There was a long council around the camp-fire that night, and it was settled that Ned and Dick were to take the light canoe with their own stores and start off by themselves on the hunting and exploring tour of which they had dreamed for years. Johnny was to go on an alligator hunt with Charley Tommy. Johnny thought the Indian could stand the work about two months, after which they would go to Chokoloskee and sell the hides. Ned paid the Indian for his time and made him a present, in addition, of an outfit of clothing from hat to shoes, without any objection from Charley. But when Dick came to settle with Johnny there was trouble. For Johnny refused to take any pay and said that if Dick paid him for coming to where Ned was he would have to pay Dick for carrying him to where Charley was. Ned had to chip in before Johnny could be persuaded to take the pay he had earned. Ned had a better equipment than Dick and a much larger lot of stores. These he shared with Johnny,so that the boy was provided with more luxuries than are often carried on an alligator hunt.
When the boys were about to start away in the morning, Johnny told them that Tommy wanted to go to Osceola's camp for a day or two, and he proposed that the boys come with them. Johnny said that if they went to the Indian camp with Tommy the Indians would talk and the boys could learn a lot of Seminole in two or three days, enough to pull them through in their visits to other camps. The chance was too good to be lost, and the long, heavy Indian canoe was followed down the Glades by the light Canadian canoe of the boys.
Ned and Dick were pretty husky youths, and as their canoe didn't weigh more than one-fourth that of the one just ahead of them, they thought they were in for a picnic. Very soon they changed their minds. Sometimes they could paddle, but generally they used their paddles as poles. They had one oar for pushing, which helped them a little. A light push sent the canoe forward, but when the push ended so did the motion. It took a stronger push to start the Seminole canoe, but the stroke was much longer, and when the stroke ended the motion continued. The boys were game and wouldn't admit that it tired them to keep up. But when a strand of heavy saw-grass had to be crossed they found trouble to burn. The round, heavy wooden cylinder of Seminole make slid slowly through the tall, stiff, saw-edged mass. But the light canoe was thrownback from each stroke by the elastic grass. Dick never liked to be beaten, so he went overboard and floundered along the trail ahead of the canoe, dragging it by the painter, while Ned got out and pushed from behind the stern. The sharp, serrated edges of the grass cut their faces and lacerated their hands. No air was stirring at the foot of those tall spears, and Dick thought of his hours in the fire room of the Southern steamer. Sometimes a big, deadly cotton-mouth, the ugliest snake in the world, swam in front of Dick as he struggled forward, but though his flesh quivered he said nothing lest he make Ned nervous. Then occasionally a poisonous brown moccasin rose out of the mud which the canoe stirred up, and, with uplifted head and open mouth, threatened Ned as he stumbled behind the craft, but he was silent about it lest he worry the chum who was new to the country. The saw-grass strand was only two hundred yards across, although it seemed a mile to the boys, who made light of it when they reached the other canoe, but their bleeding hands, torn by the terrible grass, told another story.
The canoes and cargoes arrived at Osceola's late in the afternoon, and Ned and Dick saw their second Seminole camp. It was the best camp in the Everglades, as Osceola himself was perhaps the best specimen of the Florida Seminole.
The three buildings which constituted the camp consisted merely of high roofs, beautifully constructed of palmetto, which came within four feet of theground at their outer edges. Below this they were entirely open. These buildings were nearly filled with tables, about four feet high, on which the Indians slept at night and occupied as a floor during the day. The buildings were placed about a round shed, under which the cooking for the whole camp was done. The fire was built in the usual Seminole fashion. Logs of wood were arranged like the spokes of a wheel, and the fire built at the hub. When the cooking was finished the logs were drawn back a few inches and the fire went down to coals, but continued to smolder. When the logs were brought together again the fire blazed up.
