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                   THE BOY AVIATORS ON SECRET SERVICE

                                   OR

                         WORKING WITH WIRELESS

                                   BY

                         CAPTAIN WILBUR LAWTON

               AUTHOR OF "THE BOY AVIATORS IN NICARAGUA"

                                NEW YORK
                            HURST & COMPANY
                               PUBLISHERS

------------------------------------------------------------------------

                          Boy Aviators' Series

                        By CAPTAIN WILBUR LAWTON
                  Author of "Dreadnought Boys Series"

                   Six Titles. Cloth Bound. Price 50c
                        UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME

  1 The Boy Aviators in Nicaragua; or, In League with the Insurgents.
  2 The Boy Aviators on Secret Service; or, Working with Wireless.
  3 The Boy Aviators in Africa; or, An Aerial Ivory Trail.
  4 The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest; or, The Golden Galleon.
  5 The Boy Aviators in Record Flight; or, The Rival Aeroplane.
  6 The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash; or, Facing Death in the Antarctic.
  7 The Boy Aviators' Flight for a Fortune.

                            Sold Everywhere.

                            HURST & COMPANY
                               PUBLISHERS
                                NEW YORK

                   _Copyright_, 1910, by HURST & CO.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

                               CONTENTS.

                 I. An Important Commission
                II. The Boys Meet an Old Friend,--and an Enemy
               III. A Tramp with Field-Glasses
                IV. A Plot Discovered
                 V. Two Rascals get a Shock
                VI. The Start for the 'Glades
               VII. A Night Attack
              VIII. The Men of the Island
                IX. A Message from the Unknown
                 X. The Captive's Warning
                XI. The Black Squall
               XII. Pork Chops Proves His Metal
              XIII. The Front Door of the 'Glades
               XIV. Close Quarters with 'Gators
                XV. An Island Mystery
               XVI. The Boys Make an Acquisition
              XVII. The Everglades in an Aeroplane
             XVIII. A Night Alarm
               XIX. On the Mound-Builders' Island
                XX. Captain Bellman's Island
               XXI. A Bold Dash
              XXII. Ben Stubbs Disappears
             XXIII. The Boy Aviators Trapped
              XXIV. A Startling Meeting
               XXV. Quatty as a Scout
              XXVI. Lathrop as an Air Pilot
             XXVII. Hemmed in by Flames
            XXVIII. The Black Aeroplane
              XXIX. The Last of Bellman's Crew

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                  THE BOY AVIATORS ON SECRET SERVICE;
                                  OR,
                         WORKING WITH WIRELESS.




                               CHAPTER I.

                        AN IMPORTANT COMMISSION.


"Come in!"

The gray-haired man who uttered these words gazed sharply up at the door
of the private office of the Secretary of the Navy's Bureau, at
Washington, D. C., as he spoke. He was evidently anticipating callers of
more than usual importance judging from his expectant look. The old
<DW64> who had knocked opened the door and respectfully stood waiting.

"Well, Pinckney?"

"Dey have come, sah."

"Ah; good,--show them in at once."

The old <DW64> bowed respectfully and withdrew. A few seconds later he
reappeared and ushered in two bright looking youths of sixteen and
fourteen with the announcement in a pompous tone of voice:

"Messrs. Frank and Harry Chester."

Frank, the elder of the two brothers, was a well set up youngster with
crisp, wavy brown hair and steady gray eyes. Harry, his junior by two
years, had the same cool eyes but with a merrier expression in them. He,
like Frank, was a well-knit, broad-shouldered youth. Both boys were
tanned to an almost mahogany tinge for they had only returned a few days
before from Nicaragua, where they had passed through a series of strange
adventures and perils in their air-ship, the _Golden Eagle_, perhaps,
before her destruction in an electric storm, the best known craft of her
kind in the world and one which they had built themselves from top plane
to landing wheels.

The Secretary of the Navy, for such was the office held by the
gray-haired man, looked at the two youths in front of him with some
perplexity for a moment.

"You are the Boy Aviators we have all heard so much of?" he inquired at
length with a note of frank incredulity in his voice.

"We are, sir," rejoined Frank, with just the ghost of a smile playing
about his lips at the great man's evident astonishment--and its equally
evident cause.

"I beg your pardon," hastily spoke up the Secretary of the Navy, who had
observed Frank's amusement; "but you seem----"

"I know what you were thinking, sir," interrupted Frank, "that we are
very young to undertake such exacting service as Admiral Kimball
outlined to us in Nicaragua."

"You have guessed just right, my boy," rejoined the other, with a hearty
laugh at Frank's taking his thoughts