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- Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
- Kategorie: Lebensstil
- Sprache: Englisch
In "Lost on the Orinoco; or, American Boys in Venezuela," Edward Stratemeyer constructs an engaging narrative that blends adventure with themes of exploration and cultural encounter. Set during the turn of the 20th century, the novel follows a group of young American boys as they navigate the untamed landscapes of Venezuela, encountering both the beauty and perils of the Orinoco River. Stratemeyer's prose is characterized by its vivid descriptions and fast-paced plot, reflecting the literary styles of his era, which often emphasized melodrama and moral lessons, catering to the popular tastes of juvenile literature at the time. The story encapsulates the spirit of American exceptionalism and the fascination with exotic locales that marked the period, contributing to the burgeoning genre of adventure novels for young readers. Edward Stratemeyer, a prolific author and publisher known for creating iconic series such as the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew, was deeply influenced by his own upbringing and the cultural currents of his time. His passion for storytelling stemmed from a childhood filled with books and an interest in exploration fueled by the era's colonial ambitions. "Lost on the Orinoco" reflects Stratemeyer's understanding of young audiences, as he sought to impart both thrilling tales and valuable life lessons within the narrative framework. Recommended for young readers and educators alike, "Lost on the Orinoco" is a must-read for anyone seeking an exhilarating adventure that captures the spirit of exploration while also serving as a cultural commentary on American identity. Stratemeyer masterfully balances excitement with ethical considerations, making this work not only entertaining but also thought-provoking, encouraging readers to understand and appreciate the rich tapestry of cultures that exist beyond their own borders. In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - A succinct Introduction situates the work's timeless appeal and themes. - The Synopsis outlines the central plot, highlighting key developments without spoiling critical twists. - A detailed Historical Context immerses you in the era's events and influences that shaped the writing. - A thorough Analysis dissects symbols, motifs, and character arcs to unearth underlying meanings. - Reflection questions prompt you to engage personally with the work's messages, connecting them to modern life. - Hand‐picked Memorable Quotes shine a spotlight on moments of literary brilliance. - Interactive footnotes clarify unusual references, historical allusions, and archaic phrases for an effortless, more informed read.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023
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Lost on the Orinoco; or, American boys in Venezuela
Table of Contents
Introduction
At its core, Lost on the Orinoco; or, American boys in Venezuela follows youthful resolve tested by a mighty river and an unfamiliar landscape.
Edward Stratemeyer’s Lost on the Orinoco; or, American boys in Venezuela is a juvenile adventure novel set along the Orinoco River in Venezuela, published in the early twentieth century. As was common in boys’ fiction of the period, it sends its young protagonists into a distant setting where geography and circumstance shape character. The book draws on the allure of one of South America’s great waterways, using travel and uncertainty to frame a story of risk, decision, and endurance. Its publication context reflects a moment when popular American literature often looked abroad for dramatic backdrops and instructive trials.
The premise is simple and compelling: American boys journey into Venezuela and, through a chain of events, find themselves disoriented on the Orinoco, pressed to chart a way forward with limited means. The plot foregrounds movement—upstream and down, into and out of trouble—rather than intricate mystery. Readers can expect brisk episodes that emphasize practical problem-solving, clear stakes, and the steady pressure of the environment. Without delving into later turns, the opening setup promises a narrative of survival and navigation in which choices, cooperation, and calm under stress matter as much as physical daring.
Key themes revolve around self-reliance, teamwork, and the education of experience. The boys’ efforts to assess risk, allocate resources, and keep morale signal the story’s interest in character under strain. Courage here is not abstract; it is measured in patience, adaptability, and the willingness to learn from error. The book also reflects the era’s habit of treating travel as a proving ground, raising questions—still relevant today—about how we meet the unknown, what we owe to one another in precarious situations, and how youthful ambition can be refined by restraint and thoughtful judgment.