Ned and Johnny made their bed on one of the tables and slept well, but they kicked at dipping their hands in the family stew, and broiled their venison and made their coffee over the common fire. It was a good-natured camp, but the boys made life a burden to the Indians for two days by their incessant attempts at conversation in the Indian tongue. Some of the old Indians were sociable, and the boys got along very well with them, but the younger ones were shy and refused to talk until, having put on the white man's clothes that Ned had given him, Tommy took several of the young squaws and pickaninnies out in an Indian canoe. The young Indians laughed so much at Tommy that they began to forget their shyness, and when Tommy bought for Ned a bright-colored Indian shirt that a squaw had just made and the boy put it on, the Indiansgathered around him and made fun, very much as white children would have done. One of the squaws brought him a red handkerchief, such as many of the Indians wore, and when Ned nodded and tied it around his neck they all laughed. Another squaw motioned at Ned's hat, and then at several Indians who were bareheaded. Ned nodded again and tossed his hat aside. Then as a squaw pointed at his trousers and afterwards at the bare-legged Indians about him, Ned shook his head vigorously, and even the older Indians joined in the laughter.
The children of the camp were shy things, and peeped out at the strangers from behind trees and out of hiding-places, but Dick was fond of all wild creatures and few of them could resist his friendly advances. Soon every pickaninny in the place was tagging after him. The older ones took him out in canoes, which soon were capsized, and all hands swam back, each accusing the other of having upset the craft.
When the boys went to the Osceola camp of Seminoles with Tommy they found a people as stolid and taciturn as those of any Indian tribe of which they had read. After four days, during which all hospitality was extended to them, they left behind them a kindly group of untaught native Americans, who went out of their way to show friendliness to their guests. Johnny nearly cried over the parting, and would have bartered his hopes of the hereafterto have been allowed to accompany the boys, while Tommy, clothed again in his native costume and in his right mind, preceded them for two miles in his canoe to show them a blind, side trail which they were to take. When they turned to take their last look at him, the Seminole was standing in his canoe, leaning on his long pole and looking fixedly at them.
"THE SEMINOLE WAS STANDING IN HIS CANOE LOOKING FIXEDLY AT US""THE SEMINOLE WAS STANDING IN HIS CANOE LOOKING FIXEDLY AT US"
For a few miles the trail was easy, but then became too dry for paddles, and Dick pushed with an oar, while Ned used a pole which he had brought along for use with a harpoon. As the trail grew dryer, it became impossible to pole the canoe, and Ned took the painter and, stepping into the nearly dry ditch in front of the canoe, dragged the craft, while Billy got overboard and pushed from behind. Sometimes Ned stopped to kick something out of his path, and at last Dick called to him:
"What are you kicking, Ned?"
"Nothing but yellow-bellies and once in a while a brown moccasin. I used to worry myself half sick over them, but after seeing Chris Meyer wade through bunches of them in the Big Cypress without paying any attention to them, I got ashamed of being afraid, and now I don't mind moccasins much unless they are cotton-mouths."
"But they have all got fangs, are all poisonous, and all seem anxious to bite," said Dick.
"But their bite isn't fatal. Tommy told me that he had been bitten six times, and when I asked ifthe bites made him sick, he said: 'Lilly bit, one moon.' I asked him about rattlesnake bites, and he said: 'Make sickojus(heap), think so big sleep come pretty quick.' He told me that the moccasins bit him while he was pushing his canoe and stepped on them."
"Neddy, Johnny used to talk just as you do, and Mr. Streeter said a lot more, but it makes me sick to hear it. I can feel the little squirmy beasts under my feet every step I take."
About noon the boys struck a creek, where their paddles came into play, and very glad they both were. For a time grass troubled them, and their progress was slow, but the stream gradually broadened and deepened, while its banks became covered with trees and vines, and the very sound of their paddles dipping into the clear water was a joy to them. Again the brook widened, this time into a shallow bay, but a narrow, deep channel remained, which soon led the boys into a tidal river.
They were about to follow the current of the river when the head of some strange animal was lifted above the surface of the water near them, followed by a mass of water thrown high in the air by a big tail, which flashed in sight for a moment. A line of great swirls, like those made by the propeller of a steamboat, led out in the bay and marked the course of the fleeing creature. Ned and Dick forgot that they were tired, and paddled furiously on the trail until they reached the end of it. Anotherline of swirls showed where the creature had gone, and once more they followed him. Again and again they were led on until they had traveled a couple of miles, when they lost the trail completely. While they were trying to find it Dick saw the head of the thing lifted for an instant, some two hundred yards away, at the mouth of a little cove. When they reached the cove they found the water clear and deep, and while drifting quietly on its surface they saw resting on the bottom near them a curious creature about ten feet long, with flippers like a seal and a big, powerful tail set crosswise like that of a dolphin.
