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

Jeff Randolph pushed away his chair, rising and signing to the negro to follow. This Ham did, though moving with reluctant feet. At the door of the kitchen Jeff halted, to scowl at Ham and hurry him up. Then both stepped through into the next room. As they did so, both with a howl retreated back into the living room, while an outer door banged.

“Now – what?” demanded Henry Tremaine, rising from the table and rushing toward the pair.

“Well, sir, I don’t want to look like a fool,” retorted Jeff, just a bit unsteadily, “but I certainly saw something in white – and about ten feet high – cross the kitchen. That something ducked and stole out through the back door.”

There was no doubting Jeff’s truthfulness, nor his courage, either, in any ordinary sense. Yet, at this moment, the Florida boy certainly did look uneasy.

“Come along, you two, and I’m going out with you,” spoke Tremaine, decisively, stepping into the kitchen and drawing a revolver from a hip pocket. “If we run into any ghost – then so much the worse for the ghost!”

With Henry Tremaine on guard in the kitchen, Jeff and Ham went, too, getting what food was necessary, then returning to the dining room with it. Tremaine locked and bolted the outer kitchen door, dropping the key into his pocket. After that, the meal was finished in peace, though Ham took mighty great pains to remain close to the white folks.

Nor was there any further disturbance through the evening. All retired, to their rooms on the second floor, before ten o’clock.

“What do you make of all this?” asked Joe, as he and his chum were disrobing in their room.

“Some kind of buncombe, of course,” replied Tom, thoughtfully. “Yet I can’t see any object or sense in it.”

“One thing we know, anyway,” decided Joe. “Whatever is behind the rumpus, there’s something in all this talk about the Ghost of Alligator Swamp.”

“There’s usually a little fire underneath a lot of smoke,” was Captain Halstead’s answer.

Joe Dawson went to sleep very soon. Not so with Tom Halstead, who lay tossing a long time, thinking over that letter and its sudden disappearance.

“However, there’s no doubt about Dixon, now, anyway,” Halstead reflected. “I’ll watch him from now on. Somehow, he’ll take enough rope, sooner or later, to hang himself.”

He was thinking of that when he dropped asleep. How long he slept he did not know. It was some time well along in the night when every human being in the bungalow was awakened by the sharp crashing of breaking glass. After the happenings of the early evening all the party were sleeping lightly.

Tom and Joe hit the floor with their feet almost in the same second. While Dawson raced to a window, throwing it up, young Halstead began hastily to throw on his clothing.

From the two adjoining rooms, occupied by the Tremaines and Miss Silsbee, came the sound of women’s voices, talking excitedly.

“I didn’t see anything,” reported Joe, bustling back, “though the racket was on this side of the house.”

As Tom Halstead darted into the hallway he encountered Henry Tremaine. They raced down stairs together, Joe coming next, with Dixon promptly after him. Then Jeff arrived at the foot of the stairs. Ham Mockus, as might have been expected, did not put in an appearance.

Tremaine carried with him a lighted lantern. Tom quickly lighted two lamps.

All the lights of glass in three windows of the living room had been smashed, the fragments of glass strewing the floor.

“This is an unghostly trick,” declared Tremaine, wrathily. “This is plain, malicious mischief. Fortunately, I have glass and putty with which we can repair this damage. But I want to tell you all, right now, if you see a ghost, pot it with a bullet if you can. We’ll keep the rifles at hand during the rest of our stay here.”

They went to the rifles, loaded them and waited, after extinguishing the lights. No more sounds or “signs” bothered the watchers. After an hour of watching, Tremaine, who was a good sleeper, began to yawn.

“I’ll tell you what, sir,” proposed Halstead, finally. “Joe and I will remain on guard, on opposite sides of the house. You and Mr. Dixon may as well turn in and get some sleep.”

“All right, then,” agreed the owner. “But see here, you call me in two hours, and Dixon and I will come down for a turn at this business. We’ve got to catch this ’ghost,’ if there’s any chance at all; yet we must all of us have some sleep.”

So the two Motor Boat Club boys, each provided with rifle and box of cartridges, stepped outside to keep the first watch. At some distance apart both patrolled slowly around the house, keeping sharp watch of the shadows under the nearest of the trees that covered most of the landscape. Once in a while the two boys met for consultation in low tones.

“Nothing doing in the ghostly line,” yawned Tom, at last.

“There won’t be,” nodded Joe, “as long as the ghost knows there’s an armed, unafraid guard patrolling.”

“Then what can it all mean?” wondered Halstead. “What object can any human beings have in annoying other human beings in this fashion?”

Joe shook his head. It was all equally past his powers of comprehension.

Nothing happened up to the end of the two hours. Then, while Joe remained outside alone, for a few moments, Halstead went to call Mr. Tremaine. That gentleman and Dixon soon appeared to take up the guard work, which would last until within two hours of daylight.

“Tremaine, can you keep the watch here by yourself, for a while?” inquired Oliver Dixon, in an undertone.

“Yes, of course. Why?”

“Then I want to slip away presently. I won’t do so at once because I don’t want to attract attention of anyone who may be watching us in the woods. Yet I want to get into the woods, to hide and watch there.”

“You evidently are not afraid to go into the creepy places,” smiled the host.

“Of course I’m not,” rejoined Dixon. “What I want to do is to see if I can’t trap some of the human beings who are at the bottom of this nonsense.”

“Try it, and good luck to you, my boy,” agreed Tremaine, cordially.

Some time later, Oliver Dixon succeeded in slipping quietly away under the trees. Not even Henry Tremaine knew quite when it was done. After that, an hour passed, during which the owner of the bungalow patrolled alone about his grounds. Then with startling rapidity there came from the woods the sound of four rifle shots.

“Dixon must have stumbled into something!” muttered Henry Tremaine, wheeling and running towards the spot from which the shots seemed to come.

Just before he reached the edge of the woods Mr. Tremaine halted, for Dixon rushed out from under the trees at him. The young man was panting.

“You act as though you’d really seen the ghost,” laughed Henry Tremaine, dryly.

“I – I – guess I did!” gasped Dixon. “It was something white, anyway, and about ten feet high – an indescribable, almost shapeless mass of white.”

“You fired four shots at it?”

“Yes; almost at arm’s length.”

“Did it drop?”

“No; nor run away. It came straight at me – my legs saved me.”

“Let’s go back into the woods after it,” proposed Tremaine, intrepidly.

But Oliver Dixon caught at his host’s arm, muttering hoarsely:

“N-n-not until I get my nerve back, anyway!”

CHAPTER XI

TOM HAS A SPOOK HUNT OF HIS OWN