The Motor Boat Club in Florida: or, Laying the Ghost of Alligator Swamp

In the parlor they found the passengers of the “Restless” awaiting the summons to breakfast.

“You’ll join us, Mr. Randolph, of course,” pressed Mr. Tremaine.

“Thank you; I shall be happy to sit down and drink coffee with you,” replied the Southerner.

At that moment the proprietor entered, calling them to breakfast in the next room. As the proprietor seated them, Dixon was on one side of the table, with the Tremaines, Ida Silsbee being on the opposite side, between Randolph and the young motor boat captain.

As soon as the waiter had left them, Tom looked across at Mr. Tremaine, eyeing him steadily.

“I am sorry, sir,” remarked Tom, “to bring up this morning’s affair again. Yet I feel it due to myself to say that I have succeeded in my purpose of having Dawson, myself and the ‘Restless’ searched.”

“You have?” demanded Henry Tremaine, looking surprised though not altogether displeased.

“Yes, sir,” Randolph took the matter up. “As Captain Halstead insisted, after you had gone ashore I searched both young men, their baggage, their wardrobe lockers – every place and spot aboard – even to the gasoline tanks, sir. I found no trace of the money.”

As Tom Halstead’s glance swept the opposite side of the table he encountered the covert, sneering look of Oliver Dixon.

“Confound the fellow!” muttered young Halstead, under his breath. “I can sympathize with Joe’s desire to hit him!”

CHAPTER VI

THE ISLAND WHERE THERE WERE NO ALLIGATORS

IT was four days later.

Late the previous afternoon the party, traveling in two wagons, had reached Henry Tremaine’s Florida place at the head of Lake Okeechobee, an inland body of water, forty miles long and thirty broad, which lay at the northern extremity of the famous Florida Everglades.

The Everglades is a name given to a broad section of country whose duplicate cannot be found elsewhere in the world. It is a huge swamp district, dotted thickly with islands ranging in size from half an acre to islands many hundreds of acres in extent.

The Indians called this the “Grass Water” country. In the summer, or rainy season, the Everglades are practically impassable.

In some parts of the Everglades the water does not, in the dry, or winter season, exceed a foot in depth. In other places the water has a depth of six feet or more.

Yet, in this section, on the islands, some excellent crops may be raised, so that the country is by no means a hopeless waste. But the inhabitants have some things to dread. Rattlers and other poisonous snakes are frequently encountered in the Everglades. Watchfulness must be constantly exercised.

Curiously enough, many Northerners resort to the Everglades in winter. This is on account of the alligator shooting to be found there. In former years Henry Tremaine had done much alligator shooting in this section, having bought for a mere song a roomy, old-fashioned house that stood in the midst of considerable grounds at the head of Lake Okeechobee.

The December day being warm, Tremaine, his wife and ward and Dixon were out on the porch. At a little distance away sat Tom Halstead, absorbed in a book that he had brought along. Out on the porch at this moment, bringing a pitcher of lemonade and glasses on a tray, bustled Ham Mockus. For inquiry ashore had brought out the information that Ham bore an excellent reputation; he had, therefore, been brought along as cook and general servant to this brief alligator hunting expedition.

Two or three hundred yards below the house a pier ran some fifty feet out into the lake. At the end of the pier was a high-hulled twenty-foot gasoline launch – a boat capable of carrying fifteen passengers at a pinch. Just now Joe was alone in the little craft, overhauling the engine.

“Why didn’t you help your friend!” asked Mrs. Tremaine, looking over with a friendly smile.

“I offered to,” grimaced Halstead. “But Joe smiled in his dry way and told me he didn’t believe I knew much about motor boats.”

“That must have made you feel quarrelsome,” laughed Ida Silsbee.

“Oh, not exactly,” grinned Captain Tom. “I suppose I do know, in a general way, how a gasoline motor is put together, and how to run one, if I have to. But when it comes to motors I’m certainly not in Joe Dawson’s class. He’s a wonder when it comes to machinery.”

“But Dawson says,” interjected young Dixon, “that, when it comes to handling a boat anywhere and in any sort of weather, your equal is hard to find. You two appear to form a mutual admiration society.”

Though this was said with a laugh, and in a tone at which no offense could reasonably be taken, Tom Halstead nevertheless flushed. He had grown to look for slighting remarks from this young man.

“Oh, if it is a matter of believing that Captain Halstead and his friend are the brightest young men of their kind, I’ll subscribe,” ventured Ida Silsbee, promptly, whereat Dixon frowned as he turned his head away.

Too-oot! toot! toot! sounded shrilly from the end of the pier: Joe was tuning up the little auto whistle on the launch.

“I guess Dawson wants me,” said Tom, rising.

“Guess again,” laughed Mrs. Tremaine, in her languid way.

For, at that moment, Joe cast off from the pier, driving the little launch out into the lake. As Henry Tremaine had ordered this boat built and delivered at Lake Okeechobee lately, and had never seen her in operation, he now rose, and went over to the edge of the porch to watch her movements.

“Dawson certainly knows how to make a boat hum,” observed the owner of the place.

“It would go twice as well if Halstead were aboard,” remarked Oliver Dixon.

“You’ll have to stop teasing our young captain, or he’ll lose you overboard, some dark night when we get back to sailing on the Gulf,” laughed Mrs. Tremaine. Tom fancied there was a slight note of warning in her voice.

“Oh, I wouldn’t string Halstead,” rejoined Dixon, dryly. “I esteem him too highly and take him too seriously for that.”

“Cut it!” uttered Tremaine, in a low voice, as he passed Dixon. That young man started, at such a peremptory command. He glanced over at Ida Silsbee, to see a flash of angry remonstrance in her handsome dark eyes.

“Why does the girl take such an interest in this young booby of a so-called captain?” Dixon asked himself, uncomfortably. Then, stretching slightly and indolently, to hide his discomfiture, the young man vanished inside the house.

Joe, meantime, was circling about on the lake, sounding his whistle once in a while, as though he wished to invite the attention of those on the porch. At last he turned and sped back to the pier.

“She seems to run all right, Joe,” called Halstead, as his chum came up the boardwalk.

“Runs first rate for a little lake boat,” replied Dawson.

“Are you really pleased with the craft?” inquired Henry Tremaine. “I wish you’d tell me candidly, because I ordered her by mail, on the builder’s representations. He claimed she’d make fifteen miles an hour.”

“The boat will do eleven, all right,” nodded Joe. “That’s pretty good as fresh water launches run.”

“Three hours to luncheon,” said Halstead, musingly, looking at his watch. “You spoke of going out this afternoon, Mr. Tremaine. Would you care about going now?”

“No,” said the owner. “I’m going inside soon to write some letters.” Mrs. Tremaine shook her head when Tom glanced at her.

“I’ll go out with you, Captain Halstead,” cried Miss Silsbee, rising. “Almost anything is better than sitting idly here.”

“Do you want to go out again, Joe!” asked Halstead, looking at his chum.

“I would if I were needed, but you can handle the boat all right, old fellow.”

“Come on, then, Captain, since you and I are the only ones who are energetic enough to start,” cried Ida, gayly.

“I’ll ring for Ham, and have him tell Mr. Dixon that there’s a seat for him in the boat,” proposed Mrs. Tremaine.