"I know what that is," said Ned excitedly. "I've been reading about the fauna of Florida lately, and this isn't a fish. It's a very rare mammal, a manatee, or sea-cow. It's perfectly harmless. I wonder if we could catch it. Let's try it. I'll fix a lasso and throw it over the manatee's head when it comes up to breathe."
"S'pose you get your rope over its head, what will happen next to the canoe—and to us?"
"That's what I want to find out. Please paddle a little nearer very quietly. He is beginning to rise," said Ned, who had made a noose in the end of a harpoon line and was standing in the bow of the canoe, ready to throw it the instant the creature's nose reached the surface.
"I see our finish," said Dick as he held his paddle ready to steady the canoe, which was alreadyendangered by Ned's standing up in it. The next instant the manatee came to the surface, and as the creature lifted its head Ned threw his lasso over it. An upward stroke of the big tail of the manatee sent a column of water in the air which half filled the canoe and nearly capsized it, in spite of Dick's best efforts. When the commotion subsided Ned had disappeared. Dick looked wildly over the surface and then into the water, and was just going overboard to search the bottom when Ned's head appeared on the surface. At first the boy seemed confused and swam away from the canoe, but turned when Dick called to him. The canoe was half full of water, and as it would have been difficult for Ned to get aboard without capsizing it, he swam to the nearest key, while Dick paddled the canoe to the shoal water beside it. As the boys stood in the water bailing out the canoe and examining its cargo, Dick said to Ned:
"What did your book say about the manatee being a perfectly harmless animal? I'd sure hate to be spanked by that harmless tail."
"So it is harmless, and if we can tire one out I'm not afraid to go overboard and tackle him in the water."
"Neither am I afraid, and I'll go overboard with you, only I'm afraid that by the time we've tired one of those things I won't be able to swim at all."
Late that afternoon, as the boys were paddling through a long narrow bay of many keys, theybecame anxious, because for hours they had not seen a bit of ground on which they could camp.
"Looks as if we've got to sleep in the water," said Dick. "If Johnny were here he would fix up a camp anywhere, and I'll do the best I can. Let's keep on to that point where the palmettos are. If we don't find land there we'll camp on mangrove roots."
The boys were in luck, for under the palmettos on the point was a regular Indian camping-ground, with logs for the camp-fire in place and poles ready for stretching a canvas covering, or rigging up mosquito bars.
It was the boys' first real camp together, the very camp of which they had talked and dreamed for years in that far-off Belleville, now more than a thousand miles away. Never before was there so wonderful a supper as the boys enjoyed that night. There was venison, superbly broiled by Ned; a perfect ash-cake, built and baked by Dick, and a pot of gorgeous coffee, for which both claimed credit. They lingered long over their supper, and then talked for half the night as they lay on their bed of palmetto leaves and watched the stars that looked down upon them through the tops of the trees. From the deep water that flowed past the point on which they were encamped came the occasional snort of a dolphin, the crash of a whip-ray as he struck the water after a leap high in the air, and the splashing of fish as they pursued others or were pursuedby them. From the thicket behind their camp came the snarling of wildcats, while in the more distant woods the curdling cry of the panther, or mountain lion, could be heard from time to time. A long roar that rose and fell and seemed to come from all sides at once was recognized by Ned as the bellowing of an alligator. Sometimes they heard the beating of invisible wings as flocks of birds flew over them, while the "Hoo! hoo hoo! hoo hoo!" of talkative owls as they conversed lasted throughout the night.
Ned was so anxious for another chance at a manatee that the boys decided to camp where they were and hunt the creature regularly.
"We'll leave all our stores in camp," said Ned, "because we might get capsized."
"Oh, yes! Wemightget capsized! Is there a chance on earth that we mightnotget capsized? We'll leave everything in camp excepting the paddles and that lasso of yours which did you so much good yesterday."
"You like to talk, Dick, but you know you wouldn't miss that manatee hunt for a farm. We will have to put it off a day or two, though, until we kill a deer and jerk the venison. We've just eaten the last scrap of meat in camp. There's a trail running back into the bushes that must lead to a meadow where we can walk and probably find deer."
"All right. You'll take your rifle and I'll tagon with the shotgun, just to see that you keep out of mischief."
