NEW YORK
HURST & COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1911,
BY
HURST & COMPANY
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. [The Watcher of the Trail]
II. [Colonel Morello Charters a Schooner]
III. [Like Thieves in the Night]
IV. [Run Down]
V. [Nat in Dire Straits]
VI. [The Voice in the Dark]
VII. [A Desperate Plan]
VIII. [How it Worked Out]
IX. [Adrift in the Pacific]
X. [The Tigers of the Sea]
XI. [Tricked!]
XII. [A Menace of Old Ocean]
XIII. [Adrift]
XIV. [A Mysterious Craft]
XV. [A Face that Terrified]
XVI. [What Befell in the Fog]
XVII. [The "Island Queen's" Secret]
XVIII. [Lost on the Western Sea]
XIX. [The Island]
XX. [The Boys Encounter a Big Surprise]
XXI. [Attacked by Marquesans]
XXII. [A Strange Meeting]
XXIII. [Nat's Skyrocket Artillery]
XXIV. [The Last of the "Nettie Nelsen"]
THE MOTOR RANGERS ON BLUE WATER
CHAPTER I.
THE WATCHER OF THE TRAIL.
A party of horsemen, riding in single file, was making its way down the steep, rugged trail leading from the interior to Santa Inez. Although they had not as yet glimpsed the little mission town, which was their destination, the blue, sparkling glint of the Pacific had, for some time, been visible through the columnar trunks and dark foliage of the red woods.
The four persons composing the little cavalcade seemed to be in the best of spirits as their sure-footed cayuses ambled along. Their voices rose high amid the hush of the densely wooded slopes. Squirrels, blue-jays, and other denizens of the Coast Range, fled incontinently as they heard the high, boyish tones intruding into their domains.