"Listen, Ned, listen! There is a motor-boat in the river. Don't you hear it?"
"I don't hear it, Dick."
"But you must hear it. It's growing plainer every minute. It's a four-cycle engine, and a fast boat, too. I can tell you that. Who can it be? Do you suppose it is your father looking for you?"
"I hear it now. No, it isn't Dad. My time isn't up for several days yet. After that anything might happen, but until then Dad won't lift a finger toward looking me up."
"Oh, Ned! It's coming nearer, nearer, nearer! There! It's 'round the bend. Of course, you see it now. How it is coming!"
"You bet it's coming. You ought to see the water pile up against the bow. It's a glass-cabin launch. There's a man standing on top of the cabin. I think he sees us, for he is pointing this way, and—the boat's headed straight for us—hear that whistle, and—Dick, Dick, boy!—there's a tall man and a girl standing in front of the pilot-house, and—oh,Dick! it's too good to be true, but it's Dad and Molly!"
"Molly?" said Dick.
"Yes, my sister, you know. Sometimes we call her Mary."
"I didn't know your sister's name was Molly. What does she look like?"
"Just watch that girl who is waving her hat as if she was crazy. That's Molly."
Ned was in the launch before it touched the bank, and Mr. Barstow was holding his son by the hand, although neither spoke, while Molly had her arms around Ned's neck and was laughing, crying and talking by turns.
"You blessed, blessed Neddy! What did happen to you? We were frightened, oh! so frightened."
"Ned," said Mr. Barstow, "your friend, young Williams, was with you. I never saw him, but I hope no harm came to him."
"No, daddy; Dick will be all right, now you are here, but he has been very, very sick, and I was dreadfully afraid he wouldn't get well, and all his trouble came because he saved my life without thinking of his own. Come right ashore and see him."
"Shall I come, too?" asked Molly.
"Sure," replied Ned. "He wants to see you especially."
A moment later Mr. Barstow had one of Dick's hands in both of his own.
"My boy, my boy, what made you run away? The hue and cry is out for you in Key West. Why did you never tell me that you were Ned's nearest friend? Why didn't you tell Molly who you were? Ned has talked to her for years about you. Come here, Molly, and tell your friend Dick Williams what you think of him for hiding his name from you."
But Molly didn't tell him just then. For Dick's strength had been overtaxed, and when his eyes met Molly's he promptly fainted.
When Dick had recovered, Ned invited his father and sister to dine before going aboard the motor-boat, and as he was busy preparing the meal and his father had much to hear from him, the care of the invalid fell upon Molly, a duty which she performed to the apparent satisfaction of her patient.
"Those oysters are lovely," said the girl as she speared with a chop-stick a small one which had been roasted in the shell.
"Yes. Ned waded through half a mile of mud to get them."
"I wondered how Neddy got so muddy. I was so glad to see him that I just hugged him, and now I ought to be in a wash-tub. Just look at me."
Dick obeyed her so literally that she added a moment later:
"I mean look at the mud on my dress."
The broiled snappers were pronounced the finest fish ever served, the palmetto cabbage better than cauliflower, and then the girl asked:
"This white meat is pretty good. What is it?"
"Alligator."
"Really?"
"Really and truly. You said you liked it."
"I didn't know it was a reptile. Why didn't you tell me? I wouldn't have eaten it if I had known."
"Ned wouldn't have liked it if I had told. He is my doctor, you know, and I have to mind him."
"You don't need a doctor any more. What you want is a nurse."
"That's so. I could mind her easy," said Dick.
"Oh, I meant a man nurse," said the girl.
Ned produced some joints of sugar-cane for dessert, and made a can of after-dinner sweet-bay tea, and then began to ask questions.
"Daddy, I want to find out whether you and Molly are crazy or whether I am. You never saw Dick before. You said so half an hour ago. Dick never saw you or Molly. He said so half an hour ago—"
"But Ned—" interrupted Dick.
"You keep still. I've got the floor. Now, Dad, you and Molly rush up to this chap, whom you never saw before, and fall into his arms—"
"Neddy Barstow, I didn't do anything of the kind. But I had seen him and I did know him," said the girl.