The trail which the boys followed did lead to a meadow where there were plenty of deer tracks, but no deer. They waded and tramped through the meadow to its farther side, where they entered a wooded swamp. Here they started up a deer, at which Ned took two snap-shots as the creature ran away. They traveled in the swamp for an hour, when they came to another meadow, on the farther side of which two deer were feeding. The wind must have carried a hostile scent to the quarry, for they slipped quietly into the swamp, and when the boys entered it were not to be seen. Again the young hunters sought their game through the swamp. They worked their way through thickets, among tangles of roots and vines, and wallowed through moccasin-infested pools of water and mud. In the excitement of the chase the boys took no note of time or of the direction in which they were traveling. It was late in the day when, with clothing muddied and torn, the boys, exhausted and discouraged, sat on a log in a swamp and decided to give up the hunt and go back to camp. They turned back and Ned led the way while Dick followed until they brought up against an impassable mangrove swamp. Ned looked to the right and the left, and then turning to Billy asked if he knew where camp was.
"No," said Dick.
"Then we're lost."
"Of course. You're always lost in a swamp. Mr. Streeter says so. He says you may lose your boat or your camp, but with a rifle, matches and a little salt you can travel over all South Florida.".
Ned looked so unhappy over their prospects that Dick took the lead, saying:
"If we don't get out of this swamp pretty soon we'll have to camp in it, and we'll need some daylight to fix up in."
At this moment a night heron lit on a branch near Dick, who raised his gun and shot it.
"That's our supper, Ned. I wouldn't shoot a bird sitting unless I was starving. Don't the woods look lighter over there?" In a few minutes the boys were in an open prairie, where Dick produced a waterproof match-box, which was well filled, and a small bag of salt. A fire was soon built, the heron dressed, broiled and eaten with only fingers for forks. The boys washed down their dinners with water from a pool, which they first examined for moccasins by the light of a burning palmetto fan.
Ned slept with his rifle by his side, and Dick was awakened in the morning by its discharge. He saw Ned sitting beside him with the rifle in his hand, while a hundred yards away, on the edge of the clearing, a buck lay on his back kicking. While the boys were hoisting the carcass to the branch of a tree, Ned said to Dick:
"I was in a blue funk yesterday afternoon. I wantyou to promise to kick me if I get scared that way again."
Dick laughed and replied:
"That would be all right, Ned, if I felt sure what you would be doing while I was kicking you."
After breakfast, which consisted of venison, Dick suggested that they go to work systematically to find their lost camp, and proceeded to climb a tall palmetto that stood in the clearing to take an observation. When half way up the tree he slid back to the ground looking like a chimney-sweep. For the outside of the palmetto, like most of those that grow on prairies, had been turned into charcoal by the burning of the prairie grass.
"Ned," said Dick, when the former had stopped laughing at the blackamoor before him because he was out of breath, "I guess it's your turn to kick me. Do you see that trail where I stopped last night to build our camp-fire because I didn't know the way to camp?"
"See it now. Didn't know it was there before, though."
"No more did I; but I saw it yesterday morning, and I took special notice of this palmetto and made sure that I'd never forget this prairie. Why, Ned, this is our own camping-ground, and I could throw a biscuit from this prairie to our canoe. Now you can kick."
After the boys had carried their venison to their camp, Ned said:
"Dick, do you know how to jerk venison?"
"I've seen Johnny smoke it. Is that the same thing?"
"Sure! So while you're skinning the buck I'll lam into that black mangrove log and build a fire under the little scaffold of small poles there, which you hadn't seen, but which was built to cure venison. Say, Dick, don't you want to hire out as a scout?"
Dick grinned, but made no other reply, and they began the work of jerking the venison. They cut it in thin strips and hung it over the fire of the black mangrove, which is one of the smokiest woods on earth. All day long they fed the fire and watched the venison, while scores of buzzards sat around on the trees and overlooked the work. Far into the night the boys lay beside the fire, watched its curling smoke, and talked of that camp in the snow in the North of the long ago.
The manatee hunt began as soon as the venison had been cured. The boys explored the waters about their camp, making each day a longer trip and taking careful note of all the waters they explored. They usually hunted through the forenoon, and after dinner Ned mapped out the course they had taken while Dick took a walk with the shot-gun and picked up an Indian hen, or limp-kin, or a brace of ducks for supper. Within a week Ned had made a good working chart of the country about them, both land and water, and the boys had come to know their surroundings as if they had been born among them. Nearly every day they found and chased a manatee. Sometimes they found three or four in a day, but the creatures always swam faster than their pursuers and were still frisky when the boys were worn to frazzles.
