Boy Scouts in the Philippines.

by G. Harvey Ralphson.

CHAPTER I.

BLACK BEARS AND WOLVES.

"Wake up--wake up--wake up!"

Frank Shaw, pa.s.senger on the United States army transport _Union_, San Francisco to the Philippines, awoke in his cabin to find the freckled face of Jimmie McGraw grinning above him.

"What's the use?" he demanded, sleepily and impatiently. "It will be only another roasting day on a hot deck on an ocean fit to stew fish in.

What's the use of getting up? I'm going to sleep again."

Frank's intentions were all right, but he did not go to sleep again. As he turned over and closed his eyes, Jimmie seized him deftly by the shoulders and dumped him out on the scarlet rug which covered the floor of the stateroom.

Frank was seventeen and Jimmie was younger, and so there was a mixture of legs and arms and vocabulary for a moment, at the end of which Jimmie broke away and made for the door, which he had thoughtfully left open as a means of retreat.

Left thus alone on the tumbled blankets of the bunk from which he had been hustled, Frank rubbed his eyes, threw a pillow at his tormentor, and began making his way toward his cozy nest, much to Jimmie's disgust.

"Aw, come on!" the boy urged, still standing in a safe place by the doorway. "It's hot enough to melt bra.s.s in here, an' the siren's been shoutin' for half an hour! That means land--the Philippines! Perhaps you think you're lookin' for Battery Park, in little old New York! Get up an' look out of the port, over the rollin' sea, to the land of the little brown men!"

Looking through the doorway, over the boy's shoulders, Frank smiled serenely at what he saw and sat waiting for something to happen. Then Jimmie was propelled headlong into the room, where he landed squarely on top of the drowsy boy he had dragged out of bed. There was another scramble for points, and then two boys of about seventeen showed their faces in the doorway, laughing at the mix-up on the floor.

The transport's siren broke out again in its long, shrill greeting of the land which lay above the rim of the sea, and Frank, catapulting Jimmie against the wall at the back of the bunk, hastened to the open port and looked out.

The boys who had entered the cabin so unceremoniously were Ned Nestor and Jack Bosworth, who were traveling with Frank and Jimmie to the Philippines, the party being under the direction of Major John Ross, of the United States Secret Service.

They had left Panama about the middle of April, and it was now not far from the first of June, the transport having been delayed for a week at Honolulu, where she had put in for supplies. The boys had enjoyed the trip hugely, but were, nevertheless, not displeased at the sight of land.

Leave it to the lads themselves, and this was a Boy Scout expedition, although there was a serious purpose behind it. Ned Nestor and Jimmie McGraw were members of the Wolf Patrol, Ned being the Patrol Leader, while Frank Shaw and Jack Bosworth were members of the famous Black Bear Patrol, both of the city of New York.

Those who have read the first two books of this series[1] will readily understand the object of this journey to the Philippines, but for the information of those who have not read the books it may be well to state here that while in Mexico and the Ca.n.a.l Zone Ned Nestor had been able to render valuable services to the United States government.

[Footnote 1: Boy Scouts In Mexico; or, On Guard with Uncle Sam. Boy Scouts in the Ca.n.a.l Zone; or, The Plot Against Uncle Sam.]

At the close of his work in the Secret Service department of the Ca.n.a.l Zone government, he had been invited to accompany Major Ross to the Philippines for the purpose of a.s.sisting in the uncovering of an alleged treasonable plot against the peace of the Islands and the continued supremacy of the United States Government there.

Knowing little of what there was to be done, or of what was expected of him, Ned had accepted the invitation to enter the Secret Service, stipulating only that his chums should be permitted to accompany him to Uncle Sam's new and somewhat unruly possessions in Asia.

"I won't go if we can't make a Boy Scout outing of it," he had insisted.

"I shall be glad to be of service to the government, but I want the boys to have a jolly time, too. There must be plenty of opportunities for adventure in the Philippines," he had added, thinking of the many odd customs of the tribes of natives on the twelve hundred islands that const.i.tute the group.

"I shall be only too glad to have your friends go," the Major had replied, "for I understand that they contributed not a little to the success of your efforts in Mexico and the Ca.n.a.l Zone."

"I couldn't have done a thing without them," had been Ned's generous reply, and so it was all arranged.

However, only three of the boys who had accompanied Ned from New York to the Ca.n.a.l Zone had been at liberty to go to the Philippines, the others reluctantly turning back home. The three to go were now a.s.sembled in the cabin occupied by Frank Shaw, looking out to the dim line of land.

Frank Shaw was the son of the owner and editor of an influential daily newspaper in New York, 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 sh.o.r.e 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 sh.o.r.e, 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, at that!"

"Of course he can," Jack replied, "but I'm not kicking at this way of doing things. I'm thinking of the motor boat, and the long days and moony nights in the seas among these islands!"

"It will be great!" Jimmie admitted.

There was a short pause, and then he added, thoughtfully:

"Who's goin' to run the boat?"

"I can run it," was the reply.

"Yes, you can!"

"I own one," insisted Jack.

"Yes, an' you hire a man to run it!" Jimmie grinned. "I don't believe you can run a hand cultivator!"

"Of course not!" laughed Jack. "But I can operate a motor boat," he added.

"You can?" demanded Jimmie, with an exasperating grin. "Then perhaps you can tell me if the motor boat we're goin' to have has pneumatic brakes?"