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

“If you do,” retorted Miss Silsbee, in a low voice, “I’ll stay ashore. Mr. Dixon is very pleasant and attentive, but it’s a pleasure to go some places without him.”

Tom, who was going slowly down the boardwalk, did not hear this. Ida ran nimbly after him.

“Hurry along, Captain,” she cried, “and we won’t have to be bothered with an unnecessary third.”

Skipper Tom glanced at her in some surprise. He knew Dixon to be deeply devoted to this beautiful girl, and had thought that she was interested in Dixon.

“I suppose he sticks too closely to her, though,” thought Halstead. “Any girl likes to have a little time to herself.”

So he helped her gallantly into the launch, started the motor and cast off.

“Hullo, there!” shouted Dixon, running out onto the porch. “Wait! I’ll go with you!”

“Make believe you don’t hear him,” murmured Ida, pouting.

Nothing loath, when backed by such a command, Captain Halstead threw on full speed, sending the launch speeding to the southward. He kept his gaze for some time on the water, seeking for shallows.

“You don’t like Mr. Dixon very well, do you?” inquired Miss Silsbee, abruptly, after a while.

Tom started, looking up to find her gaze intently fixed on his face.

“What makes you think that?” he asked.

“Oh, it’s just a supposition. I know Mr. Dixon must annoy you a good deal with his teasing. So you can’t very well like him.”

“Let us suppose it another way,” Tom smiled back into her eyes. “Perhaps he doesn’t like me, and that’s why he is sometimes – well, perhaps a little bit sarcastic.”

“I don’t see how he can help liking you,” returned Ida Silsbee, frankly.

“Why?”

“Well, you’re all that’s manly, Captain Halstead.”

“Thank you.”

“Oh, I mean it,” pursued the girl, earnestly. “And I’m so much older than you that I know you won’t mind my saying it. What I am trying to arrive at is that I don’t want you to get any idea that Mr. Dixon reflects the sentiment of the rest of the party.”

“I haven’t formed that impression, Miss Silsbee. You all have treated me splendidly – even after that miserable affair of the other morning.”

“Oh, Mr. Tremaine is as sorry as possible about that,” cried the girl. “He told me himself that he’d much rather lose the money than have anything happen to wound the feelings of Mr. Dawson or yourself. He says you are two of the staunchest, most splendid young fellows he ever expects to meet. It seems he knew that our danger in the gale, the other night, was far greater than he let Mrs. Tremaine or myself suspect. He tells us you were both cool, and brave, and that such young men couldn’t be anything but splendid and upright. Mr. Tremaine says he’d cheerfully fight any man who tried to throw doubt over either yourself or Mr. Dawson.”

“That’s fine of him,” said Tom, gratefully, then added, moodily: “Just the same, I wish that affair of the missing money could be cleared up some way. It hangs over me, in my own mind.”

“Then suppose you let me carry your burden for you for a while,” proposed Ida Silsbee, looking at him with laughing eyes. “Only, I can’t promise not to be careless. I might drop the burden over the first stone wall.”

After that the pair chatted merrily enough, while Tom ran the boat along mile after mile, under the soft Florida winter sun. The day was warmer than usual even in this far southern spot.

As the launch glided along they passed small islands now and then, for Lake Okeechobee is well supplied with them.

“Oh, see there! Run in at that island – do!” begged Ida. “See that beautiful moss hanging from that tree. It’s different from any other hanging moss I’ve seen. I’d dearly love to dry some of that moss and take it North with me.”

So Tom ran the launch in under slow headway, reached it, and took a hitch of the bow line around the trunk of a small tree that grew at the water’s edge.

“Now, help me down, as gallantly as you can,” appealed Ida Silsbee, standing in the bow of the boat, one hand resting at her skirt.

“You coming ashore?” cried Tom, almost protestingly. “Oh, Miss Silsbee, I am afraid!”

“Of what?”

“Rattlers, or other snakes that may abound on this island.”

“Yet you’re not afraid for yourself.”

“I think I can protect myself.”

“Then why not protect me? Oh, I do want to go ashore.”

Worried, Halstead stepped back into the boat and picked up the stout tiller stick that was meant to be thrust into the rudder post in case the wheel-gear became disabled.

“Keep right behind me, then, please,” begged the young skipper, holding the tiller stick in readiness for any reptilian foe he might espy.

The tree in question was some distance inland on the island, past a rise in the ground. Tom, eternally vigilant, piloted Miss Silsbee slowly along, scanning every inch of the ground near them. At last they reached the tree. After inspecting all the ground near by, Halstead climbed the tree, detaching and throwing down a quantity of the pretty moss, which the girl laughingly gathered in her arms. Then the young skipper descended.

“I wonder if my guardian intends to do his alligator hunting anywhere around here?” asked the girl.

“Oh, no; the alligators seldom venture into this lake,” Tom replied. “We have to go the length of the lake, I understand, and then penetrate for some distance into the Everglades. There are no alligators here.”

Just at that moment they came to the rise in the ground, then passed on to descend to the boat.

“No alligators here – ” Tom began again, but paused, paling and staring aghast.

For out of the water and up onto the beach crawled two monstrous twelve-foot alligators. They halted on the land just before the boat, opening and snapping their great jaws.

“Ugh! That’s a fine sight to run upon when a fellow hasn’t any firearms,” grated Halstead, hoarsely. He felt the gooseflesh starting all over him.

CHAPTER VII

DODGING THE OLDEST INHABITANTS OF THE EVERGLADES

JUST in the instant that he halted young Halstead thrust out his left arm, sweeping Ida Silsbee behind him.

“Don’t treat me as though you believed me a coward,” she remonstrated, speaking in a low voice.

“You’ll make me less of a coward if you don’t expose yourself needlessly to danger,” Tom retorted, in an equally low voice.

Though the alligator is a cumbersome looking animal on land, both knew from their reading that this four-legged reptile will sometimes show unlooked-for speed on its short legs.

Both alligators were now fully on land, their scaled bodies glistening in the soft sunlight. One had opened its great jaws as though to yawn, and the other at once followed the example.