The Orinoco itself functions as both setting and silent antagonist, a vast system of channels, currents, and banks that can help or hinder depending on how it is read. Stratemeyer’s narrative attends to the sensory elements of river travel: water levels that change plans, dense vegetation that obscures sightlines, weather that remakes the day’s goals, and the constant negotiation between route and safety. This landscape confers awe and instruction, offering vistas of beauty while demanding respect. In this way, the novel encourages readers to appreciate place not just as scenery but as an agent shaping action and character.
Stylistically, the book offers straightforward prose, swift pacing, and chapter-by-chapter momentum characteristic of early twentieth-century youth adventures. Scenes tend to build toward clear outcomes before opening the next challenge, creating an accessible rhythm for younger readers and a nostalgic cadence for older ones. Dialogue and description serve function over flourish, keeping focus on decisions and consequences. The mood balances excitement with sober caution, underscoring that success often comes from observation, planning, and mutual support rather than bravado. The result is an experience that blends motion and mindfulness, a travel tale sharpened by practical detail.
For contemporary readers, Lost on the Orinoco; or, American boys in Venezuela offers both a spirited excursion and a historical snapshot of popular storytelling. It invites reflection on resilience, responsibility, and the ethics of exploration, themes that remain pertinent in an age of global travel and environmental awareness. Approached as an adventure and as an artifact of its time, the novel prompts conversations about how narratives shape our expectations of distant places and of ourselves when tested. Without revealing later developments, it promises an engaging journey that rewards attention to character, context, and the enduring pull of the unknown.
Synopsis
Lost on the Orinoco; or, American Boys in Venezuela follows two American youths who travel to Venezuela as part of a small expedition tied to family business interests and a desire to see the celebrated Orinoco River. Under the care of a seasoned adult companion and local helpers, they aim to meet a contact in the interior and to learn about the region's commerce and geography. The narrative opens with preparations, explanations of routes, and cautions about the distance and the river's reputation. The tone is practical and descriptive, placing the boys at the start of a purposeful journey that soon grows more demanding than expected.
The party arrives at a bustling Caribbean port and proceeds inland to the capital, where they secure permits, provisions, and a river guide. Scenes of harbor activity, mountain roads, and crowded markets frame their first impressions of the country. Conversations with officials and merchants introduce concerns about seasonal floods, scattered unrest, and the difficulties of travel beyond the settled districts. The boys observe language differences and local customs while receiving instruction on safety and navigation. Their route is set toward the great river basin by way of plains and tributaries, with a timetable that depends on weather, transport schedules, and the river's changing levels.
Crossing wide grasslands, the travelers encounter ranches and roaming cattle tended by skilled horsemen of the plains. The narrative emphasizes long miles under intense sun, sudden downpours, and the logistics of keeping men and supplies together. Early mishaps, such as a strayed pack animal or an axle failure, test patience and planning but are managed without loss. Along the way, the boys acquire practical skills, from packing gear to reading tracks and skies. They also hear stories about the Orinoco's labyrinth of channels and islands, warnings that foreshadow the complex navigation ahead. The journey continues steadily toward the first navigable waters.
Upon reaching a tributary, the group shifts to boats, exchanging dust for the constant motion of the current. The river brings a new set of concerns: submerged logs, sudden squalls, clouds of insects, and banks alive with birds and reptiles. Encounters with traders and riverside communities provide opportunities to barter for food and to gather news about channels, sandbars, and fuel. A brief misunderstanding over routes and prices is settled through a local interpreter, reinforcing the value of clear communication. Maps and landmarks guide them deeper into the basin, as the boys study currents, eddies, and the habits that make travel safer.
A violent storm marks a turning point. In the confusion of wind and high water, the convoy breaks apart and a boat is swept into a side channel. When the weather clears, the boys find themselves separated from their main party, with limited provisions and uncertain bearings. The narrative tightens around basic needs: shelter, potable water, and food. They apply lessons learned, using simple tools and the river's drift to aid them. While they set signals and mark their path, unfamiliar sounds and tracks add urgency. The goal narrows to regaining the main channel or reaching a known post without delay.
