Copyright, 1896, by Harper & Brothers. All Rights Reserved.
| published weekly. | NEW YORK, TUESDAY, JULY 21, 1896. | five cents a copy. |
| vol. xvii.—no. 873. | two dollars a year. |
TIMID COUSIN VIC.
BY WILLIAM DRYSDALE.
To tell the story of Will Hall's trip to the tropics may seem liketelling dangerous secrets and getting people into trouble. But there isthis to be considered about it: If the Spaniards catch Will's father,they will shoot him, anyhow; so it can do no harm to admit that HenryHall, who is Will's father, and David Hall, who is Will's uncle, areengaged in the perilous business of carrying patriots across from theFlorida Keys to the Cuban coast.
Will has nothing whatever to do with this business, for he is aschool-boy in New York, storing his mind with regular and irregularverbs, and a vast amount of information about football and '96 pneumatictires. So when his father took him down in the schooner to the FloridaKeys to visit Uncle David, Will had no idea that ten days after leavingNew York he would be crawling through a Cuban thicket, dodging Spanishsoldiers.
Matacumbia Key, at the very tip of Florida, where Uncle David lives withhis daughter Vic, is a long way from New York, a