One morning a big manatee which they were chasing happened to come up beside the canoe to breathe, when Ned splashed it with his paddle and drove it under water before it could catch its breath. The sea-cow had to come up again in a few seconds andwas once more driven below the surface by Ned. Almost instantly the creature lifted its head so far above the surface that Ned dropped his paddle and seized the soft nose of the manatee with both hands.
"Look out!" yelled Dick, but he was the one to have looked out. For, as the sea-cow threw down its head and tail, Ned was dragged out of the canoe onto his upward-arching back. Then the animal's back was curved downward and the flat tail thrown violently upward into the air. As the stern of the canoe was over the tail and Dick was in the stern of the canoe, both boy and canoe went suddenly in the air with a few barrels of water over and around them. When Dick came to the surface he saw his companion being savagely tossed about by an angry monster that seemed to be holding him between his jaws. Dick was terribly frightened and swam as swiftly as possible to Ned's help, but before he could reach him the boy had been tossed aside and the manatee had disappeared.
"Are you hurt?" said Dick, as soon as he got enough breath to speak.
"Course not! Manatees are harmless. Told you so before. But, say, Dicky boy, why didn't you get there a minute sooner and grab a flipper? He'd be our manatee now, if you had."
"More likely he'd have had us, Neddy. You didn't see what he did to me with just one slap of his tail."
The boys collected their paddles and swam withthe canoe to shoal water, where they lifted it, poured out the water and got aboard.
On their next hunt the boys put a number of chunks of wood in the canoe and when a manatee was started they paddled quietly and tried not to frighten the creature by going too near it at first. Then Ned took in his paddle and armed himself with chunks of wood, while Dick paddled toward the quarry. When the sea-cow lifted its nose out of water, for air, it was hit or splashed by a chunk. The frightened animal dove quickly, but came up again almost immediately for the air it had to have. Another chunk hit its nose, but, confused and half strangled, the manatee hardly moved until Dick had driven the canoe beside it and Ned had landed on its back. Ned failed to grasp the creature's nose with his right hand, but caught the manatee by the flipper with his left and clung to it, although tossed off of the back of the animal. But Dick was in the river a second after his companion and was clutching the right flipper of the manatee with one hand and reaching for its nose with the other. The sea-cow threw its tail high in the air, then lashing it downward, plunged, head-foremost, deep in the water. The boys went under but hung on to the flippers, and Dick got a grip on the creature's nose. Both of the boys were expert swimmers and divers, and were prepared to stay under water as much as a minute rather than release their quarry, but within half that time the animal wanted to breathe and rose to thesurface. After that the boys had little trouble, and the manatee, which was a small one, became almost tame. They swam with it to a shoal place where, standing in water a little more than waist deep, they petted and soothed their prize until it seemed quite friendly. Suddenly, Dick exclaimed:
"What's become of the canoe? I capsized it when I went overboard and haven't thought of it since."
"I'd forgotten it, too. It must have floated with the tide a good ways down the river by this time. I'll swim down stream and hunt it up, if you will stay here and take care of the manatee, unless you think we had better turn it loose and both go for the canoe. We will be in a bad fix if we lose it. If you can take care of the manatee I can find the canoe." And Ned swam away down the river.
Helped by the current he had swum a mile when the stream spread out into a bay that was a mile long and nearly as wide, which was filled with eel-grass and covered with moss. He soon found one of the paddles, but in getting it became entangled in the long grass, until he was in great danger of drowning. By lying lengthways on the paddle, keeping his legs extended and swimming with long over-hand strokes, he got out of the tangle. He had been pretty well frightened, and swimming to the shore, climbed up on some mangrove roots. After looking for a long time, Ned made out the bow of the submerged little canoe sticking out from a bunch of moss in the eel-grass. It was about an eighth of a mile awayand he started for it, swimming along the edge of the field of grass, but sheering away constantly, as the treacherous current seemed striving to sweep him within the clinging clutch of the swaying blades of the rope-like grass.
