ork, Jack Bosworth was the son of a wealthy board of
trade man, and Jimmie McGraw was a Bowery newsboy who had attached
himself to Ned Nestor, his patrol leader, just before the visit to
Mexico and had clung to him like a puppy to a root, as the saying is,
ever since.

"Come on, boys," Ned said, after an inspection of the ocean through the
port, "let's go on deck. We can see the whole show from there."

The boys trooped up to the rail and were soon joined by Major Ross. It
was now a little after dawn, and a sunrise breeze was lifting little
ripples on an otherwise motionless sea. Spread out, a couple of miles
away, was the outline of shore the siren was greeting.

It was a low coast, stretching away to right and left until lost in the
mists of the morning. It looked monotonous and furry with forests,
deserted and still, but in time the presence of man became observable.

A river wound down out of the trees and broke over a bar set against its
mouth in the sea. On the right bank of the stream a tin roof glistened
in the early sunlight. Wherever there is a tin roof there is
civilization in some degree, though this seemed to be a sleepy one.

Presently the call of the siren brought forth a boat, not in the little
bay, but up the river a few hundred yards. It moved down to the
coastline with only the canopy, which was of faded scarlet cloth, and
the heads of the rowers in view above the tops of the bushes and
creepers which lined the stream.

The land smoked under the rising temperature brought on by the climbing
sun, and Jimmie chuckled as he nudged Frank's arm.

"I see your finish there," he said. "A boy as fat as you are will melt
over there. There's nothin' left of the brown men in the boat but their
heads!"

Frank looked along the bow-shaped shore, over the palms, now touched
with the red light of a hot morning, and wiped his streaming forehead.

"This doesn't look good to me!" he said. "I thought we were going to
Manila!"

"Didn't Ned tell you about it?" asked Jack Bosworth.

"Not a word."

"Well, we're going to disembark here; I don't know the name of the
place, or even if it has one, and make our way among some of these
islands in a motor boat. There are a lot of secret service men at Manila
who don't want to mix with us kids!"

"That's nice!" Jimmie cried. "We won't do a thing to 'em! We'll put it
over 'em good, you see if we don't! I reckon Ned Nestor can give any of
'em half a string an' win out,