Eagle Patrol, of which Merritt was corporal. Both lads wore the natty scout uniform.

"Can you make out any sign of the mesa yet, Pete?" The speaker, a sun-bronzed lad of about seventeen, mounted on a bright bay pony with a white-starred forehead, drew rein as he spoke. Shoving back his sombrero, he shielded his eyes from the shimmering desert glare with one hand and gazed intently off into the southwest.

"Oh, it's southward ho, where the breezes blow; we're off for the pole, yo, ho heave ho " "Is that you, Harry?" asked a lad of about seventeen, without looking up from some curious-looking frames and apparatus over which he was working in the garage workshop back of his New York home on Madison Avenue. "Ay ay my hearty," responded his brother, giving his trousers a nautical hitch; "you seem to have forgotten that to-day is the day we are to see the polar ship." "Not likely," exclaimed Frank Chester, flinging down his wrench and passing his hand through a mop of curly hair; "what time is...

"Up with your helm there, Noddy Luff her up or you'll have the Curlew on the rocks " "That's right, luff " cried Billy Raynor, adding his voice to Jack Ready's command. "That's what I luff to do," grinned the red-headed, former Bowery waif, Noddy Nipper, as, with a dexterous motion, he jerked over the tiller of the fine, speedy sloop in which the boys were enjoying a sail on Alexandria Bay, above the Thousand Islands.

"Oh how glad I am that part of the trip is over, now we've crossed from England to Antwerp without being wrecked " "You certainly did seem to have a bad time of it, Tubby, in the wash of the Channel " "Bad time did you say, Rob? It was a great deal worse than anything we struck on the voyage between New York and Liverpool, let me tell you." "But now we want to forget all our troubles of the past, Tubby." "I know what you mean by that, Merritt; it's just the same as telling me the worst is yet to come."

Here, Harry, catch hold." "Ouch-I dropped that cartridge box on my pet corn." "Say, you fellows, are we going to Africa or are we on a Coney Island picnic?" "Be serious now, Billy Barnes, you may be all right as a reporter, but as a shipping clerk you're no more good than a cold storage egg." "Well, I'm doing the best I can," was the indignant reply, "here-I've got it all down: Box 10- One waterproof tent, one rubber-blanket, tent-pegs, ropes, more ropes.-Say, Frank, what in the name of the 'London Times' and jumping horn-toads do you want so much rope for?"