The Boy Scouts Down in Dixie; or, The Strange Secret of Alligator Swamp

The Strange Secret of Alligator Swamp.
By HERBERT CARTER
Author of “The Boy Scouts at the Battle of Saratoga.” “The Boy Scouts Through the Big Timber.” “The Boy Scouts On Sturgeon Island.” “The Boy Scouts In the Blue Ridge.” “The Boy Scouts’ First Camp Fire.” “The Boy Scouts In the Rockies.” “The Boy Scouts On the Trail.”
Copyright, 1914 By A. L. Burt Company.
“That’s always the way it goes!”
“Why, what’s the matter with you now, Step Hen; you seem in a peck of trouble?”
“Who wouldn’t be, when some fellow went and hid his hat away? Didn’t you all see me hang the same on this peg sticking out from the trunk of the pine tree, when we-all came ashore to eat lunch; because that’s what I did, as sure as anything?”
“Oh! you think so, do you?”
“I know it as well as I know my name. Think because I’ve got a stuffy cold in my head just like Bumpus here says he has, and can’t smell, that I don’t know beans, do you? Well, you can see for yourself, Davy Jones, my nice new campaign hat ain’t on the peg right now.”
“Do you know why that’s true, Step Hen? Because a thing never yet was known to be in two places at the same time. And unless my eyes are telling me what ain’t so, you’ve got your hat on right at this minute, pushed back on your head! Told you, boys, Step Hen ought to get a pair of specs; now I’m dead sure of it.”
The boy who seemed to answer to the queer name of Step Hen threw up a hand, and on discovering that he did have his hat perched away back on his bushy head of hair, made out to be quite indignant.
“Now, that’s the way you play tricks on travelers, is it? I’d just like to know who put that hat on my head so sly like! Mr. Scout-master, I wish you’d tell the fellows who love to play pranks to let me alone.”