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

All this was outlined in the first volume, “The Motor Boat Club of the Kennebec.” In the second volume, “The Motor Boat Club at Nantucket,” was narrated how Tom and Joe, with the help of a Nantucket boy who was soon added to the club, solved the mystery of the abduction of the Dunstan heir, at the same time going through a maze of thrilling adventures. In the third volume, “The Motor Boat Club off Long Island,” we find Tom and Joe, reinforced by a Long Island youth, Hank Butts, serving two financiers, Francis Delavan and Eben Moddridge, through a long sea chase and helping to break up a Wall Street conspiracy. For their loyalty and in recognition of the amazing perils the boys had cheerfully encountered, Francis Delavan had presented the two chums with the “Restless,” while Hank Butts had been rewarded with a smaller motor craft for use along the southern coast of Long Island.

In the volume just before the present one, “The Motor Boat Club and the Wireless,” we found Tom, Joe and Hank all three again at sea, having chartered the “Restless” to one Powell Seaton, for what they thought would be a very quiet cruise. Having the motor cruiser equipped with a wireless telegraph apparatus, which Joe Dawson had fitted himself to operate, our young Motor Boat Club friends found themselves again suddenly plunged into adventures of the most exciting description.

At the close of the engagement with Mr. Seaton, Hank Butts had felt it best to return to his Long Island home and his aged parents, but Tom and Joe had gradually cruised south along the coast, making more than a living in chartering their fine craft to a number of different sailing parties.

At St. Augustine, Henry Tremaine had chartered the “Restless” to take himself and his party southward around the coast of Florida, and then northward again, up the west coast as far as Oyster Bay. The charter was to run for a month, and Skipper Tom understood that there would be considerable cruising along the Florida keys during that period.

Mrs. Tremaine was a bride of a year, being her husband’s second wife. Ida Silsbee was an heiress, the daughter of one of Mr. Tremaine’s friends, now deceased, and was now Mr. Tremaine’s ward. Oliver Dixon was the cousin of a schoolgirl friend of Miss Silsbee’s. The Tremaines, having met him at St. Augustine, and being pleased with the young man, had invited him to join them on the present cruise.

As for Dixon, he had been greatly attracted to Ida Silsbee from the first moment of meeting.

Captain Tom had understood that Mr. Tremaine owned some sort of winter home along the Caloosahatchee River.

There were but two staterooms aboard the “Restless.” One of these was occupied by the ladies, the other by Mr. Tremaine and Mr. Dixon. At night, Captain Tom, when not on deck, converted one of the cabin seats into a berth. Joe slept, when he could find time for sleep, in one of the bunks of the motor room, not caring to be far from his engines.

A third member of the crew, for this run only, was Ham Mockus, a negro in his twenties, who served as cook and steward. He had shipped only in order to reach his home near Oyster Bay.

“Going to turn in, Joe?” asked Halstead, as the two chums stood together on the bridge deck.

“Not so close to supper,” laughed Joe. “I may get a little nap afterwards. But – ”

Dawson paused, as though almost ashamed to voice his thought.

“You think it’s going to be a case of all hands on duty all through the night, eh?” laughed Halstead.

“Pretty likely,” nodded Joe. “And I guess I’d better tumble Ham out of his bunk. It’s time he was going to the galley.”

“Yes,” nodded Skipper Halstead. “Tell Ham to get the meal on as early as he can. It’s going to be rough weather for serving a meal.”

As Joe stepped down the short flight of steps to the motor room, a loud, prolonged snore greeted him.

“Come along, now! Tumble out of that!” called Joe, good-naturedly, bending over the bunk in which the colored steward, lying on his back, was blissfully sleeping.

“E-e-eh? W’ut?” drowsed Ham Mockus.

“Get up and get your galley fire going. You want to rush the supper, too,” added Joe, half dragging the steward from his berth. “It’s just as well to wake up, Ham, and to be in a hurry. You needn’t tell the ladies, and scare ’em, but there’s going to be a hard blow to-night.”

“A stohm, sah?” demanded the negro, showing the whites of his eyes.

“A big one, unless I miss my guess.”

“Fo’ de Lawd’s sake, sah!” gasped the colored steward. “An’ in dis little bit uv a gas-tub, at dat!”

