the end of the line was reached, the fish began circling in ever-narrowing circles until, at last, the two boys were able to tow it up slowly to the shore.

"Golly!" exclaimed Chris, as the fish's huge bulk came into view. "Dat's de biggest an' ugliest fish I ever catched. What is hit, anyway?"

Charley glanced down at the short, thick, black body and the huge, gasping, red mouth. "It's a Jew fish," he announced. "I guess it weighs about 800 pounds, but that's not so very much, when you consider that they sometimes grow to weigh over 1,800. Unlike most big fish, however, they are very good eating. Wind up the fish line, and then cut out some good big steaks. They will make dandy fish balls and chowder. While you're doing that, I'll run up to the village and tell everyone to come down and help themselves, then I'll bring the launch around from the dock and pick you up."

Soon after his departure the villagers began to arrive in twos and threes, but not before Chris had cut out several fine steaks from the huge fish. By the time he wound up his line, washed the steaks carefully and strung them upon a piece of cocoanut fiber, Charley hove in sight in a little motor boat. He ran up as close as he dared to the shore and stopped his engine. "Hurry up and climb aboard," he called, "we want to get back to camp before dark."

Chris waded out, treading gingerly with bare feet over the oyster shells that strewed the bottom.

"Hurry up," laughed Charley, "your feet are too tough to be hurt by oyster shells."

The little darkey grinned as he clambered aboard. "Dat ain't de point," he protested. "I was reckoning dat some ob dem oysters might be alive, an' I sho' would have hated to crush de life out ob dem."

Charley threw over the wheel and started up the motor, and the little boat, whirling around, darted away for the distant point with its two snow-white tents. A few minutes' run brought them close to it, and Charley steered round into a cove, to avoid the tide wash, and ran the boat up on the shore. The anchor was taken out and imbedded in the sand. The motor was covered and everything made snug for the night. Then the two boys strolled forward with their burdens for the tents.

Although it was not yet dark, a big fire of fragrant, spicy, mangrove wood blazed before the tent. A little ways from it on blocks of driftwood sat a boy of about Charley's own age, while close beside him sat an elderly man with a heavy beard. The boy was opening oysters, while the man was carefully breaking turtle eggs into a big pan beside him, taking care to let only the yolks fall into the pan and throwing away the uncookable whites.

"Hallo!" greeted Charley cheerfully. "What luck, Walt?"

"Too good," said the boy on the block listlessly. "Every turtle in the Atlantic must have tried to lay on the beach along here. Didn't even have the fun of looking for a nest. They were scattered around everywhere."

"And you, Captain?" asked Charley, with a grin at his chum's reply.

"Ran the skiff right up on a bed of oysters," the old sailor said briefly. "All I had to do was lean over the side and pick 'em up with my hand—big, nice, fat oysters, too."

Charley took a seat on a piece of driftwood, and silence fell upon the three. Only Chris, with the high spirits of his race, stamped down the fire into a bed of glowing coals, and prepared to make an omelette of the turtle eggs, a stew from the oysters, and a big pot of coffee, singing as he worked,

Charley broke the long silence that had fallen on the three. "We are getting to be three old grouches," he said calmly. "We have got the best of health. We have got $5,000 cash in the bank. We have been truckers, wreckers, pearl hunters, plume hunters, spongers, and, lastly, net fishermen, and have gone through all kinds of hardships and perils, and yet, after we agreed to take a long vacation trip and rest up, here after only two weeks of it we are getting restless and dissatisfied. Am I right?"

"You are," declared Walter Hazard heartily. "I admit it. I'm sick of loafing. I want to get back to real work again."

"It's all right for a while, this lounging about from place to place, but I reckon I've about got my fill of it," Captain Westfield admitted. "I had a heap sight rather be working at something."

"I feel the same way," Charley agreed, "and I believe I've found the very thing for us, but it's big—the biggest thing the Boy Chums ever tackled. Come on. Chris has got supper ready. We will talk it over while we eat."

CHAPTER II.
THE NEW VENTURE.

For a few minutes there was entire silence while the four devoted their whole attention to the delicious meal Chris had prepared, and, during this lull, the reader has time to observe and note more carefully this little band of old friends, whom he has doubtless met amid many adventures in the Boy Chum Series. They have changed but little since he met them last in "The Young Net Fishermen." Charley West, the strapping young fellow, who now sits on one side of the fire eagerly devouring piping hot omelette and rich oyster stew, is the same old Charley of yore, his face a trifle older and more alert, perhaps, from the dangers and hardships through which he has passed, but with the same old merry twinkle in his eyes. Walter Hazard, now grown almost as husky as his chum, sits next to him, and close beside Walt is gray-haired Captain Westfield, a sort of guardian father to them both, a master of the sea, but rather helpless on land. He, too, is little changed, while Chris, the little ebony darkey, wears the same broad, good-natured smile as ever. But we must stop and listen to the conversation now starting up, for upon it depends the future of our four friends.

"Tell us what our next move is to be," Walter demanded.

"It rests with the rest of you as much as with me," Charley smiled. "All I am going to do is to make the suggestion."

"Go ahead," said the captain impatiently, "we're waiting to hear it."

"Well," said Charley, "West of Jupiter about forty miles lays the great lake Okeechobee. It's reported by explorers that there's a ten-mile belt clear around the lake of the richest land in the world. Between the lake and Jupiter there is only one little trading-post, called Indiantown. All the way leads through swamps, prairies, and pine barrens. There is a sort of road, but it is under water for about six months in the year."

"All that's interesting, but what has it got to do with us?" said Waiter impatiently.

"I'm coming to that in a minute," said Charley placidly. "Last year the county commissioners passed a law for the building of a dirt road from Jupiter to the lake, and a man named Murphy made a bid of 17½ cents a yard for the dirt handled and he got the contract. He bought a steam shovel with a 1½-yard bucket. He went to work and has got about ten miles of the road completed. Now he wants to sell out his machine and contract. Says his wife in Connecticut is sick, and he's got to go back and stay with her. I saw him in Jupiter to-day, and he told me he would sell machine, tents, a team of mules, and the contract for one-third of what the machine alone cost him, $3,000. I didn't promise him anything, but said we would ride out and look at it in the morning. It looks to me like a good chance to establish ourselves in a good steady business. There's about thirty