Complications arise when they encounter a small band of opportunists operating along a lesser-traveled reach. These men, intent on exploiting confusion on the river for gain, create hazards that are as serious as the natural ones. The boys must balance caution with initiative, avoiding confrontation while protecting the documents and supplies entrusted to them. Local allies, including a boatman and a hunter who know the backwaters, offer guidance in exchange for fair dealing. A series of quiet maneuvers through creeks and lagoons follows, with false leads and evasions that test endurance and resolve without bringing the larger journey to a halt.
Unable to remain afloat indefinitely, the boys undertake a march along a firm bank toward a settlement reported to lie downstream. This leg emphasizes methodical progress: marking trees, rationing provisions, and building rafts for short crossings. Natural obstacles include swarms, precarious footings, and glimpses of large reptiles that discourage careless stops. Practical instruction appears in details such as preparing cassava and identifying safer campsites above flood lines. The landscape broadens occasionally to reveal herds and distant smoke, signs of people and trade. Encouraged, they persist, steering by sun and river sounds, while remaining alert for the companions they hope to rejoin.
The narrative converges as signals are finally answered and news flows both ways. Threads concerning the missing boat, the intentions of the river opportunists, and the status of their interior contact come together near a busier stretch of water. A steamer and a riverside post provide communication and a path toward official channels. Documents are reviewed, claims are clarified, and arrangements are made to continue the journey with better protection. Although not all uncertainties are resolved on the spot, the immediate dangers recede. The emphasis shifts to orderly travel, completing the intended business, and restoring the expedition to a purposeful course.
The book concludes by underscoring themes of perseverance, clear thinking, and respect for people and places encountered along the way. The Orinoco is presented as vast, demanding, and navigable to those who prepare and cooperate. Without dwelling on technicalities, the story illustrates how observation, patience, and fairness can change outcomes in unfamiliar settings. The boys return from the experience with a firmer grasp of practical travel and the responsibilities that come with trust. The overall message emphasizes courage tempered by prudence and the value of teamwork in meeting challenges, while preserving a sense of wonder at the river's breadth and life.
Historical Context
Edward Stratemeyer situates Lost on the Orinoco in Venezuela’s immense Orinoco River basin, a region of swamps, flooded forests, and savanna margins that, by the late nineteenth century, was threaded by river steamers but still thinly connected to national centers. The action plausibly ranges from the delta channels to interior ports such as Ciudad Bolivar, renamed from Angostura in 1846, and upriver trading posts near tributaries feeding the llanos. The probable time frame mirrors the 1890s, when malaria and yellow fever were endemic hazards, customs houses controlled river commerce, and caudillo politics made travel uncertain. Telegraph lines and a few railways connected the Caribbean coast, but the Orinoco remained the essential highway inland.
The book inherits an older tradition of Orinoco exploration that lent scientific and romantic prestige to the river. Sir Walter Raleigh’s 1595 voyage up the lower Orinoco renewed European fantasies of El Dorado. Jesuit José Gumilla’s 1741 Orinoco Ilustrado provided ethnographic and geographic notes used for generations. Most influentially, Alexander von Humboldt and Aimé Bonpland traveled the Orinoco in 1799-1800, describing the Casiquiare canal linking it to the Rio Negro and Amazon. Robert H. Schomburgk’s British Guiana boundary surveys in the 1830s-1840s mapped adjacent forests. Stratemeyer’s riverine itineraries and appetite for natural curiosities echo this cumulative archive of maps, travelogues, and specimen-filled narratives.
From the 1870s through the 1890s, the Guayana region experienced a mining and export boom that shaped the Orinoco’s traffic. El Callao, in present-day Bolivar State, became one of South America’s busiest gold fields, drawing British, French, Caribbean, and North American capital and labor to deep shafts and stamp mills. Steamers carried machinery and bullion through Ciudad Bolivar, while smaller craft pushed into tributaries to supply camps. Balata latex and tonka beans joined hides and hardwoods in the export mix. The novel’s premise of American youths navigating remote channels and encountering prospectors and traders closely mirrors this extractive economy and its perilous, fever-ridden logistics.
