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

“Yes, suh. I can get the men all right, suh. But – ”

Jeff glanced longingly backward at the house.

“Oh, of course,” exclaimed Mr. Tremaine. “You want something in the way of breakfast before you start on a tramp of hours. Ham, you rascal, hustle inside and get your fire going. Put on coffee, bacon, eggs – hustle. Jeff will go faster if he starts with steam up. And, Jeff, be sure to carry extra food with you. Dixon, you stay out here, if you will. The rest of us will go inside and all turn to helping Ham rush things.”

Things were quickly bustling inside the bungalow.

Ida, as she hurried about, pallid-faced, allowed a tear or two to glisten in her fine eyes. Had Dixon been there to see, he would have boiled with rage at Tom Halstead.

“My dear,” asked Mrs. Tremaine, nervously, “if Captain Halstead ran into danger in the night, and was spirited away, how can you feel at all sure that as much won’t happen to Jeff after he starts? Hadn’t you better send some one with him?”

“Yes,” decided Tremaine, after a moment’s thought. “Dixon must go, for it wouldn’t be fair to send Joe Dawson. He will naturally want to be right here to have the first word of his chum.”

“What do you think can have happened to Tom Halstead?” inquired Ida.

“From the launch being gone,” answered Tremaine, “it is almost a certainty that a gang of Everglades skulkers have carried him off. They’d know only one place to retreat to – the heart of the Everglades.”

“Are you going to follow there?” asked Mrs. Tremaine.

“The instant we get outside help,” replied Mr. Tremaine, crisply. “I’ll leave Dixon, Ham and three or four of the natives on guard here. I’ll head all the rest on a rush expedition into the Everglades, and Joe and Jeff shall go with me.”

“Is there a really good chance of finding Halstead, if he has been taken into the Everglades?” asked Ida, anxiously, turning to Jeff Randolph.

“Just about one fightin’ chance in twenty,” replied Jeff, candidly. “I’ve heard of officers searchin’ fo’ a month in the Evahglades, an’ then coming out stumped fo’ shuah. But we’re goin’ to hope fo’ bettah luck this time.”

In a very short space of time a steaming breakfast was ready. Jeff seated himself to eat with Mr. Dixon, everyone else wanting to wait on them. As rapidly as they could they stuffed their breakfast away. As they rose, Ham brought cold food which the Florida boy and the Northern man stuffed into some of their pockets.

“Take a rifle, Jeff – plenty of cartridges,” directed Henry Tremaine. “You, too, Oliver.” Then, followed by low but intense cheers, young Randolph and his companion started on their way over the rough trail to the nearest little village.

Not much later the others seated themselves at breakfast, though excitement ran high enough to interfere a good deal with appetite. It being broad daylight, no outside watch was kept, though the remaining rifles of the party were laid within handy reach in the living room.

“Now, we’ve settled one thing, by the aid of our experiences,” announced Henry Tremaine, as he took the cup of coffee passed him. “We know the Ghost of Alligator Swamp to be nothing but a crude myth.”

“If you’ve solved the riddle, how do you explain the so-called ghost?” questioned Ida Silsbee, eagerly.

“Why, just this way,” responded Tremaine, as he cut into a strip of bacon. “Forty miles to the south of us the Everglades begin in earnest. It is well known to everyone in Florida that the Everglades shelter and screen probably scores of desperate criminals. Some of these gangs are engaged in running off with horses or mules. They get these stolen animals into the Everglades, and, after months, drive them out to some other part of the state, easily disposing of their booty.

“Burglars, especially black ones, loot a house by night, then travel fast until they reach the Everglades with their loot. They remain there until they think all has blown over. Then they send one of their number out with the plunder, to dispose of it in one of the cities and bring back some of the necessities of civilization that human beings crave.

“Other rascals who take to the Everglades are those who have taken human life, and flee to where they know the police will have very little chance of getting them. So, the Everglades may contain a great many gangs of desperate characters.”

“But how does that account for the ghost?” Ida insisted. “Why should such men seek to scare the wits out of a party like ours?”

“In the hope that we’d flee from this accursed spot as soon as daylight came,” responded Tremaine, with the positiveness of conviction.