"Now, there you go. How ever did you know this chum of mine, who never saw you?"
"How did Dick save your life, Ned?" asked Mr.Barstow in a voice that wasn't quite as steady as usual.
"I can tell you," broke in Dick. "He didn't do it at all. That's how."
"Dad, when our canoe was wrecked, we lost the beautifullest skin of the biggest kind of a panther—eight feet from tip to tip. Dick saw the panther first, when he was ten feet from us, ready to jump. I fired at the beast, and he sprang for me, but Dick jumped at the same time and got between us, so the panther landed on him and I was saved. That's why he is sick now. I s'pose that is what knocked his memory endwise, so he don't remember anything about it."
"Mr. Barstow," said Dick, "I wish you would ask Ned who it was that swam ashore with me when the big tarpon smashed the canoe and knocked me out. Yes, and he almost lost his own life in saving mine. Please ask him. I want to see if he has lost his memory."
Ned tried to speak, but Molly had her arms around his neck, saying nice things to him.
"See here, sis, doesn't part of this belong to Dick?" said Ned, and got his ears boxed very promptly.
"Did not Dick tell you, Ned, that he came from New York to Key West on the steamer with us, and that Molly and I got acquainted with him, and that he then slipped away at Key West so that we could not find him?" asked Mr. Barstow.
"Never told me a word. Dick, you gay deceiver, you pretended to tell me everything, and you left out the most interesting part. You probably thought I wasn't interested in Dad or Molly."
"But, Ned, I never knew they were your father and sister until just now. I told you everything that seemed worth speaking of."
"Hear that, Molly? This young man says you didn't seem worth speaking of. Can't you get even with him for that? Now, tell me how you happen to be here, you and Dad. I told Dick that he wouldn't move a finger for us till the time of my vacation was up."
"You were all right about that, Neddy. He wouldn't budge an inch, for I tried to make him start out and hunt you up, and he refused until—Well, one day the boat that carries the mail between Key West and Chokoloskee picked up, out in the Gulf of Mexico, a broken canoe that everybody seemed to know was the one you and Mr. Williams were out in. Then Mr. Streeter made a night run to Myers, got Dad out of bed, and things began to happen. Of course, I was coming, so I got into a few clothes, skipped my breakfast and was aboard this boat barely in time not to be left, for Dad was just plain crazy. But before he came away he chartered everything in sight and told the men not to leave an unexplored channel in the whole Ten Thousand Islands."
Ned held out his hand to his father without speaking,but Dick looked at the girl with more gratitude in his eyes than she could possibly have deserved, although she seemed willing to accept a good deal of it.
"Well, boys," said Mr. Barstow, "if you are ready we will go aboard. I don't see much that you will care to take with you."
"Nothing but Tom," said Dick. "Can't he go? He'll be good."
"Of course he can. But who is Tom?"
"Oh, he's nothing but a savage old wildcat," replied Ned. "He'll probably eat us all up but Dick. He has eaten some of him already."
"Oh, what a beauty!" cried Molly, when Tom, who had been sitting in a tree over their heads, was pointed out to her. Dick soon coaxed the lynx, which sat there looking suspiciously at the strangers, down to his shoulder.
"Can't I pet him?" asked Molly.
"No!" said Ned.
"Yes," said Dick, and Molly stepped forward and laid her hand fearlessly on the soft fur of the beautiful creature. Tom began a low growl, but Dick talked soothingly to him, and in a few minutes he became quite friendly with the girl.
"There!" said Molly. "Now we're friends, and I can play with him all I want to."
"Oh, no, not yet. You must promise that you won't touch him unless I am with you," said Dick.
"Of course, I won't promise. I'll pet him when I please."
"Then poor Tom will have to stay here."
"Do you mean to say that if I don't make that ridiculous promise I can't have Tom?"
"Tom belongs to you the minute you make that promise, but not before."
"Well, Mr. Williams, I make the promise rather than lose Tom, but as for you—" And the blank which Molly left was filled with feminine possibilities.
