The Boy Scouts of the Life Saving Crew

by Robert Shaler

Copyright, 1914, by Hurst & Company.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE I. [Out on the Trestle] 5 II. [The Rescue] 17 III. [Coming Events] 27 IV. [Plans and Projects] 37 V. [A Visit of Inspection] 48 VI. [The Beach Patrols] 59 VII. [The Stranded Schooner] 69 VIII. [The Rescue] 78 IX. [Home Again—and Away] 87 X. [The Silver King] 95 XI. [Down the Coast] 105 XII. [At the Lighthouse] 115 XIII. [Saved from the Storm] 126 XIV. [Captain Bowling’s Story] 133 XV. [Into the Everglades] 140 XVI. [The Friendly Seminoles] 150

The Boy Scouts of the Life Saving Crew.

CHAPTER I.
OUT ON THE TRESTLE.

“We’re almost there now,” said Alec Sands as he steered the big touring car around a curve in the road and out upon a long stretch of hard, smooth, well-oiled clay. “Unless I’m mistaken, that white church spire over there beyond the fringe of palm trees marks the end of our journey. I really didn’t know it was going to be such a long run, or I’d have told Bronson to send some lunch with us.”

“Wish you had!” Chester Brownell exclaimed, leaning back in his seat in the tonneau. “I’m almost starved!”

“I reckon we can make up for it to-night,” added Billy Worth, who sat in front beside Alec. “This Santario is quite a place, isn’t it, Alec?”

“I think so,” answered young Sands. “From what I’ve heard, I guess it’s a sizable town now, though only a few years ago it was a mere village inhabited by fishermen. Someone discovered that the soil two miles inland from the village was suited for raising oranges, so he bought up several acres and planted an orange grove. Since then others have followed the leader, and now the village has grown so large that the oldest inhabitant can hardly recognize it.”

The three young tourists who were speeding along at a good thirty miles an hour, were all members of a troop of Boy Scouts whose summer headquarters were located at Pioneer Lake, “up North.” Alec Sands, the captain of the Otter patrol, and Billy Worth, a member of the Wolf patrol, had been prominent in many of the contests held at Pioneer Camp. Chester Brownell of the Otters was less well known to the boys of the troop, but Alec had come to know him at Hilltop School and had found in him a promising athlete.