“But what good, my dear, would it do to have a party like ours run away?” inquired Mrs. Tremaine, wonderingly.

“Why, we came here rather well supplied with fine provisions, didn’t we?” demanded Tremaine. “Now, if we were to run away without waiting for wagons, the gang behind the ghostly disturbances would find a goodly store of food in this house, wouldn’t they? And just the kind of food that these hungry wretches of the Everglades would prize highly. Also, if we fled in haste, we would have to leave much of our wardrobe behind. These fellows who rarely get to civilized communities must find some way of supplying themselves with clothing. Then, besides, if we ran away, we might even forget to take with us such valuables as we may happen to have here with us. So, all in all, a gang of desperate characters from the Everglades would find this house rather rich picking if we went away in haste as a result of a big fright.”

“I’m sure you’ve guessed the motives behind the ghost scares,” nodded Ida Silsbee. “And I can even understand why such men would find it worth while to steal the launch and run it into the Everglades. Yet why should they take that splendid young fellow, Tom Halstead, with them?”

“Unless to make him run the launch,” suggested Mrs. Tremaine.

Joe Dawson flushed, shaking his head.

“Tom couldn’t be made to help the scoundrels,” he declared, vigorously. “He’d die sooner than be driven into helping such villains!”

“Of course,” mused Henry Tremaine, “it’s more than barely possible that the wretches figured I’d pay a ransom to have Halstead set at liberty again.”

“Den’ ’scuse me, sah, but yo’ don’t believe it’s a real graveyahd ghos’ dat ha’nts dis country, and dat can trabble even out to sea on a gale?”

Ham Mockus, who had been standing in the room unnoticed, put this question.

“Why, of course we don’t any of us believe that, Ham,” retorted the owner of the bungalow, with a smile.

“Den yo’ find a powahful lot o’ folks dat knows mo’ dan yo’ do erbout it, sah. ’Scuse me, sah.”

“Men and women who think they know anything about the Ghost of Alligator Swamp are the victims of their own imaginations and of children’s tales, Ham,” laughed Henry Tremaine. Then he added, with ugly emphasis:

“Before we get through with this business, I intend to see this much-talked-about and nonsensical ghost laid by the heels! I’ll spend a lot of money, and hire a lot of men to help me, before I’ll give up the pursuit of this sham ghost! You stay here, Ham, and you’ll see the ghost in handcuffs!”

Ham Mockus, however, declined to be fooled by any such talk as this. After remaining respectfully silent for some moments, the colored steward opened his mouth to remark:

“Ah done reckun, sah, de bes’ t’ing yo’ can do, sah, will be to send someone to fin’ ole Uncle Tobey an’ tote him heah.”

“Who’s Uncle Tobey?” demanded Mr. Tremaine, removing his cigar from his mouth.

“Ole voodoo doctah, sah, an’ a right clevah old colored pusson, sah.”

“Voodoo doctor, eh? Witch charmer? Dealer in spells and all that sort of rubbish, eh?” questioned Henry Tremaine, sharply. “Ham, do you think I believe in any such truck as that? Uncle Tobey, eh? Humph!”

“But Uncle Tobey done chahm dat ghos’ away from some odder folks – Ah done heah dat much down at Tres Arbores,” asserted Ham, solemnly.

“From folks that came up here to the lake?” asked Tremaine, sharply.

“Yassuh. From folks that done hab a house down at de wes’ side ob de lake.”

“Those people paid Uncle Tobey for a spell, and were troubled no more by the ghost?”

“Dat’s a fac’, sah, w’ut Ah’m tellin’ yo’,” Ham asserted, solemnly.

“Hm!” mused Henry Tremaine, a shrewd look coming into his eyes.

The colored steward soon afterward went back into the kitchen to eat his own breakfast. The white folks of the party remained in the living-room talking over the puzzling happenings of the night.

Presently Ham came back into the room as though moving on springs. On his face there was a look of vast importance.

“’Scuse me, sab. Yassuh. But I’se done gotter tell yo’ dat dere’s a mos’ impohtant visitor heah. Yassuh.”