A bunk was fixed up in the cabin of the launch for Dick, and the throb of the heavy engines became a steady hum as the boat turned down the stream, with water and spray curling up from its bow and heavy waves from its propeller breaking with a sullen roar on the banks of the river. Dick's bunk must have been uncomfortable, for very soon he crawled up on deck and, going forward to where he could lean back against the cabin, sat down, looking pale, but not unhappy. Molly, who happened to be on the bow of the boat, was so indignant with him that she told him he ought to have a guardian, and then went below and brought back an armful of pillows and cushions, with which she proceeded to make life a burden to Dick. Then, as she seemed about to go away, Dick began to talk to her about the old plantations on the river and tell her the ghost stories that belonged to them, until she sat down near him. "I hope you don't think I was rudeabout Tom? I was only—" But Molly interrupted him.
"You need to be good and strong before I tell you what I think of that." And the girl walked away from him so indignant that she didn't return for nearly two minutes.
As the launch neared the mouth of the river a yawl-rigged craft with an auxiliary engine had just entered it. Her captain was sitting on deck with his right hand grasping the wheel, his body leaning forward, rigid as bronze, while his roving eye scanned water and sky, reefs, banks and keys. A roll of the wheel, and the launch darted toward him. When within a hundred yards the whir of the big engine and the chugging of the two-cycle motor of the yawl stopped, and as the boats were passing each other, Mr. Barstow hailed the skipper of the yawl.
"Oh, Captain Hull! All's well. The boys have been found. Spread the news. Hunt up the other boats and all hands report to me at Myers."
"Aye, aye, sir!" came from the bronze statue, and the chugging and the whirring began again as the yawl resumed its course, while the launch wove in and out among the oyster reefs, that guard the mouth of the river, at a speed that would have torn the propeller out of her had she struck one of them.
Dick's eyes sparkled as the Gulf opened out, and the launch turned down the coast to clear the bar before making her course. Before him were the waters where the waterspout destroyed theEtta;the Shark River bight was near, and in the distance the cocoa-palms of the Northwest Cape could be made out. He turned eagerly to the girl beside him, and was telling her the story of the waterspout when Mr. Barstow came to them and said:
"Run away, little girl, I want to talk to Dick."
"So do I," said Molly as she made a little face at her father, who laughed at her.
"You mustn't think you own Dick. Go play with Tom, there. He looks pretty amiable just now."
"But he won't let me play with Tom. He's mean about that."
Dick began to explain, but the girl had gone.
"What are your plans for your future, Dick?" asked Mr. Barstow.
"I am going home and going to work at anything I can find to do."
"How would you like to work for me?"
"I don't know of anything else in the world I would like so well." And Dick fairly beamed.
"Then, if the work suits you, your engagement will date from to-day."
"What will be my duties, sir?"
"First a vacation to get well in and visit your mother. Then you and Ned will go to my timber property in Canada, familiarize yourselves with the present methods of working it, and suggest any improvements that occur to you, and make the best estimate you can of the amount and kind of lumberI have. I don't care for present returns, but I wish the property administered in accordance with the most advanced knowledge of the science of forestry."
"Mr. Barstow, you are good to me, too good, and I am as grateful as I can be, but I can't take money for amusing myself. You would be paying me for taking the most delightful excursion in the world, and there wouldn't be any other side to it. I couldn't make good to you in any way. I don't know anything about lumbering, forestry or practical surveying."
"Don't begin by criticizing your employer, Dick. Just make believe that he knows what he is about. I am not paying you for what you know now, but for what you will know in a few months. I am expecting great things of you. The science of forestry and economic methods of lumbering are fairly well understood in Canada. You will find yourselves with young men of education and enterprise, enthusiasts who think nothing of starting out alone on snowshoes for a week or a month in the woods, where the mercury in the thermometer often freezes. You will find your work cut out for you if you only keep up with them, and I am hoping that you will get near the head of your class. I want you to learn the business from the beginning to the end from the planting to the cutting of the tree, and from forest to freight car. So don't fear that you will not have a chance to earn your salary. Yourpay and Ned's will be the same. It will take good care of you, but you will not find much over to waste. Here, Molly, come back and hear the rest of that romance that I interrupted. And don't look so cross at me next time I speak to Dick."
