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

“No; we’ll take only rifles and ammunition, which will be all we’ll want. Ham, you’ll watch the house while we’re gone.”

“Yassuh.”

Suddenly the colored steward’s eyes rolled apprehensively.

“But Marse Tremaine, yo’ll sho’ly be back befo’ dahk, sah?”

“Why?”

“Because, sah, Ah don’ wanter be lef yere after dahk, sah. Dat yere Ghost ob Alligator Swamp, sah – ”

“Oh, I quite understand, Ham,” laughed Henry Tremaine. “Well, we’ll promise to be back quite a bit before early candle-lighting.”

Soon afterwards the launch party started, young Jeff Randolph going along in charge of “the arsenal,” as he termed the shooting outfit.

Joe, after starting the motor and seeing the boat clear the dock, settled back lazily. Tom was up in the bow, beside the steering wheel. Miss Silsbee found the seat next to him. Mr. Dixon took the seat at her other side, exerting himself to be agreeable both to her and to the young captain.

“Take us right to that same island, Halstead, if you can find it,” requested the owner.

“Do you expect the alligators will have remained there all this time?” questioned Dixon.

“It’s hardly likely,” admitted Tremaine. “Yet, that particular island will be a good starting point from which to look about. Of course, the chances are that we shan’t find the ’gators. Isn’t that right, Randolph?”

“Yes, sir,” replied Jeff, slowly. “The only sure way to get some really good sport will be to leave your house some morning before daylight, go right along the lake and be well into the Everglades by ten o’clock. That would give us about six hours to look for ’gators, and we would be pretty sure to bag one or two in that time. But ’gators know how to be wary, sir, as you know from having hunted them before.”

“Yes,” agreed the host. “I’ve known a party to be out four days before one of the rascals was landed at last. But he was a whopping fellow – almost as big as one of the pair Miss Silsbee and Halstead encountered this morning.”

“Don’t you suppose,” laughed Dixon, turning to the girl, “that your eyes magnified, just a bit, the pair you saw this morning?”

“I know my eyes must have exaggerated,” laughed Ida, “for, at the time, I’d have been willing to depose that neither brute was less than a hundred and fifty feet long, which all the natural history books declare to be impossible.”

“There’s the island, isn’t it, Miss Silsbee!” Captain Halstead asked, after a while.

“Yes,” nodded the girl. “I’m sure it must be. Yes! There’s the identical tree you robbed of the moss that we forgot to bring away with us.”

She laughed heartily, her mirth and the resting of her gaze on Tom making Dixon secretly more furious than ever.

“Let me have the wheel, now,” volunteered Joe, moving into place. “You’ll want your eyes on the lookout for game now.”

“Slow down the speed a whole lot,” directed Halstead. “If we’re going to explore this stretch of water we don’t want to travel too fast.”

“That’s right,” nodded Mr. Tremaine. “And, Dawson, if we sight an alligator, we don’t want more than to creep over the water. ’Gators are wary of fast-moving boats, and they’re easily scared below the surface by voices.”

“I see something,” whispered Ida Silsbee, some ten minutes later, pointing over the water.

A dark object floated on the water, some four hundred yards distant. It was plain, too, that the object was moving.

“’Gator snout,” whispered Tremaine, enthusiastically. “Jove, I didn’t think we’d sight anything out on the lake, like this!”

“Shall I steer for it, sir?” asked Joe, in an undertone.

“Yes, but let the boat just barely crawl.”

Tom Halstead’s eyes were gleaming, now, with the spirit of the chase.

“That’s the snout of a mighty big old rogue of a ’gator,” murmured Mr. Tremaine in Tom’s ear. “It must be one of the pair you and Ida saw this morning.”

“Gun, sir,” murmured Jeff Randolph, passing over a loaded rifle.

“Do you know how to shoot, Halstead?” asked the launch’s owner.

“Do I?” murmured the boy, his eyes gleaming.

“Want a crack at that ’gator?”

“Don’t I?”

“Pass Halstead a rifle,” nodded Mr. Tremaine.

Jeff did so, adding:

“If you never shot a rifle of as heavy calibre as this one, Captain, look out for the recoil.”

Tom Halstead caressed the barrel of the rifle lovingly as Joe Dawson made the boat slowly creep toward that floating head.

“I’m going to try a shot now,” announced Mr. Tremaine. “You be ready, Halstead. If I miss, you fire instantly.”

Bang! A bullet splashed the water just beyond that dark head. Before Tom could fire the snout dropped below the surface.

“Stop the speed. Reverse!” whispered Mr. Tremaine, tensely. “There! Hold her just where she is.”

For some moments the launch drifted without headway, while every pair of eyes watched eagerly for the reappearance of the alligator’s snout.

“There it – ” began Oliver Dixon.

Bang! As the alligator’s head showed again, some distance from the spot where it had vanished, Tom Halstead sighted swift as thought, and pressed the trigger.

“Jove! You hit the beast!” cried Mr. Tremaine, excitedly, as a commotion started in the water where the huge reptile floated.

Then, suddenly, the whole length of the body appeared. The ’gator rolled over on its back and lay motionless.

“Great curling smoke! You killed the beast, Halstead!” cried Henry Tremaine, a-quiver with enthusiasm.

There could be no doubt that the creature was lying still on its back.

“I fired for one of the eyes,” admitted the young motor boat skipper.

“You hit the eye, then, and pierced what little brain the beast has,” declared Henry Tremaine. “Run us up alongside, Dawson. Jeff, get out one of the towing lines. Jove! What a fine afternoon’s sport, almost within sight of the bungalow.”