Heightened United States attention to Venezuela between 1895 and 1903 powerfully frames the novel’s plausibility and appeal. The Venezuela–British Guiana boundary dispute culminated in 1895 when Secretary of State Richard Olney asserted an expansive Monroe Doctrine and President Grover Cleveland’s 17 December 1895 message pressed Britain to accept arbitration. A tribunal convened in Paris in 1899 awarded most of the disputed Essequibo territory to Britain, but the episode put Venezuela’s rivers, ports, and resources in U.S. newspapers and atlases. The Spanish–American War in 1898 further reoriented U.S. strategy around Caribbean sea lanes, coaling stations, and proximate republics, encouraging juvenile adventure plots set in nearby Latin America. Within this climate, the Orinoco stood out as a navigable corridor into South America’s interior, with Ciudad Bolivar a choke point for customs and foreign trade. Simultaneously, Venezuelan fiscal weakness and creditor pressures produced the 1902-1903 naval blockade by Britain, Germany, and Italy, which began in December 1902 and ended with the Washington Protocols of 13 February 1903. Although Stratemeyer’s tale does not require gunboats to appear, the risk of seizure of cargoes, insurance hikes, and rumors of foreign intervention were part of the period’s atmosphere, especially felt at river mouths and coastal depots. Roosevelt’s emerging big-stick posture and later corollary to the Monroe Doctrine gave American protagonists a sense of national protection and mission, while also casting Venezuelan locales as contested spaces where international law, sovereignty, and commerce were visibly in play. The book’s emphasis on navigation, customs encounters, and uncertain allegiances reflects precisely these diplomatic and economic cross-currents.
Chronic internal conflict in the 1890s provided the on-the-ground volatility the narrative implicitly leverages. The 1892 Revolution of the Legalists returned Joaquín Crespo to power; the 1893 constitution and his second presidency gave way to the contentious 1897 election of Ignacio Andrade against José Manuel Mocho Hernández. Crespo died in battle at La Mata Carmelera in 1898 defending Andrade. In May 1899, Cipriano Castro launched the Restauradora revolution from Táchira, entering Caracas in October. The era’s llanero militias and partisan columns routinely disrupted river traffic and road stages. Scenes of checkpoints, shifting loyalties among guides, and the menace of banditry map onto these civil-war patterns recognizable to contemporary readers.
The Orinoco basin’s indigenous nations and mission frontiers formed another historical backdrop. Warao communities in the Delta Amacuro, Ye’kuana along the Caura and upper Orinoco, Piaroa in the middle reaches, and Pemón in the Gran Sabana sustained canoe routes, palm-house settlements, and trade in forest products. Capuchin missionary networks, revived and reorganized in the nineteenth century in Guayana, mediated between state authorities and indigenous groups, sometimes channeling labor toward balata cutting or river transport. Late-century commerce in balata and tonka beans altered subsistence patterns and exposed communities to disease and debt peonage. The novel’s encounters with river pilots, palafito villages, or mission outposts mirror this layered social geography.
Transport and communications advances shaped the feasibility of the boys’ itinerary. The La Guaira–Caracas Railway opened in 1883, and the German-financed Great Venezuelan Railway linked Caracas and Valencia in 1894, tightening coastal networks even as the Orinoco remained the only practical highway into Guayana. Telegraph expansion in the 1880s connected customs offices and garrisons, while mid- to late-nineteenth-century steam navigation placed regular services between the delta, Barrancas, San Félix, and Ciudad Bolivar. These systems allowed foreign engineers, merchants, and, in fiction, adventurous Americans to move from Caribbean ports to interior waterways within days. The story’s reliance on schedules, river pilots, and transfer points corresponds to this hybrid modern-traditional infrastructure.
Read against its time, the book doubles as a critique of precarious sovereignty and extractive capitalism. By juxtaposing American mobility with Venezuelan civil strife and frontier commerce, it exposes how foreign capital and gunboat diplomacy could distort local economies and entrench class divides between merchants, concessionaires, and riverine labor. The hazards faced by indigenous boatmen and miners gesture toward unequal burdens of disease and dangerous work. Customs delays and petty graft suggest institutional fragility born of fiscal crises. Although infused with national self-confidence, the narrative implicitly questions the costs of resource rushes and the moral hazards of external leverage over a state navigating debt, caudillismo, and contested borders.