"Isn't he the nice old daddy?" said the girl to Dick, as she sat down near him. Dick looked as if he thought so too, but was troubled to find words to express all he felt. The launch, which was now flying up the coast, was just opposite the shack of the fisherman whom the boys had hired to help with the manatee which couldn't be found. Dick was telling the girl the story of the manatee when Ned put in an appearance.
"Run away, Molly. I want to talk to Dick."
"Neddy Barstow, when daddy says 'Run away, Molly,' I have to go, but when you say it, I stay right where I am. See?"
"But this is important, Molly. It's business."
"So am I important, even if I'm not business. If business is in a hurry, it can go ahead; if it isn't it can wait."
"Dick," said Ned, "Dad thinks we need a little vacation before going to work, and he offers to take us on a cruise in theGypseyto the Bahamas and to Cuba, or to charter a light-draft boat that could go through the Bay of Florida and let us finish our cruise in the crocodile country, beginning where we turned back when the fresh water gave out. Maybe he will let Molly go."
"Let Molly go!" repeated the girl mockingly. "Only question is whether she will let you go. But I thought you said it was business. That isn't business; it's fun. We choose the small boat and the crocodiles. That will be new. I know all about theGypseynow."
"Shall we let it go at that, Dick?"
"Sure. Wonder if we can find my crocodile again."
A week later the party of five (for both Molly and Dick insisted that Tom belonged) was sailing down the coast in theIrene, a half houseboat with auxiliary engine, which was sailed by Captain Hull. An engineer and a darky cook had been engaged, but the three young folks held a meeting and then announced that Dick had been elected engineer and Molly chief cook, with Ned as assistant. They added that the man engineer and the darky could "go bounce." When they notified Mr. Barstow of the result of the meeting he told them to see Captain Hull and that if they could stand their own cooking and engineering he thought the captain and himself might manage to live through it.
The captain grimly assented; said that he had been wondering where he could sleep his cook when it rained; that Dick couldn't be a worse engineer than the one he had engaged, and that he hoped he would keep sober more of the time than the other one was in the habit of doing.
TheIrenewas of less than three feet draft, andtowed or carried on her davits a small launch and a skiff. Excepting when the wind was especially favorable, the sails were kept furled, and an awning stretched above the cabin-top made of it a pleasant lounging place. When theIrenewas opposite the mouth of Broad and Rodgers rivers, the whole party, including Tom, who kept beside Dick, were sitting on the cabin roof, and Mr. Barstow said to his son, as he pointed to Broad River:
"Is that the river where you caught your phantom manatee, that wasn't there when you brought a fisherman to get it? You know the story is all over Myers that you saw a porpoise and imagined the rest. How was it, Ned?"
"Yon've made a lot of fun of me, Dad, and Molly has bothered the life out of Dick about that manatee ghost. Now, if you will let Dick and me boss this boat for three days, no questions to be asked, we'll show you a sure-enough manatee and give some folks a chance to think up real handsome apologies."
"But supposing you don't make good?"
"Then Dick and I will do a whole lot of kow-towing ourselves."
"What do you say to that, Molly?"
"See here, sis," interrupted Ned, "it's up to you to put up or shut up. If you don't give us this chance to make good you are not to say 'manatee' again on this trip."
"Give 'em what they want, Daddy. They can'tdo much harm in three days, and just think of the fun I'll have with them afterwards."
"Well, hoys, you shall have your chance. It may prove a good lesson to you."
"You heard that, Captain? Dick and I are boss for three days, and we want this boat to start up Broad River immejit!"
"Tide's jist a-bilin' out of the river. It'll take all day to get anywhere. Hadn't you better anchor at the mouth of the river till it turns? We can run up the river in the night, so you won't lose any time."
TheIrene'sanchor was dropped behind the bar that lies opposite the mouth of the river, and Molly and the boys went out in the skiff to call on a family of pelicans which were keeping house on a little coral key, surrounded by oyster reefs, between Rodgers and Broad rivers. As the skiff neared the key the old birds flew lazily away and lit on a mud-flat a hundred yards distant, but the pelican children waddled around on the oyster reef without showing much alarm until Dick caught one, when the indignant bird struck him with its big bill and punched holes in his hat. As the tide fell the oyster bars were uncovered, the water shoaled on the mud-flats, and the boys gathered oysters from one, and clams weighing from half a pound to four pounds each from the other.
