The Boy Chums in the Gulf of Mexico / or, On a Dangerous Cruise with the Greek Spongers

Charley leveled his gun and sent sixteen shrieking bullets just above the wheelman's head.

OR On a Dangerous Cruise with the Greek Spongers By WILMER M. ELY Author of The Boy Chums on Indian River, The Boy Chums on Haunted Island, The Boy Chums in the Forest, The Boy Chums' Perilous Cruise. A. L. BURT COMPANY NEW YORK

Copyright 1913 By A. L. Burt Company THE BOY CHUMS IN THE GULF OF MEXICO

THE BOY CHUMS IN THE GULF OF MEXICO
It's just like stepping suddenly into a strange country. I am glad we came even if we decide not to go into the business.
The speaker, a sturdy, manly-looking boy of eighteen, was one of a party of four persons who were strolling along a street in the Greek section of Tarpon Springs, a small Florida town, located on the Anclote River, a few miles from the Gulf of Mexico. His companions were a boy about his own age but of less robust appearance, a little negro lad with a good-humored intelligent face, and a middle-aged, heavily-bearded, blue-eyed man whose tattooed arms and rolling gait told of a life spent on tossing seas and whose confident bearing and air of authority stamped him as one above the rank of a common sailor.
Those who have followed The Boy Chums through their many adventures will recognize in the little party their old friends Charley West, Walter Hazard, Captain Westfield and the Bahama lad, Chris, who lately returned from a perilous trip along the Atlantic beach searching for wreckage, and now seeking some promising venture in which to invest the Fifteen Hundred Dollars they earned on that voyage.
You're right, Charley, agreed the other boy. I didn't know before that there was a sight like this in Florida. Here's a bench. Let's set down and rest a bit. I am tired from walking.
Golly, I reckon dis nigger's tired some too, chimed in the little darkey, I'se dun had de toothache in mah legs for most an hour, but I'se had to keep up wid you-alls. Don't dare let you white chillen prognostracate 'round a queer place like dis alone.