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

Though she trembled a bit from excitement, Ida Silsbee leaned forward, catching the boy’s disengaged right hand and holding it in friendly pressure for a moment.

“Tom Halstead, it’s more than a pleasure to know one like you!”

The young captain laughed quietly as he thanked her.

“I reckon we’ll have some appetite for lunch, now, Miss Silsbee. Yet I almost feel that I owe you an apology.”

“For what, pray?”

“For not having been clever enough to find some way of killing that lumbering beast and presenting you with its hide. What a novel suitcase it would have made for you.”

Ida Silsbee laughed merrily. There was so much clear grit in her make-up that she had now recovered her composure fully.

“You’re not easily pleased, are you?” she challenged, whimsically.

“Well, we’ll have to admit we made a bungle of the affair all around,” teased Tom. “For you see, after all we left the moss behind on the island.”

“Oh, that moss!” cried the girl, pouting. “I’m glad I did drop it, for I shall always hate that particular species of moss whenever I think of the fate it so nearly brought upon us.”

The launch was now slipping over the water at its full speed, so it was not long ere these young travelers came in sight of the Tremaine winter bungalow once more.

Henry Tremaine and his wife were alone on the porch as the boat’s whistle sounded just before the landing was made.

Oliver Dixon had stolen away by himself, consuming himself with rage over the fact that Ida should have chosen to slip away without inviting him. Dixon came outside, however, as the young people came up the boardwalk together.

“Oh, Mrs. Tremaine, you have missed such a stirring time,” hailed Miss Silsbee, gayly.

Tom Halstead laughed, quietly. Hearing their arrival, Joe also came out. Miss Silsbee, of course, had to describe their adventure, in which Tom Halstead’s share lost nothing by her telling.

“I hope you’ll take a sufficient warning from this, child,” said Mr. Tremaine, presently. “Never venture onto any of the islands, or in any of these woods hereabouts, unless beaters go ahead of you to rouse up and despatch whatever snakes there may be lurking under the bushes.”

“Beaters?” inquired the girl.

“Yes; any of the negroes, like Ham, for instance. They don’t mind snakes. They hunt them for sport.”

Ham Mockus made his presence in the background noted.

“Men of your color don’t mind hunting snakes, do you, Ham?” asked the host.

“No, sah. Ah reckons not much, sah.”

“In fact, none of the natives here stand much in dread of reptiles,” continued Tremaine. “They’re used to hunting them, and seem to develop a special instinct for knowing where the snakes are. Young Randolph and Ham, I venture to believe, would go through a twenty-acre field, finding and killing all the snakes there happened to be there.”

“This talk is becoming rather annoying, my dear,” shivered Mrs. Tremaine.

“I beg your pardon, then,” responded her husband, quickly. “We’ll consider something more cheerful.”

“Dat’s w’ut Ah gwine come to tell yo’ ’bout,” declared Ham, gravely. “Ladies an’ gemmen, luncheon’s done served. Yassuh!”

CHAPTER VIII

A CRACK SHOT AT THE GAME

WHILE the party were thus engaged in discussing the luncheon, the young Randolph referred to, Jefferson being his Christian name, was busy in another room of the bungalow, cleaning alligator rifles.

Jeff was the sixteen-year-old son of Officer Randolph. Despite his youth, this young man, who was tall, slim, wiry and strong, had already led several successful alligator hunts in the Everglades. He had been engaged, on his father’s recommendation, for this expedition. Officer Randolph, in the meantime, had consented to make his headquarters aboard the “Restless,” which fact permitted both Tom and Joe to get their first taste of alligator sport.

Throughout the luncheon, Oliver Dixon, though he had succeeded in obtaining the chair next to Ida Silsbee’s, remained for the most part silent and distrait, a prey to hatred of the young motor boat captain.

“If a few more things like this adventure happen,” Dixon told himself, “I shall be pretty certain to find Ida slipping away from me altogether. It seems absurd to think of a full-grown young woman like her falling in love with a mere boy. Bah! That really can’t happen, of course. Yet it isn’t wholly unlikely that she’ll become so much interested in Tom Halstead’s kind that my sort of man won’t appeal to her. I must be watchful and keep myself properly in the foreground.”

If young Dixon felt himself much devoted to Ida Silsbee, even he knew that he was much more attracted by the fact that, as money went, Ida Silsbee was a rather important heiress.

One of Dixon’s basic faults was that he hated useful work. He would much rather live on a rich wife’s money.

By the time that the meal was over the fortune-hunter had come to one important conclusion.

“If I want to stand well with Ida,” he told himself, “then I must conceal my feelings well enough to keep on seemingly good terms with this young Halstead cub. I’ve got to treat the boy pleasantly, and make him like me. Otherwise, a girl who places her friendships as impulsively as Ida Silsbee does is likely to conceive an actual dislike for me. That would be a fearful obstacle to my plans!”

So, as all rose from the table at Mrs. Tremaine’s signal, Dixon inquired, pleasantly:

“Going back down the lake for a chance at that pair of ’gators this afternoon, Halstead?”

“I don’t know,” Tom answered. “I’m wholly at Mr. Tremaine’s disposal.”

“Jove! I don’t know that it would be such a bad plan,” mused Henry Tremaine. “What do you say, my dear?”

“Would it be necessary for any of us to leave the boat?” asked Mrs. Tremaine, cautiously.

“Not at all necessary.”

“Is there any danger of the horrid things trying to climb into the boat?”

“I never heard of a ’gator trying to do such a thing.”

“Or would an alligator be at all likely to swim under the boat, then rise, overturning us?”

“I think I can promise you that no self-respecting alligator would think of doing such a thing,” laughed Mr. Tremaine.

“Then I’m ready enough to vote for going,” agreed Mrs. Tremaine.

“Halstead – Dawson – you know what that means,” warned the owner of the place.

“How soon will you start, sir?” inquired Tom.

“We ought to be ready within twenty minutes.”

“Then Joe and I will have the boat ready, sir. Anything we can carry down to the launch?”