"THE INDIGNANT BIRD PUNCHED HOLES THROUGH HIS HAT""THE INDIGNANT BIRD PUNCHED HOLES THROUGH HIS HAT"
A fire was built on the reef, bread and coffee brought from theIrene, and Mr. Barstow and CaptainHull invited to a picnic supper which they were polite enough to say they enjoyed greatly. After supper Molly and the boys took a walk on the beach on the north side of Rodgers River and amused themselves by chasing the crabs that were skurrying along close to the shore to keep out of the way of their enemies. They had a lot of fun, but caught no crabs, until Dick went back to theIrenefor a scoop-net and a bucket, which he soon filled with the crustaceans. Molly had never before seen shell-fish growing on trees, so Dick cut a few oyster-bearing branches from a mangrove tree and roasted bunches of the bivalves on the beach. When the sputtering of the oysters on the branch told Dick they were cooked, he hauled the limb from the coals, sat down with his companion on the beach, and with sharpened sticks the young people picked the roasted oysters from their shells, while Dick told the girl of that other picnic on the coast near-by after the waterspout had wrecked theEtta. They talked after the oysters were eaten and the fire had gone out, until Ned's voice came to them:
"Do you kids expect to settle here and grow up with the country? Don't you know it's 'most night, the tide's been right for the river for an hour, and everybody is waiting for you?"
When they reached theIrene, Mr. Barstow proposed putting off their start until morning to give Molly and him a chance to see the river as theysailed up it. Mr. Barstow replied to a quizzical look from his son:
"Of course, this doesn't come out of your time, Ned. You are to have your full three days."
"Maybe you'd like to see some fire-hunting," said the captain. "There are 'gators in these rivers, and there's time before the moon rises to find one or two. If you don't want one killed I'll fire a blank cartridge at him, unless you'd like to shine the eyes of one yourself."
"I don't think I'll try any fire-hunting, but I should like to see it done," said Mr. Barstow.
Dick was proud of his sculling, and at his request it was arranged that he should scull the skiff for the captain, while Ned was to pole the little motor-boat, in which his father and sister would go with him. Before they had gone far Dick found that he had overestimated his strength, and that handling the heavy sculling oar was too much for him. Mr. Barstow offered to pole the motor-boat, and Ned took Dick's place at the oar in the skiff, where Dick remained as a passenger. They entered Broad River and Ned sculled slowly along the bank, while the beam of light from the lantern, which was bound to the captain's forehead, played along the surface of the water under the mangroves that overhung the banks and sometimes swept the banks above the water. In the shallow places mullet leaped wildly as the rays of the bull's-eye lantern fell on them, while porpoises sniffed and tarpon splashedin their light. Sculling was hard work for Ned, who had none of the easy and graceful swing with which Dick threw his weight on a sculling oar, a skill which he had acquired during his life on the sponger. Several times the oar jumped out of the scull hole in the skiff, and once Ned nearly went overboard. But a little extra noise didn't much disturb wild creatures that were fascinated by the light; and on the land 'coons sat motionless, two dots of greenish light told of a hypnotized wildcat, and when all on the skiff saw the light reflected from two big, round eyes, while the captain held the beam from the lantern steadily upon them, Dick whispered:
"What is it?"
"A big buck. Wish I didn't have a blank cartridge in the rifle," replied the captain.
They cruised for half a mile up Broad River, then back to its mouth against a tide that made the captain take the oars of the skiff, to which the painter of the motor-boat was then fastened. Then Ned sculled to the mouth of Rodgers River, where, upon a little beach, the captain first saw the gleam for which he had been looking. Then for a few minutes Dick took the oar and slowly and more slowly sculled toward those little round stars. Soon the light from the bull's-eye on the captain's forehead showed the head and body of the reptile, which remained as motionless as if cast in bronze, while Dick held the skiff in place that the launch mightcome near. With the roar of the blank cartridge came the scream of a girl and the quick scrambling of the alligator into the water. Every one wanted to continue the hunt, but the rising of the moon put a stop to the sport.
