Set against a Florida background, this story tells of the adventures of Bill Picton and his young companions who trail a gang of moonshiners through the steaming, sluggish swamp-lands. Fitzgordon had never in his life before been in a tropical swamp, and the very first thing he did was to get both feet tangled in a coil of tough bamboo vine, and come down flat on his face on the wet black „muck.” The stuff was like rotten sponge, and just as full of water as it would hold. Wh...
Winter closed early over the great desert of the Northwest, and the first dense snow lay on the banks and covered dark trees with a white mantle. Ice formed under the river banks, and its huge layers crumbled under the sound of a choking stern wheel and rattled like broken glass on a track. In the snowy forest thickets, neither human dwellings nor living creatures were visible. The still air was bitter from the frost, and a dull red sun fell behind the distant hills.
„As the great ’plane roared through the upper air, young Monty Vince sat with his eyes glued to the thick glass window of her enclosed body, and watched the sea of clouds lying like a pearly floor far below. Every nerve in his body tingled with excitement and triumph, for even he, small as was his experience, knew that this first flight of his brother’s new machine was a magnificent success”.
The early summer morning was warm and very quiet, and the only sound in the bare, barn-like room was the slow sucking of waves at the foot of the granite cliff on which it was built. On the table in the center of the room was a wireless device with five valves, the wires through which passed through the roof. Two thin cords dangled near the wires, the lower ends of which were within the reach of Jim Selvin, a tall, slender boy with a sharp face, who was sitting with headphone...
Peter Carr, with his usual skills, scattered flies through blazing puddles. And yet not a single fish moved, nor did the slightest rise reward him for all his efforts. Peter walked many miles that day, and the prospect of a quiet evening over the blazing peat fire was clearly pleasant. But before he walked another quarter of a mile, he was awakened by his pleasant reverie of a piercing call for help.
Peter slowly rose to the top. He was in a blue twill suit, his brown shoes were old but well polished, and his soft gray hat looked like a hundred others. If someone tried to watch him, they would take him for a city clerk, enjoying a quiet walk to get that little fresh air that moved on this sinister hot night.
The cold drizzle made Plymouth unhappy, and it was with a sigh of relief that Bruce Carey exchanged the greasy, dirty platform of North Road Station for the warm, well-lit comfort of a first-class night mail coupe for London. At first he thought that he would have a car, but when the train was getting ready to start, a man jumped into it and fell on the seat opposite Bruce. He was breathing heavily, as if running, and Bruce, looking at him, was struck by the expression on his...
Four years of hard work under the tropical sun, a young American invested in this place. He, Dick, had been on it for a whole year. He knew how Dudley liked it, and knew perfectly well that it would be unpleasant for him to refuse him. What was his business when Dudley so quietly perceived all this?
This old science fiction novel, Bridges, describes the Earth, largely devastated and devastated by terrible unrest in the solar system. The story tells about the adventures of seven people sailing in a wonderful airship of the future. There is a mortal battle between the two scientists: one is trying to build a new and better world on the ruins of the old, the other is a villain fighting to create a system that will finally destroy what remains on Earth.
The bottom of the gorge was filled with old lava, black and fragile, like bottle glass, but the rocks that endlessly rose on both sides on an African night were made of limestone. Everything was still like death. Even the jackal did not cry under the stars. For a while no sound was heard except for the gentle shuffling of Nick’s legs as he slowly descended the steep slope. The darkness was terribly frightening for others, but Nick knew the way, and they unconditionally truste...
The boy knew all too well that his father was fighting to preserve the farm. The land was poor and they had three bad seasons. Unable to even pay for the labor, the farmer Holt and his seventeen-year-old son did almost all the work themselves, and sometimes it was hard work. They would not have known their neighbors, but the beasts themselves in the stables and stables lived better than Holt and his son.
The roar of the pampero rattling above the chimneys of the solidly built Estancia drowned the rumble, but the sound was loud enough for Jock and Ned Burnie to jump from their chairs by the fire and run out of the room. At the foot of the stairs on the floor of broken clay lay an old man in a magnificent frame. Jock first got to him and leaned over him.
This spring was the most treasured possession of Kurt, since without him there could not have been a trout farm that gave him life. There was never a day when he did not inspect it, and it was very fashionable to keep a thermometer in it to see that the temperature does not change. He never knew a change of more than four degrees – from thirty-eight degrees to forty-two. When he picked up the thermometer, he noticed a flicker of white in the dark jaws of spring. Something ros...
Jim was a tall boy, taller than Bart and probably a year older, and would have looked nice if not for his conceited expression. His hair was black as ink, he had very dark eyes, and his skin was darker than that of an ordinary Englishman. Behind him was a small plump guy who looked like a groom or nursery. The new arrival looked at his dogs, then turned to Bart.
Fat Mr. Horner might have changed his mind if he could have watched Gilbert’s face as he drove his rattling old motorcycle over the bridge and climbed the steep slope beyond. The young man’s lips were clenched and his eyes were hard. These weekly trips to Taverton were the only gap in the deadly monotony of life in the works of Carnaby Clay, and he hated to return there, like a boy hates to return to school.
The TEA at the Wasperton School was nothing more than thick slices of bread and margarine and an ominous black mixture served in huge metal teapots. The food was so bad that the boys could hardly eat it, but they did not dare to complain, at least as long as they were under the gaze of their master, Mr. Silas Craishaw. Because his eyes were no less rigid than his cane, and not a day passed, but some of them felt a prick of it. Among the forty or so boys who were sitting at tw...
A few minutes passed, and Martin, lazily tapping his pencil on paper, seemed to have little interest in sounds. Then suddenly his attitude changed, his back straightened, and a look of passionate interest illuminated his sharp gray eyes. The door of the large room opened, and a boy came in quickly, a boy about the same age as Martin, but as dark and thin as Martin, tall and bright.
The long table was filled with guys from Overton’s school, everyone was busy with breakfast and talked from sixteen to a dozen. Only two days remained until the end of the summer semester, and everyone was wildly excited about the idea of returning home for a long eight-week vacation. Bruce, being the captain of the hostel, sat at the head of the table, and Clive next to him so that they could read their letters calmly.
Dick traveled halfway around the world to get to this particular house, and despite his pinkish-white appearance, the boy had a lot of courage. Dick saw a heavy, bloated-looking man, with a fat, flabby face and thick, black hair and eyebrows. His clothes were black, so was his tie; even his finger-nails shared in the general mourning. He looked like a funeral mute off duty.
At the Bar-Tor farm in Dartmoor, owned by young Robert Hamlin. Downstairs, on the red land of Devon, a porcelain clay deposit was found, the value of which, although not fantastic, was large enough to make searchers be interested in the possibilities of buying all the property. Their idea was to get it before Robert Hamlin realized that he had a hidden asset that cost a lot more than all of his agricultural land. But they did not outsmart him.
A pair of seventeen-year-old boys leaves the house to make their way to fate in the Far Eastern seas. „It must be my hands that are at fault, then,” replied Clive. „I’ve been trying everywhere for the past three weeks, and can’t get taken on. I came down here to look up Captain Brereton, an old friend of my father’s. He’s skipper and part owner of a tramp steamer, the Sphinx. I hoped to cadge a passage to Australia, where I thought I might find a job.”
