BOY SCOUTS IN MEXICO
Or
On Guard with Uncle Sam
By
Scout Master, G. Harvey Ralphson

Author of
"Boy Scouts in the Canal Zone; or
The Plot Against Uncle Sam."
"Boy Scouts in the Philippines; or
The Key to the Treaty Box."
"Boy Scouts in the Northwest; or
Fighting Forest Fires."

CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I.     Planning a Vacation
II.    A Member of the Wolf Patrol
III.   The Wolf Advises Flight
IV.    The Wolf Talks in Code
V.     The Wolf in the Bear's Bed
VI.    Two Black Bears in Trouble
VII.   Signals on the Mountain
VIII.  A Strange Disappearance
IX.    About the Third Suspect
X.     The Wolf Meets a Panther
XI.    Black Bear and Diplomat
XII.   Wolf and Panther after Bear
XIII.  Captured the Wrong Boy
XIV.   The Case is Well Stated
XV.    Accusing Each Other
XVI.   Wolves on the Mountain
XVII.  Plenty of Black Bears
XVIII. Fremont and the Renegade
XIX.   What was Found Underground
XX.    Black Bears to the Rescue
XXI.   Wolves Becoming Dangerous
XXII.  The Call in the Rain
XXIII. Some Unexpected Arrivals
XXIV.  The Story of the Crime
XXV.   Ready for the Canal Zone

DEDICATION.
This book is dedicated to the Boys and
Girls of America, in the fond hope that
herein they will find pleasure, instruction
and inspiration; that they may increase and
grow in usefulness, self-reliance, patriotism
and unselfishness, and ever become fonder
and fonder of their country and its insti-
tutions, of Nature and her ways, is the
cherished hope and wish of the author.
G. Harvey Ralphson,
Scout Master

BOY SCOUTS IN MEXICO; OR, ON GUARD WITH UNCLE SAM.
CHAPTER I.
PLANNING A VACATION.

"After all, it is what's in a fellow's head, and
not what's in his pocket, that counts in the long 
run."

"That's true enough!  At least it proved so
in our case.  That time in the South we had
nothing worth mentioning in our pockets, and
yet we had the time of our lives."

"I don't think you ever told us about that."

"That was the time we went broke at Nash-
ville, Tennessee.  We missed our checks, in
some unaccountable way, yet we had our heads
with us, and we rode the Cumberland and Ohio
rivers down to the Mississippi at Cairo, in a
houseboat of our own construction."

The speaker, George Fremont, a slender boy
of seventeen, with spirited black eyes and a 
resolute face, sat back in his chair and laughed
at the memory of that impecunious time, while
the others gathered closer about him.

Fremont was ostensibly in the employ of
James Cameron, the wealthy speculator, but
was regarded by that worthy gentleman as an
adopted son rather than merely as a worker in
his office force.  Seven years before, Mr. Cam-
eron had become interested in the bright-faced
newsboy, and had taken him into his own home,
where he had since been treated as a member
of the family.

"Went broke in the South, did you?" asked
one of the group gathered before an open grate
fire in the luxuriously furnished clubroom of the
Black Bear Patrol, in the upper portion of a
handsome uptown residence, in the city of New
York.  "Go on and tell us about it!  What's
the matter with the Tennessee river, or the Rio
Grande?"

"If you had no money, how did you get your
houseboat?" asked another member of the group.
"Houseboats don't grow on bushes down there,
do they?"

"Oh, we had a little money," George Fre-
mont replied, "but not enough to take us to
Chicago in Pullman coaches.  The joint purse
was somewhere about $10.  We built the house-
boat ourselves, of course."

"Must have been a strange experience, going
broke like that!" one of the others said.  "Hurry
up and tell us about it!  I believe it does a fellow
good, once in a while, to get where he's got to
hustle for himself or go hungry!" he added,
glancing at the others for appreciation of the
sentiment.

"I suppose it does seem funny for some other
fellow to be broke in a desolate land," said
another voice, "but it isn't so funny right there
on the spot.  Little Old New York looked a
long way off when we were in Nashville!"

The speaker, a boy of sixteen, short, and
heavily built, left a window from which he had
been looking out on a wild March night and
joined the group before the fire.  This was Frank
Shaw, familiarly known to his friends of the
Black Bear Patrol, Boy Scouts of America, as
"Fatty" Shaw.  He was the only son of a
wealthy newspaper owner of the big city, and in
training to succeed his father in the editorial chair.

"So, 'Fatty' was there!" exclaimed one of
the group.  "How did you ever get him into
a houseboat?  Must have been a big one!"

"Yes, Frank was there," Fremont replied,
with a friendly glance at young Shaw.  "His
father sent him along to report the expedition."

"I haven't seen any book about it!" broke
in another.

"Frank wrote four postal cards and nine
letters," laughed Fremont.  "The cards were
descriptive of the scenery, and the letters asked
for more money."

"Why can't we get up a trip down the Rio
Grande this spring?" was asked.  "The sol-
diers are on the border, and it would be sporty.
We can stand guard with Uncle Sam."

"I want to know how Fremont got his house-
boat," said one of the lads.  "Perhaps we can
get one in the same way.  It would be fun to
build a boat.  Anyhow, I'm for the Rio Grande
trip this spring.   It would be glorious."

"We might build the boat up in New Mexico,"
said the other, "and drop down to the Gulf.
That is, I guess we could.  The Rio Grande is
shallow, and large boats run only a short dis-
tance up the river, but we might make it with a
small one."

"Let Fremont tell how he built his boat and
got his provisions."

"Well," Fremont began, "we were standing
on the high bridge at Nashville, one day, when
Frank Shaw brought out the brilliant thought.
He was doing a thinking part just then, for there
was a fine chance of our getting good and hungry
before our checks got to us."

"Then he was thinking, all right!" a boy
laughed.

"Frank explained," George continued, "that
the Cumberland river had been placed in the
scenery for the sole purpose of providing trans-
portation for us to the Mississippi.  Then he
went on and told how we could build a flat-boat
with a cabin on it and beat the railroads out
of our fare to Cairo.  So we counted our money,
right there, on the bridge, and started for a lum-
ber yard."

"It was a sporty notion, all right!  Just you
wait until we get a houseboat into the dirty
waters of the Rio Grande!"

"When we got the lumber, we all turned to
and built the boat.  We didn't know much about
boat-building, but we used what few brains we