THE LIGHT FROM THE BULL'S EYE SHOWED THE HEAD AND BODY OF THE REPTILE"THE LIGHT FROM THE BULL'S EYE SHOWED THE HEAD AND BODY OF THE REPTILE"
In the morning the tide was rushing up the river, and with it came rolling porpoises and schools of leaping tarpon.
"Couldn't you catch one of those tarpon?" asked Molly.
Dick said nothing, but Ned shook his head slowly, and Molly understood that he couldn't so quickly forget that desperate struggle in the water, during which two lives hung by a thread after a tarpon had wrecked their canoe.
As theIrenesailed up the river birds flew from the trees on her approach, alligators slid from their beds on the banks, and otters lifted their round heads above the surface of the stream. Six miles from its mouth the river spreads out into a bay, and as the boat was entering it Mr. Barstow called out:
"There is your manatee, sure enough, boys!"
A big, ugly head appeared beside theIrenefor an instant, followed by a column of water thrown in the air by the huge porpoise-like tail of the frightened animal. The anchor was quickly dropped and the little motor-boat, with Dick at the wheel and Mr. Barstow and Molly as passengers, started in pursuit of the sea-cow. Captain Hull and Ned were in the skiff, which was towed by the motor-boat.Every few minutes the long eel-grass of the shallow bay choked the propeller of the motor-boat. Then the motor was stopped, the skiff pulled under the stern of the power-boat, and Ned, with half his head and shoulders under water, tore the grass from the wheel. For two miles all eyes scanned the surface of the water without sight of the quarry; then came a shout from Molly:
"There it is!"
"Take the wheel, Molly; it's your manatee," replied Dick.
And the girl, without a hat and with her loosened hair streaming down her back, headed the power-boat straight for the creature, which was distant about the eighth of a mile. Twice the grass choked the wheel and twice with desperate haste it was cleared by Ned. The boat had gone many yards beyond the place where Molly had seen the animal when there was a great swirl in the water beside the craft, followed by other swirls, which grew less and less as they led in a straight line up a broad tideway that opened into the upper end of the bay. A moment later another series of swirls was seen and followed, after which, for a time, nothing was seen, although four pairs of eyes were scanning every inch of the stream ahead of the boat. Then came a cry from the captain, who had been cannily watching the water behind the craft. The sea-cow had turned around, and, swimming silently beneath the boat, would have escaped but for theglimpse the captain got of him as he rose to breathe just before reaching a bend in the stream, which would have hidden him from his pursuers. Soon the motor-boat was again on his trail, never to leave it till the creature was a captive. For the manatee was tired and had to come to the surface for breath at shorter and shorter intervals, until the power-boat almost ran over him at every turn.
"Turn us loose!" shouted Ned, and in a moment the skiff was free and being sculled by the captain toward the quarry, while Ned stood in the bow with a noosed rope in his hand. Soon the manatee rose beside the skiff, so near that Ned laid the noose over the creature's nose. But it didn't stay there, for a column of water rose in the air, and when it subsided Ned was swimming two yards from the skiff.
There was a cry from Molly in the motor-boat which no one noticed, for in half a minute Ned was back in the skiff and the pursuit was on keener than ever. Every ten seconds the manatee came up to breathe, every time he rose he was driven back under water by the blow of the rope across his nose. Finally the half-strangled creature lifted his whole head out of the water and held it there long enough for Ned to slip the noose over it. The next instant the blow of the manatee's tail deluged the boy with water and jarred the skiff from bow to stern, which was then dragged through the water at a rate which for minutes left the motor-boat behind. The sea-cow carried the skiff around keys, through deepchannels, over shallow banks and under bushes that projected from the shore, until the animal was fairly tired out. As the speed of the creature slackened, Ned drew the skiff close beside him, and plunging overboard, threw his left arm over the neck and with his right hand grasped the right flipper of the manatee. Then Captain Hull took a hand, and pulling the skiff up to the manatee was soon swimming beside him and clinging to his left flipper.
