ILLUSTRATIONS.
| SUMNER AT HOME | Frontispiece. | |
| "WITH THE NEXT SEND OF THE SEA THE CANVAS CANOE WAS CRUSHED BENEATH THE PONDEROUS BOWS" | Facing p. | [18] |
| "HE RETURNED TO THE BUOY, ON WHICH THE RECENT FUGITIVE WAS NOW SITTING" | " | [30] |
| THE "CUPID" AND "PSYCHE" START ON THEIR CRUISE | " | [32] |
| TORCH-FISHING FOR MULLET | " | [40] |
| THE CANOES ARE GONE | " | [48] |
| "'SOME ONE WAS TRYING TO PULL MY GUN AWAY'" | " | [64] |
| "THE LATTER WAS ROLLING ON THE GROUND AT THE FOOT OF A COCOANUT-TREE" | " | [68] |
| A GREAT DISCOVERY | " | [78] |
| QUORUM IS HAPPY | " | [84] |
| "TWO PAIRS OF POWERFUL ARMS DRAGGED HIM INTO THE BOAT" | " | [94] |
| "AS HE STEPPED ASHORE A PLEASANT-FACED YOUNG MAN ADVANCED TO MEET HIM" | " | [108] |
| QUORUM RESIGNS HIMSELF TO FATE | " | [126] |
| QUORUM DANCES A BREAK-DOWN | " | [136] |
| "HE FOUND RUST NORRIS CROUCHING IN THE LEE OF THE LITTLE DECK-HOUSE" | " | [158] |
| REPAIRING THE "PUNKIN SEED" | " | [168] |
| "A VOLLEY OF RIFLE-SHOTS FLASHED AND ROARED FROM THE FOREST" | " | [188] |
| "ROUGH-LOOKING CHARACTERS, WHOM HE AT ONCE RECOGNIZED AS SOUTH FLORIDA COWBOYS" | " | [200] |
| "HIS WRISTS WERE UNBOUND, AND THE CLOTH THAT ENVELOPED HIS HEAD WAS SNATCHED FROM IT" | " | [220] |
| "DIRECTLY AFTERWARDS A CANOE APPEAREDAT THE OPENING IN THE BUSHES" | " | [240] |
| "THEY WERE SUDDENLY CONFRONTED BY AN INDIAN ARMED WITH A RIFLE" | " | [248] |
| "THE ORDEAL OF FIRE LASTED BUT A MINUTE" | " | [272] |
| SUMNER AND WORTH IN THE SEMINOLE CAMP | " | [282] |
| SUMNER RESCUES KO-WIK-A | " | [310] |
| "THE SURPRISE AND DELIGHT OF THE TWO GENTLEMEN CAN BETTER BE IMAGINED THAN DESCRIBED" | " | [322] |
CANOEMATES.
A Story of the Everglades.
Chapter I.
IN THE FAR SOUTH.
"Really, mother, it doesn't seem as though I could stand it any longer! Life in this place isn't worth living, especially when it's a life of poverty, and what people call 'genteel poverty,' as ours is. Our struggle is for bare existence, and there doesn't seem to be any future to it. If you'd only let me go to New York, I'm sure I could do something there that was worth the doing, but I can't do anything here, and I'd almost rather die than live here any longer!" With this Sumner Rankin flung himself into a chair, and his flushed face was as heavily clouded as though life held nothing of hope or happiness for him.
"Why, my dear boy," exclaimed his mother, standing beside him and smoothing his tumbled brown curls with her cool hands, "what is the matter? I never knew you to speak so bitterly before."
Mrs. Rankin still looked so young and pretty that she might almost be taken for an elder sister of the handsome, seventeen-year-old boy over whom she now bent so tenderly.
To the casual observer the Rankins' home was a very pleasant one. It was a pretty, broad-verandaed cottage nestled in the shadows of a clump of towering cocoanut palms, on the far southern island of Key West. It stood on the outskirts of the town, and so close to the beach that the warm waters of the Mexican Gulf rippling on the coral rocks behind it made a ceaseless melody for its inmates. Jasmine-vines clambered over it, glossy-leaved myrtles, a hedge of night-blooming cereus and other sweet-scented tropical shrubs perfumed the air about it. Through these, looking out from the shaded coolness of the verandas, the eye caught fascinating glimpses of blue waters with white sails constantly passing, and stately men-of-war swinging idly at their moorings. It looked an ideal home; but even in this tropical Eden there was one very large serpent, besides several that were smaller though almost equally annoying. The big one was poverty, and it held the Rankins in its dread embrace as though with no intention of relaxing it.