When Ned got opposite the canoe he found that it was forty feet within the field of grass. He dreaded to put himself again within that deadly grasp, but the thought of Dick waiting for him, alone with that strange beast, nerved him to make the plunge. Again he lay on the paddle, keeping his feet quiet and making his way slowly with his hands toward the canoe. At last he reached the craft, but could do nothing with it. He could not pull it and it refused to be pushed. He could touch the bottom with his feet, but it was of soft mud and the thick grass tangled him worse than ever. He got into the canoe and lay on his back under the thwarts, with only part of his head out of water. By rocking the canoe, with a short, jerky motion, he got rid of some of the water and finished the bailing with his hat. It was not easy to paddle out through the grass and moss to the open water, but Ned accomplished it. Standing up in the canoe, he searched for the other paddle and soon saw and recovered it. He had now more than a mile to paddle against a tide that was still strong, and he saw, to his alarm, that it was nearly sunset. It was about midday when they tackled the manatee, and Dick must have been alone with it for a good many hours. Ned was so anxious thathe paddled furiously and was glad enough when he found Dick standing in water shoulder deep, hanging on to the flipper of the manatee, and occasionally patting its nose with his hand.
"HE FOUND DICK STANDING IN WATER SHOULDER DEEP, HANGING ON TO THE FLIPPER OF THE MANATEE""HE FOUND DICK STANDING IN WATER SHOULDER DEEP, HANGING ON TO THE FLIPPER OF THE MANATEE"
"Oh, Ned! I'm glad to see you," was Dick's greeting to his chum. "A hundred times, I've almost let this beast go so that I could swim down the river and look for you. If I hadn't heard you coming a few minutes ago I'd have been off by now, anyhow."
"What could you have done, swimming down a big river like this, in the dark?"
"What could I have done here, or back in camp, without you, Ned?"
Ned gave an amusing account of his adventures and made fun of his fears.
"Now tell me what happened to you, in those long hours. Did you get scared, too, Dick?"
"Most of my scare was about you, though I did have one or two little troubles of my own. For a good while after you swam away the baby behaved like a cherub. He let me put my arm around him, as far as it would go, and when I rubbed his soft mouth with my hand he seemed to like it. Then, suddenly he lashed out with his tail, threw me off my feet and carried me out into deep water. I don't quite know how I managed to turn him around and get back with him into shoal water. I know I was under water a good deal and got very much out of breath. I guess, though, from the grip I kept on that baby's nose, that he was short of wind himself. Anyhow,when we got back and I let go, he lifted his head out of water and sniffed and snorted like a cow with the consumption. Then, just as I was feeling pretty good and thinking what a nice nurse for a manatee baby I was and what an easy job it seemed, I got a terrible jar.
"Something punched me gently in the back, and when I turned my head I saw a monster that must have been twelve feet long, and weighed a ton or two. It was Baby's ma! She poked her nose all over him and even rubbed it against my arm, which was around him, but I never flinched, though there ought to be some stronger word than scared to fully express my feelings, when I felt that big mouth against my arm. The great manatee mother didn't seem to mind me a bit, as she swam around us two or three times, but I squirmed a good deal when that tremendous tail, which was moving so slowly, came opposite me, and I wondered if it was going to mash me as flat as a sheet of paper, or only knock me over the tops of the mangroves. But that scare was nothing to the next one. After Ma Manatee had gone, Baby and I had a quiet hour or so and I was getting pretty tired and beginning to worry a lot about you, when something happened to set me to worrying about myself. This is a big, deep river, and there was enough going on to amuse me, dolphins, turtles and tarpon coming up to blow as they passed and small fish jumping out of the water most of the time.
"Sometimes a splash and the scattering of little fish when a big one got after them startled me for a minute, but I got over minding it much, when a big, big splash came and there was a long struggle in the river near me. Perhaps I wouldn't have minded it so much, but Baby got crazy again and I couldn't soothe him. Next minute I didn't blame him, for I was 'most crazy myself. Out from all the ruction in the water, there came, swimming slowly toward us, a great leopard shark. I knew him from the spots which covered his body, for he was so near that I could have counted them. He was certainly over ten feet long and looked as if he had plenty of room in his stomach for both the baby and me. I remembered that Mr. Streeter had told me that no shark in this country had ever attacked a human being, so I braced up a little and pulled that splashing manatee baby out toward the shark, and I splashed some myself and acted as if I wanted to eat that Tiger of the Sea. Would you believe it? He was scared silly and, though I was in a blue funk myself, I laughed so that you might have heard me if you had been listening. For behind that shark was a wake such as a big motor boat would have made. After the shark had gone, I had another worrying fit. You had been gone a long time, and the thought kept coming to me that you might have met that shark. Neddy boy, next time you go off alone on a long swim, I'm going with you. Now what shall we do with the baby? The tide will turn before long and I s'pose we couldget him to camp. He'd go along all right, but it would be a mile swim, though we could take turns at it."