Dick slowed down the motor, while Molly kept the boat circling around the swimmers until the manatee surrendered and became quiet as a cow. The motor was stopped, and the sea-cow was brought beside the boat, where Molly patted the head and laid her hand on the soft lips of the gentle creature.
"Now, Daddy," said Ned, "Dick and I want a certificate that this isn't a phantom manatee or a porpoise."
"I'll certify to that, Ned. You boys have made good, although nobody ever doubted it, anyway, for the fisherman was only having a little fun with you."
The manatee was so tractable that Captain Hull swam back for the skiff, while Ned loosened his hold on the flipper of the creature. Suddenly a cascade of water half-filled the power-boat, drenched every one in it, and the manatee disappeared. Ned was chagrined, but Mr. Barstow cheered him:
"It is all for the best, Ned. He had done all he could do for us. We hadn't time to arrange for hisshipment, and so had to set him free. The only thing I am sorry for is that I didn't go overboard, too, and have some of the fun. I am just as wet as you are, without having anything-to show for it."
"Me, too," said Molly, whose red cheeks and sparkling eyes shone from among streaming mermaid tresses, and whose pretty frock had been deluged.
"Dad," said Ned, after they were back on theIrene, "you know Dick and I are in command for two days more."
"I thought you were to have charge for three days, or until you found a manatee."
"No, sir; three days—seventy-two hours, and not a minute less."
"What are you going to do with all that time?"
"I have elected myself senior boss and Dick junior boss, and we are going to show you and Molly the Everglades. TheIrenewill start down Broad River at once. But Molly is to take the power-boat through the cut-off to Rodgers River, and down that river to its mouth, where she will find us. Oh, by the way, Dick will go with her as engineer, but subject to her orders."
When theIrenewas opposite the cut-off, the power-boat, with Molly and Dick on board, was set adrift and was soon twisting and turning at half speed as it followed the channel of the crooked creek. Swimming through the creek would have made a snake dizzy, and the girl at the wheel had to keepit spinning. There were logs to be dodged and sharp-ended stumps to be avoided. Trees lay nearly across the stream, leaving barely the width of the boat to spare, and others under which the boat had to be driven between flexible branches, while the steerswoman crouched low down in the craft. There were birds and beasts on the bank, fish and reptiles in the water, but the girl could spare them scarcely a glance. Great spiders hung in midair on nets that stretched from bank to bank, and Molly's face was matted with webs that she could not avoid, while her teeth were tightly clenched lest she scream when the hairy legs of a spider with a spread of five inches traveled across her face. Dick saw her trouble and came forward to where he could lean ahead of her and take the brunt of the spider's work. Molly spared him a grateful glance, but got in trouble for it the next instant. For just then a quick turn of the craft happened to be necessary, and although Dick helped to roll the wheel, it was too late, and because of the inattention of a moment the motor-boat crashed into the bank. The pilot and engineer were thrown violently against the wheel, but nothing was injured excepting the temper of the girl, who said to her companion:
"That was all your fault, Dick Williams, and I wish you would go back to your engine. I will try to manage the wheel by myself."
After two miles of squirmy navigation the boat came out into the broad, beautiful Rodgers River,down which they turned; and when Dick pointed out where the tarpon had wrecked their canoe and stunned him, and told of Ned's struggles to save his life, the girl's voice trembled and there were tears in her eyes as she listened and asked questions. The tide was low when they arrived at the mouth of the river, and Molly ran the boat on one of the oyster bars that form a network across the entrance to Broad and Rodgers rivers. Almost the instant the boat touched, Dick was overboard heaving on the bow, and soon had the craft afloat. Then turning to Molly, he said, while mischief sparkled in his eyes:
"I am sorry I ran you on that bar, Miss Barstow."
"You shouldn't bear malice, Dick," replied the girl.
They found theIrenewaiting for them near the mouth of the river, with Ned impatient to be off to catch the inflowing-tide from the mouth of Harney's River, which was about two miles down the coast.