Lost on the Orinoco; or, American boys in Venezuela
PREFACE
“Lost on the Orinoco” is a complete tale in itself, but forms the first volume of the “Pan-American Series,” a line of books intended to embrace sight seeing and adventures in different portions of the three Americas, especially such portions as lie outside of the United States.
The writing of this series has been in the author’s mind for several years, for it seemed to him that here were many fields but little known and yet well worthy the attention of young people, and especially young men who in business matters may have to look beyond our own States for their opportunities. The great Pan-American Exhibition at Buffalo, N. Y. did much to open the eyes of many regarding Central and South America, but this exposition, large as it was, did not tell a hundredth part of the story. As one gentleman having a Venezuelan exhibit there expressed it: “To show up Venezuela properly, we should have to bring half of the Republic here.” And what is true of Venezuela is true of all the other countries.
In this story are related the sight seeing and adventures of five wide-awake American lads who visit Venezuela in company with their academy professor, a teacher who had in former years been a great traveler and hunter. The party sail from New York to La Guayra, visit Caracas, the capital, Macuto, the fashionable seaside resort, and other points of interest near by; then journey westward to the Gulf of Maracaibo and the immense lake of the same name; and at last find themselves on the waters of the mighty Orinoco, the second largest stream in South America, a body of water which maintains a width of three miles at a distance of over 600 miles from the ocean. Coffee and cocoa plantations are visited, as well as the wonderful gold and silver mines and the great llanos, or prairies, and the boys find time hanging anything but heavy on their hands. Occasionally they get into a difficulty of more or less importance, but in the end all goes well.
In the preparation of the historical portions of this book the very latest American, British and Spanish authorities have been consulted. Concerning the coffee, mining and other industries most of the information has come from those directly interested in these branches. This being so, it is hoped that the work will be found accurate and reliable as well as interesting.
Once more thanking the thousands who have read my previous books for the interest they have shown, I place this volume in their hands trusting it will fulfil their every expectation.
Edward Stratemeyer.
April 1, 1902.
LOST ON THE ORINOCO
CHAPTER ITHE BOYS TALK IT OVER
“Hurrah, Mark, it’s settled at last.”
“What is settled, Frank?”
“We are to go to Venezuela and other places in South America. My father just got the word from Professor Strong. I brought the letter along for you to read.”
“That’s certainly immense news,” remarked Mark Robertson, as he took the letter which Frank Newton held out to him. “Does he say how soon he will be able to start?”
“Just as soon as he can settle up affairs at Lakeview Academy. I suppose he’s got quite something to do there yet. But we can hurry him along, can’t we?”
“I don’t think you’ll hurry the professor much,” answered Mark, as he began to read the communication which had been passed to him. “He’s one of the kind that is slow but sure—not but that he can move quick enough, when you least expect it.”
“As for instance on the night we tried to hide all the schoolbooks in the old boathouse,” responded Frank, with a twinkle in his eye. “He caught us neatly, didn’t he?”
“That’s what. Hullo! So Beans and Darry are going, too. I like that first rate. Beans is all right, even if he is from Boston, and Darry will furnish fun enough for a minstrel show.”
“To be sure. I wouldn’t want to go if they weren’t along, and you. But do you see what the professor says on the last page? He wants to take Jake the Glum along too.”
At this the face of Mark Robinson fell somewhat. “I wish he had left Glummy out,” he said. “He knows the fellow is sour to the last degree and a bully in the bargain.”
“I guess the professor wants to reform him, Mark.”
“He’ll have up-hill work doing it. Glummy has been at the academy two years and I know him pretty thoroughly.”
“Well, he’ll be the richest boy in the crowd. Perhaps that had something to do with taking him along.”
“No, the professor doesn’t think so much of money as that. Each person in the crowd will have to pay his share of the expenses and his share of the professor’s salary, and that’s all, outside of the incidentals.”
“I wonder if the incidentals won’t be rather high.”