"I'd rather swim all the way," said Ned, "than to climb into this canoe once, from the river. But what's the use? There's no grass at the camp and the water is too deep for an infant like Baby. Why not tie him here for to-night? Then to-morrow we will take him down to that big bay and make a nursery for him in a shallow little cove that I saw there. It's full of nice manatee grass and we can put stakes across the mouth, or pasture Baby at the end of a rope. But what are we going to do with him, after that?"
"Don't borrow trouble, Ned. That question will come up later. The next thing for us to do is to tie this little beast. So trot out that harpoon line."
Dick untied the harpoon line, which was kept lashed to a thwart in the canoe, and, after getting overboard, carefully fastened the painter of the canoe to a mangrove root. The boys made a harness for the little manatee of one end of the line, by making one loop around the body of the baby, just behind his flippers, another around his tail and then connecting the two. The other end of the harpoon line was then fastened to a mangrove tree on the bank and the baby was turned loose. Dick steadied the canoe while Ned climbed aboard, but when Ned tried to steady it for Dick to get in it, there was a capsize. Dick apologized for his clumsiness and Nedcomplained that he hated to get wet. The next attempt was successful and the boys were soon eating venison and drinking coffee at their camp. They were tired and talkative when they lay down for the night, and both went to sleep in the middle of a sentence.
The boys hurried through their breakfast the next morning, anxious to see their captive, which they found where they left him, quite friendly and almost unafraid. Dick took the line in the stern of the canoe, while Ned paddled from the bow. Baby was tractable and allowed himself to be towed, even swimming himself. He behaved best when his head was brought beside the canoe and seemed to like the petting that Dick gave him. When the baby had been tied in the little cove that Ned had discovered, in such a way that he could range over the whole of his nursery, the boys decided not to put a row of poles across the mouth of it. Dick thought it was too much work and Ned said it was no use, because Ma Manatee would knock the whole business over the tree-tops with one gentle little whack of her tail.
They paddled back to their camp and hunted over the prairies behind it all the afternoon. Ned shot another buck, this time in a very boggy swamp. It was not a big buck, but before they got out of the swamp with it the boys had learned several ways in which a deer should not be carried. First, one took the carcass by the tail-end and the other by the head. The middle of the body sagged down in the mud andpulled the boys after it. Then the creature was slung on a pole, which they took on their shoulders. This was better, but every time one stumbled, which was most of the time, both landed in the bog. Then Ned remembered what all boys should know, and the legs of the buck were skinned up to the knee joints. With these loose ends of skin, the legs were so tied together in pairs as to form a loop through which the arms could be thrust and the whole body of the deer worn like a coat.
By taking turns at toting the thing, the boys got their venison to camp without very much trouble. While jerking it they were very glad to lie around camp and rest, and gossip. But their talk always came around to one subject—what to do with their captive. Ned wanted to send him North to some aquarium, but didn't quite see how to do it. Dick offered to swim him down the rivers to the Gulf of Mexico if Ned would sail him up the coast to Marco or Myers, for shipment by water or rail.
"I'm really in earnest about this, Dick, because I know father would like it so much. He is always looking out for curiosities to send to museums or his collecting friends, and this would be such a rare thing."
"Would your father stand for a good big bill to get Baby north?"
"He'd stand for anything! What's in your noddle, Dick?"
"It can be done, easy. We're not many miles fromthe coast, and I've been wrecked on that coast, Neddy, so I remember it. We will paddle down this river, and as many more as are necessary, until we get to the Gulf. Then we'll paddle along the coast to the shack of a fisherman whom I know. He's got a sloop and all you've got to do is to offer him enough, to make him hustle around for lumber and make a water-tight box big enough for Baby to travel in. Then we will help him get the infant aboard, start him for the railroad and go back to our hunt. Has your father an agent in Myers who'd take your word for the bill? Coz if he didn't the account would likely be settled with a shot-gun."
