In the wake of an easterly squall the sloop _Arrow_, Lemuel Vinton
master and owner, was making her way along the low coast, southward,
from Snipe Point, one of the islands in Florida Bay about twelve
miles northeast of Key West.

With every sail closehauled and drawing until the bolt ropes creaked
under the strain, the _Arrow_ laid a fairly straight course toward
Key West. She bore a startling message, the nature of which her
captain had considered of sufficient importance for him to prolong
a cruise he had undertaken and to hasten back to the port whence
he had sailed, twenty-four hours previously, to inform the authorities.

The sloop had not sped far from the Point, and the receding shore
line had scarcely grown dimly blue on the horizon under a peculiar
yellow-gray sunrise, when Captain Vinton's crew began to make
their appearance on deck. The crew consisted of five Boy Scouts,
an older companion who was in charge of them, and a Seminole Indian
guide, called Dave, who had been hired to conduct the boys on
a brief exploration of the Everglades. Four of the boys belonged
to a troop of scouts who had their summer headquarters at Pioneer
Camp, far away among the New England hills. They had, however,
formed a resolution to spend the present summer not at Pioneer
Camp, where most of their younger comrades would be, but in seeing
some new sections of their native land. To this end, three of
them---Hugh Hardin, his chum Billy Worth, and Chester Brownell---had
gladly accepted an invitation from the fourth, Alec Sands, to
spend a month at Palmdune, the Florida residence of Alec's father,
who had sent them on this cruise. With them Mr. Sands had sent
his secretary, a young man named Roy Norton, who had left them