“I fancy we can make them as high as we please—buying souvenirs and things like that. You can be sure Glummy will try his best to cut a wide swath if he gets the chance.”
“Perhaps the professor will hold him in. But it’s great news, isn’t it?” And in his enthusiasm Frank began to dance an impromptu jig on the library floor.
Frank Newton was a New York city youth, sixteen years of age, tall, well-built and rather good looking. He was the only son of a Wall Street banker, and if his parent was not a millionaire he was exceedingly well to do. The lad resided in the fashionable part of Madison Avenue when at home, which was not often, for his family were fond of going abroad, and either took the boy with them or sent him to boarding school.
Directly opposite the home of the Newtons lived the Robertson family, consisting of Mr. and Mrs. Robertson, Mark, and several smaller children. Mr. Robertson was a dry goods importer who owned an interest in several mills in England and Scotland, and he made trips across the Atlantic semi-yearly.
Although Mark Robertson was a year older than Frank Newton, the two lads were warm friends and had gone to school together for years. Their earlier education had been had in the city, but when Frank was eleven and Mark twelve both had been packed off to Lakeview Academy[1], a small but well conducted school nestling among the hills of New Hampshire.
Five years of life at the academy had made the place seem like a second home to the boys. The master, Professor Amos Strong, was a thorough gentleman and scholar, and under his guidance the boys progressed rapidly in all their studies. The professor had in his day been both a traveler and hunter, and the stories he was wont to relate during off hours were fascinating to the last degree.
As might be expected, the boys, while at school, made many friends and also an enemy or two, although as regards the latter, the enmity was never very deep, for Professor Strong would not tolerate anything underhanded or sneakish.
Next to Mark, Frank’s dearest chum at the academy was Dartworth Crane, a slightly built boy of fifteen, who was as full of fun as a boy can well be. Dartworth, or “Darry” as he was always called for short, was the son of a rich Chicago cattle dealer, and the boy’s earlier days had been spent on a ranch in Montana. He loved to race on horseback and hunt and fish, and the master sometimes had all he could do to hold the sunny but impetuous lad within proper bounds.
As Frank had another chum, so did Mark, in the person of Samuel Winthrop, the son of a well-to-do widow who resided in the Back Bay district of Boston. Samuel was a tall, studious looking individual, with a high forehead and a thick mass of curly black hair. Because he came from Boston, he had been nick-named “Beans,” and although he did not relish the sobriquet it was likely to stick to him for years to come.
Among the lads to join those at the academy two years before had been Jacob Hockley, a thin, lank youth of Mark’s age, with a white freckled face and hair strongly inclined to be red. Hockley was the only son and heir of a millionaire lumber dealer of Pennsylvania. His manner was peculiar, at times exceedingly “bossy” as the others declared, and then again morose and sour, the latter mood having won for him the nickname of “Glummy” or “Jake the Glum.” Hockley was given to spending his money, of which he had more than was good for him, freely, but even this had failed to make him any substantial friends.
The enmity between Hockley on one side, and Frank and Mark on the other, had arisen over the captaincy of the academy baseball team the summer previous. Jake wished to be the captain of the team, and had done his best to persuade or buy the boys over to vote for him. But Frank had advocated Mark for the captaincy, and Mark had won, much to the lank youth’s discomfiture.
“You’ll never win a game with Mark Robertson as captain and with Frank Newton on first-base,” had been Jake’s sour comment, but he was sadly mistaken. That summer the team played nine games with the teams from rival schools, and won seven of the contests. The winning made Jake Hockley more down on Mark and Frank than ever, but as the others were popular he had often to conceal his real feelings.
On a windy night in June the cry of “fire!” had aroused every inmate of Lakeview Academy from his bed, and had caused all to leave the rambling building in a hurry. The conflagration had started in the laundry, and from this room quickly communicated to the kitchen, dining hall, and then the remainder of the stone and wood structure. In such a high wind, the fire department from the village, two miles away, could do little or nothing, and the efforts of the students, headed by the several teachers, were likewise of no avail. Inside of three hours everything was swept away and only a cellar full of blackened debris marked the spot where the picturesque academy had once stood.
