There are to-day thousands of boys in the large cities who are living just as these boys lived in their younger years, who sleep and eat where and when they can, and who are too often brought into crime by those who ought to teach them, from experience, that crime is never pleasant or profitable in the long run. Sometimes the law, in the guise of a fat-bellied, egotistical, greedy police officer, assists these wreckers of youth by arresting boys and seeing that they are sentenced to months of association with thieves.
These four boys, the three in the cabin and the one out somewhere in the rain, had fortunately been spared the attentions of police officers, and had grown to the age of seventeen with sturdy figures and fairly-well trained intellects—all save Julian Shafer, who had long been showing symptoms of tuberculosis.
It was the ill health of Jule that had at first suggested the trip to the Equator. The boy, ordinarily the merriest one of the lot, as full of pranks as a young kitten, had been informed by Dr. Holcomb that the climate of Chicago would bring his life to a close in two years’ time, so the boys had planned to take him away. Unselfishly they had set their hands to the task, and now the first step was near completion.
It was while they were cudgeling their brains for some way of accomplishing the desire of their hearts that Dr. Holcomb had come to them, first as a physician for the ailing boy, then as a sincere friend. After becoming well acquainted with the lads, and after making a few investigations as to their habits of thought, their loyalty to each other, the good doctor had said to them, one bright night in early fall when they were assembled in his office:
“I’ll tell you what, boys,” he had begun, “I have a motor boat down in the South Branch which is of little use to me. I used to enjoy trips in her, and she has seen service on many of the lakes and rivers of the Northwest, but I’m too busy now to take the time to flirt with her. If you care to look after her this winter, fix her up a little, and in the spring provision her for a journey to some tropical climate, you may have the use of her. What do you say?”
What did they say! What would any group of boys of seventeen say to such a proposition as that? They almost hugged the doctor, and the occupants of the other offices on that floor afterward complained that the doctor’s patients were too noisy to be good pay! As for Jule, when he understood that it was all being done for him, he said nothing at all, but there was a moisture in his bright eyes, a tightening of his handclasp that night, which his chums understood.
“But you must save up at least $200,” the doctor had stipulated, “for I don’t care to have the Rambler tied up in some foreign port for supply or repair bills. She will carry you anywhere, on ocean or river, if you learn how to handle her, and you needn’t be afraid of being caught by anything of her size in a chase. Be good to her and she’ll be good to you!”
So the boys had slept and cooked for themselves in the Rambler all that winter, to save more money, and had learned to run the boat, and had made many little repairs with their own hands. And now they had saved the sum required, had given up their positions, and were to sail away to the Amazon and the Andes on the morrow! It all seemed too good to be true!”
“The money,” Clay said, after looking over the map, “is, I remember now, in the round box, with the tinned food, in a square box with a red cover. Get it, Alex.”
Alex brought the box—and found it empty. The money was gone!