"Agent? Why, dad will be there himself by that time. And if he isn't, the agent is there all right, all right. So if your pirate settles with me with a shot-gun, I'll settle with that agent, same way."
As soon as the meat was cured, the boys started for the coast in their canoe. On the way they stopped at the nursery and found Baby almost glad to see them, and when Ned put half a banana in his mouth, the little manatee seemed really grateful. Ned even thought that when he pressed the baby's flipper good-bye, the pressure was returned, at least that is what he told Dick. The canoeists had trouble in avoiding the grass and moss of the big bay, but two hours of paddling carried them to the coast, where a strong on-shore wind was sending long rollers up on the beach. Dick knew wherethey were, and said that they had come down Broad River, and that the fisherman's ranch was only six or seven miles up the coast.
"We can walk up the beach to it and save time. The water is too rough for the canoe," said Ned.
"I don't know about that. I've lived on the water some and I've seen curious things done with canoes. Let's try it."
"Better try the waves with an empty canoe first. Then I'll be with you."
The canoe was unloaded on a quiet bit of the beach which lay behind a shoal and the boys by turns got into the canoe and paddled out among the breakers. Then they went out together and through it all the canoe rose to the waves like a duck. Then they reloaded their canoe and started up the beach. At times the wind was stronger and the waves bigger, but always the canoe rode them with a gait like a rocking-chair. They paddled easily, "taking the waves on the bias," as Dick observed, heading a little off-shore to balance the push of the wind and the waves.
The fisherman was at home, and Ned soon closed a contract with him to carry Baby Manatee to Myers at Ned's cost and risk, payment to be made in Myers by Mr. Barstow or his agent. The man had just got in some lumber to build a skiff. This would serve to build the box, and the charge for it would be five dollars. The fisherman said he would need the help of his son; that the charge for the twowould be four dollars a day, and he "reckoned" it would take eight days, so the contract was closed for thirty-seven dollars. He was ready to start right off and catch the evening tide up Broad River.
"Don't you want to make the box first?" said Ned.
"Reckon not. 'Druther see the manatee 'fore I spile good lumber. Manatees is mighty scurse in this country."
Dick flared up, and said to the fisherman:
"Do you mean that we've been lying about a manatee?"
"Course not, not lyin'; manatee's all right, only you ain't much ust to 'em and it may be bigger'n you think, 'nd I'd hate to make th' box too little."
The lumber was taken on board, the canoe unloaded and laid on the deck of the sloop, the sails reefed and with her skiff drawn close up under her stern the craft was soon flying down the coast. When she reached the river the reefs were shaken out and in little more than an hour anchor was dropped beside the manatee cove. It was nearly dark and work was to begin the next morning, but all hands wanted a look at the little manatee. The fisherman and his son went in their own skiff while Ned and Dick led the way in the canoe.
"Now I'll show you something worth seeing," said Ned, as he took hold of the end of the line and pulled it all easily in. As Ned sat looking at the broken end of the line, half stupefied by the greatness of his surprise, the fisherman laughed and said:"That sure was worth seem', 'nd I reckon I've saved you five dollars by not makin' that box till I got here 'nd saw the critter."
"I'll keep the contract. It isn't your fault that the manatee has got away."
"No, I reckon 'twan't anybody's fault, much. All I want out o' you is four dollars for one day's work," and the fisherman laughed again, adding a moment afterward:
"I'm 'most ashamed to take that much, but I reckon the joke's been wuth it ter you."
Ned paid the four dollars and the boys paddled back to their old camp for the night. On the way back Ned stopped paddling, and turning back, said to Dick:
"Did that old fellow mean that he didn't believe we had caught a manatee at all?"
"If I thought he did, I'd go back and punch his head."
"No, you wouldn't. He isn't to blame. He only thought what everybody who hears of it and don't know us will think. I hope he won't tell about it in Myers, so that it will get to Dad's ears."
"I shouldn't think you'd care for that," said Dick.
"Well, Dad enjoys a joke and I would likely hear of 'Ned's manatee' pretty frequent for some time."