“Avast there!” growled Joe. “I’ll kick your starboard light overboard if you call this craft names. You’d better understand, Ham, that the ‘Restless’ is as good as a liner.”

“Huh! It sho’ ain’t much bigger dan a rowboat, an’ nuffin’ but dem two peanut roasters to keep pushin’ de propellers ’gainst monst’ous waves,” snorted Ham, pulling on his shoes and standing up to fit on his white canvas coat. “Fore de Lawd, ef Ah done t’ought Ise gwineter git inter a hurricane in dis yere lobstah smack – ”

“Will you quit calling our boat hard names, and get your fire started?” demanded Joe Dawson, scowling, and taking a step toward the negro.

“Yes, sah! Yes, sah!” exclaimed Ham, moving fast. But there was a wild look in his eyes, for Ham was a sea-coward if there ever was one. Though he started the galley fire, and made other moves, the steward hardly knew what he was doing.

“Er stohm comin’ – a reg-lar hurricane, an’ dis yere niggah ain’ done been inside er chu’ch in a month!” Ham groaned to himself.

As Joe Dawson returned to the bridge deck he noted some increase in the haze to the southward. The wind, too, was kicking up a bit more, though as yet the sea was running so smoothly that a landlubber would never have suspected that the “Restless” was moving in the track of dire trouble to come.

“Can you take the wheel just a moment, old fellow?” requested Tom Halstead. “I don’t want to bother our passengers, but, now that both ladies are on deck, I want to go below and make sure that the stateroom port-holes are tightly closed.”

Mr. Tremaine was now talking to the ladies, Dixon having vanished. Tom went through the passage connecting the motor room with the cabin. As he went he stepped as softly as usual. Even in turning the handle of the door into the cabin he made no noise. And so, quite unexpectedly, the young skipper came upon Oliver Dixon.

Dixon stood at the cabin table, facing aft. In one hand he held a vial of water, or what appeared to be water. Now, he lifted a paper containing whitish crystals, all of which he emptied into the vial, corking the container and giving the mixture several shakes.

Holding the bottle up to the light, in order to make sure that all the crystals had dissolved, Dixon happened to turn enough to see Captain Halstead.

“Confound you, boy, what are you doing there?” gasped Dixon, becoming suddenly so excited that he dropped the bottle to the soft carpet.

Tom flushed at the use of the word “boy.” On his own craft he was wholly entitled to be called “captain.” But he replied, steadily:

“Pardon me, Mr. Dixon, but I saw you doing something with the bottle, and I waited so that I wouldn’t take the risk of jogging your elbow in passing you.”

Oliver Dixon, a little pale about the mouth, and with a suspicious look in his eyes, stared at the young sailing master.

“Well, what are you doing here, anyway?”

The tone and manner were so offensive that Halstead flushed in earnest this time, though he answered, quietly enough:

“Pardon me, Mr. Dixon, but as commander and part owner, I don’t have to explain my presence in any part of this craft.”

“You were spying on me!” hissed the other, sharply.

Tom Halstead opened his eyes very wide.

“I might ask, Mr. Dixon, whether you are in the habit of doing things that would interest a spy?”

Dixon drew in his breath sharply, first flushing, then all the color leaving his face. But the young man was quick to feel that he was making matters worse.

“Don’t mind me, Halstead,” he begged, quickly. “You startled me, and I hardly know what I’m saying. I – I – I – am South for my nerves, you know.”

“No; I didn’t know,” replied Skipper Tom, quietly. He felt a good deal of wonder at the statement, for Oliver Dixon looked like anything but a nervous wreck.

“You – you won’t mention this?” begged the young man, bending to pick up the vial, which he thrust into a vest pocket.

“Why, I don’t see anything either to tell or to conceal,” remarked Captain Halstead.

“I – I don’t want Miss Silsbee – or the Tremaines, either, for that matter, to know that I’m so – so nervous,” almost stammered Oliver Dixon.

“I’m not in the habit of carrying tales of any kind,” retorted the youthful skipper, rather stiffly.

He passed on to the staterooms at the after end of the cabin. Dixon followed him with a scowl full of suspicion and hate. Could Halstead have seen that look he would have been intensely astonished.