It was still daylight when they crossed the bar and passed the little key inside the mouth of the river, but they sailed up the stream by the light of the stars, which gave mystic beauty to the smooth water and the shadowy outlines of the tropical forest that bordered the banks of the river. Captain Hull anchored theIrenefor the night in Tussock Bay, at the head of the lower division of Harney's River, because, as he said, he needed all the daylight he could get when he tackled the crooked courses between Tussock Bay and the Everglades.
When the anchor was hoisted in the morning, Dick was at the wheel, which he held on to when the captain came up to relieve him. The captain stood by as the boy steered across the bay, and wondered at the chance that kept him for miles on exactly the right course. As the boat was passing Tussock Key, Dick headed up to the northeast.
"Too far north," said the captain. "Course is east-southeast."
"No talking to the man at the wheel," said Dick, and Captain Hull laughed and waited for the trouble that was coming. But no trouble came, and theIrenetwisted in and out, always in plenty of water, for a mile and a half of crooked creek, until it floated in a wider stream, the banks of which were covered with long prairie grass, when Dick handed over the wheel to the captain, saying:
"Guess you know the rest of the way, don't you, Captain? If you get in any trouble call on me."
"That was one on me," said Captain Hull as he took the wheel. "I never came that way before. Wonder who taught you piloting? Mighty few pilots can find their way up this river."
"I came that way," said Dick nonchalantly, "because the water is deeper and there is less grass. The other river is pretty shallow and gets badly choked up at this season."
"That's so," replied the captain, "but I'd like to know who told you."
It took the rest of the day to reach the Everglades. There were narrow streams so crooked that theIrenehad to be poled around the sharp corners, broad, shallow rivers, so choked with eel and manatee-grass that every five minutes one of the boys went overboard to clear the clogged propeller, and twisting creeks, through which the water of theEverglades poured so swiftly, that to make headway and avoid snags kept the captain busy at the wheel and the boys fending off from the banks with oars. Sometimes for miles the channel was clear; and while the captain stood at the wheel the rest of the exploring family sat upon the cabin roof and chattered like children about the turtle and terrapin heads that dotted the surface, the leaping young tarpon, grave old alligators, shy otters, and birds that flew from the trees or soared overhead.
The sensitive Tom resented Dick's neglect, and was seen sitting on the after end of the cabin, in front of the wheel, making friends with the captain. Every few minutes Tom put out a paw and rested it on the captain's hand as it rolled the wheel. Then Tom would look up in his face, and finally rubbed his cheek on the captain's hand, and after that became his shadow. That night Tom abandoned his sleeping place beside Dick's bunk and turned in with the captain. Dick was a little annoyed at first, but his conscience told him that he had neglected Tom, and had himself to blame.
When the anchor was dropped, theIrenerested in a solid mass of lily pads, with her bowsprit extending over the border of the Everglades, which stretched out eastward, a great, grassy, overflowed meadow, dotted with keys, to the horizon. A slough of clear water, deep enough to float the little power-boat, zigzagged out into the Glades, and the captain, with Mr. Barstow, Molly and Dick in thecraft, followed it for more than a mile. There was water enough over the light grass of the Glades to float the skiff, which Ned poled through a carpet of white pond-lilies, that here and there covered the surface. Many little grassy mounds showed where an alligator had his cave. From one of them an alligator slid out and started across the Glades at full speed. Ned was soon on his trail, poling like mad. He was nearly up to the reptile when it swung around and darted away at right angles to its former course, gaining many yards on its pursuer, for the grass prevented the quick turning of the skiff. Time after time the reptile repeated this dodge, time after time the boy was near enough to have touched the alligator with a pole, but always he dodged, until Ned was too exhausted to follow the creature any farther.
"Oh, I wish you could have caught it," said Molly when Ned returned.
"We'll get one to-morrow sure," said Dick, while Ned's only comment was:
"Don't you get Dick to try fool things, sis."
"Captain," said Dick that evening, "I want an alligator, and if you will help Ned pole in the skiff in the morning until we are near enough to one, I'll either put a rope over his head or go overboard and grab him."
"Don't try that on these 'gators; but I'll rig up a harpoon for you, and if you can hit one with that there won't be any trouble in getting him."