“Suppose,” said he, “instead of traveling as one company, you divide your forces, three of you taking one route and three another to your night’s camping place.  Here is a good spot to camp,” indicating it on the map, “and I will send the machine there with the essential supplies so that you can ‘hike’ without being heavily burdened.  How does that strike you?”

“As being far better than our first plan,” applauded Billy.

The other boys agreed enthusiastically, and the details were promptly arranged.

Early the next morning, as the arching sky and gray waters began to take on a rosy glow from the approaching sunrise, the automobile shot out of the driveway between the palms and down the shell road in the direction of Red Key, carrying Alec and Chester to meet Mark Anderson.

The whir of the motor drowned the twitterings of the awakening birds, but could not dull the fresh odor of the jasmine, nor the beauty of the flowering vines and dew-wet hedges.

Even Chester was stirred by the “newness” of the whole world.

“Cripes, Alec, as Captain Vinton would say, this morning air and the view are worth crawling out at an unearthly hour to enjoy!” he exclaimed.  “That ocean looks about a million miles wide, too; you can’t even tell where the sky begins.”

“There is Mark!” was Chester’s next comment as the machine swung around a curve that had hidden an intersecting road.

“’Morning, Mark,” called Alec in greeting as the two boys jumped out of the car to join the waiting lad.  “Now we’re off!”

He turned to the chauffeur, assuring himself that the man understood the directions for reaching their camp with supplies late that afternoon, and then fell into step with the other scouts for their all-day hike.  Beneath their feet the broken shells of the road crackled, overhead the towering palms waved, near the roadside the stiff grass bent noisily in the breeze, and around them momentarily day grew clearer and brighter.

As the morning advanced and the boys strode on nearing the pine woods, robins and bluebirds, shrikes and chewinks greeted them; and as they stopped for luncheon near a broad, open trail in the barren woodland a buzzard sailed above the tree-tops and peered at them curiously.

In the meantime Norton, Hugh and Billy had started promptly twenty minutes after the departure of the machine.  Billy was in high spirits and declared that he scented adventure in the air.  For an hour, however, nothing occurred to disturb the peaceful sway of Nature, and Billy was about to abandon his attitude of expectation.

Suddenly the stillness was broken by the uneven rattle of rapidly moving wheels over the shell road.  Then the clatter of pounding hoofs further shattered the silence.

“It comes!” shouted Billy dramatically.  Around a bend in the road came a galloping white horse, old and lean, dragging at its heels a reeling hurdy-gurdy cart.