Under such circumstances many a man would have been too stunned to act immediately, but ere the stones of the building were cold, Professor Strong was laying his plans with the insurance companies for the erection of a new and better structure. The students were cared for at some neighboring houses and then refitted with clothing and sent home.
During the fall there had been much talk of a personally conducted tour to South America during the coming year, the tour to be under the guidance of Professor Strong, who had been South a number of times before. Letters had been sent to the parents of various students, but nothing definite had been done up to the time the fire occurred.
Mark and Frank had planned for the trip South, and could not bear to think of giving it up, and as soon as Professor Strong was in a position to give them his attention, Frank had gotten his father to write concerning it. Several letters passed, and at last Professor Strong decided to leave the building and the management of the new academy to his brother, who had just left the faculty of Harvard, and go with the boys.
While the trip was being talked of at the academy, previous to the fire, Jake Hockley had announced his determination to go, but since the boys had separated, nothing more had been heard from the lank youth, and Mark and Frank were hoping he had given the plan up. The announcement therefore, that he would make one of the party, put a damper on their enthusiasm.
“He’ll get us into some kind of trouble before we get back, you see if he doesn’t,” was Frank’s comment.
“I’ll make him keep his distance[1q],” was Mark’s reply. “If he attempts to go too far I’ll show him that I won’t stand any nonsense.”
The party of six were to leave for Venezuela by way of New York city, and a few days after the conversation just recorded Sam Winthrop came down on the train from Boston, to remain with Mark until the arrival of the professor.
“Beans, by all that’s delightful!” cried Mark, as he wrung his friend’s hand. “So glad you came a few days ahead.”
“I wanted a chance to look around New York,” answered Sam Winthrop. “I’ve never had a chance before, you know.”
“You shall look around, all you please, and Frank and I will go with you.”
“Is Darry here yet?”
“No, but Frank expects him to-morrow. Then we can all go around until Professor Strong arrives. But say, what do you think about Glummy going?” and Mark looked anxious.
“Can’t say that I am overjoyed, Mark.”
“I wish it was anybody but Hockley—and Frank wishes the same.”
“Well, all arrangements have been made, so we’ll have to make the best of it. But I heard one thing that doesn’t please me,” went on Sam. “I got a letter from Dick Mason, and in it he said Glummy was talking of the trip to some of his chums, and said he was going just to show Frank and you a thing or two.”
“Did he? I wonder what he meant?”
“He didn’t mean anything very good, you can be sure of that, Mark.”
“You are right. We’ll certainly have to keep our eyes open and watch him,” concluded Mark, seriously.
CHAPTER IIPREPARING FOR THE START
On the following morning Darry Crane came in, on the Limited Express direct from Chicago. He sent a telegram ahead, to Frank, who went up to the Grand Central depot to meet his chum.
“Had a fine trip,” said Darry, “but, honest, I couldn’t get here fast enough, I’ve been that anxious to see you. Heard from Beans yet? I’ll wager he comes down with his grip loaded with beans, on account of the long trip, you know. What, didn’t bring any beans? Must be a mistake about that.”
“I guess he was afraid you’d forget the pork,” answered Frank, with a laugh. “But how have you been since you left school?”
“First-class. Went West, you know, with my father and nearly rode a pony to death on the Lone Star ranch. Oh, it was glorious to get over the ground. Beats a stuffy old city all to bits. Hold on, I’ve got to look after my trunk. Wouldn’t want to lose that, for it’s got the whole outfit for the trip in it.”
“Our man will have the trunk brought to our house,” answered Frank. “You come with me, and I’ll take you down to Mark’s, where you’ll find Beans. By the way, heard anything of Glummy?”
“Did I? Well, I just guess, Frank. What do you think? He actually paid me a visit—not very long, of course, but still he came to see me. Said he was passing through Chicago on a trip to St. Louis, and felt that he had to hunt up an old chum. I almost fainted when he said it. But he acted quite decent, I must admit, not a bit airish or sour either.”
