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

“And I have not shown those traits?”

“You have not.”

“Then wait! Perhaps – ”

Ida Silsbee laid an appealing hand on the arm of the pallid-faced young man.

“Do not hope. Do not give this unhappy fancy any further encouragement, Mr. Dixon. To say what I am saying now gives me the greatest pain I have felt in many a year. But, believe me, there is absolutely no hope that I can ever love you. My own heart tells me that most positively. You understand, don’t you? It will be worse than folly ever to think of repeating our talk of these last few minutes. I am heartily sorry, but I do not love you, Mr. Dixon, and I am wholly certain that I never shall. Now, please lead me among others that we may be certain not to carry this wholly unpleasant, impossible conversation any further.”

It was said in all gentleness. Yet, as he watched her while she was speaking, Oliver Dixon realized that this young woman knew her own mind thoroughly. He saw, and believed, that he could never be anything to her.

“A heart’s Waterloo, then,” he sighed, with a bitter smile. He bowed, offering her his arm. “I shall not distress you again, Miss Silsbee.”

They turned, passing from the room, joining the throng in the lobby.

Tom Halstead? He had heard every word. Too honorable to play the eavesdropper, he had risen at once. Then he had halted for a brief instant, that he might think what best to do in the circumstances.

From the first word the conversation had told its own story swiftly. Captain Halstead, at the very moment of impulse to step from behind the draperies and proclaim his presence, drew back. By showing himself was he not far more likely to bring great annoyance upon Ida Silsbee?

The scene had passed swiftly. While Tom Halstead was rapidly trying to make up his mind whether he would annoy Miss Silsbee more by showing himself, the pair turned and left the room.

“That makes me feel like a mean hound!” Tom Halstead muttered, indignant with himself, though he was not at fault. “I had no notion of playing the spy, yet I’ve done it. Confound it, there’s only one reparation I can make, and that is to hold my lips padlocked!”

He waited but a decent interval, then stepped from the room, afraid that, if he lingered in his former seat, he might be forced to be a witness to more such scenes. Though Halstead had no means of knowing it, that little room had been the scene of hundreds of proposals of marriage.

“Yet, now that I do know what I had no business to find out in that way,” murmured Skipper Tom to himself, “I’ve got Mr. Tremaine’s interests to think about a bit. If Oliver Dixon knows that he has been defeated, then he’ll be likely to get away in a hurry, and without leaving any address behind, for he has at least the money he stole from Tremaine. That is, if he did steal it. Of course he did.”

Hearing the music and the soft, rhythmic swish of feet over the waxed floor, young Halstead presently glanced in through one of the entrances to the ball-room. Dixon was there, dancing with Mrs. Tremaine. The young man had recovered much of his usual self-possession, even forcing a smile. Then Ida Silsbee, still looking pained, glided by, directed by the arm of Henry Tremaine.

“Does Dixon mean to fly?” Tom wondered. “After all, why should he? He’s having a good time, and he doesn’t fear being found out. Besides, he’s very likely a big enough egotist to imagine there’s still a chance of winning Miss Silsbee. No; I hardly think he’ll run away for a while yet.”

None the less the young motor boat captain determined to keep a close eye over the movements of Oliver Dixon.

CHAPTER XXI

DIXON STOCK DROPS

“JOE, you can keep yourself so easily out of sight, somehow, that I’m going to use you to play the spy to-day,” hinted Captain Tom to his chum, after the two had had an early breakfast together.

“I’m not afraid of anything you use me for,” Dawson retorted.

“You must have a better opinion of me than I have of myself sometimes,” retorted the motor boat captain, thinking of his unintentional eavesdropping of the night before.

“What do you want me to do?” Joe Dawson asked.

“You know the morning train that leaves here, for Washington and New York?”

Joe nodded.

“Get aboard that train as soon as it comes in on the spur. If Oliver Dixon is aboard of it, and doesn’t leave when the Tampa station is reached, then jump out and telephone me here.”

“And then – ?”

“Hustle aboard again, keeping Dixon in sight, but try to keep yourself out of his line of vision.”

“Something must be in the wind,” commented Joe.

“Something is in the wind,” his chum admitted. “If Oliver Dixon tries to leave here to-day, then I shall go to Mr. Tremaine, and he’ll very likely decide to have the authorities telegraph ahead to have Dixon arrested. If that should happen, you’ll be there to see that the officers don’t get someone else by mistake.”

“But Dixon might go around through the town of Tampa, instead,” objected Joe. “He might be too smart to take the northbound train here at the hotel.”

“Yes; or he might go through the town and take the Florida Central train,” assented Halstead. “If he doesn’t leave here by the train, but goes up through Tampa, then you, on board the train, will see him if he gets aboard at the Tampa station. If he doesn’t go by that train, you’ll be here in season to shadow him away in case he tries to leave by the Florida Central. So he can’t start north to-day without our knowing it. It’s best for you to do this work. Then, if Dixon is watching me, he’ll find me sitting on one of the porch chairs from which I couldn’t see him take the train. That will do a lot to throw him off his guard.”

“I know my part, then,” agreed young Dawson. “I’ll do it, too.”

One of the railroads that enter Tampa goes on down to Port Tampa, nine miles below. This road also maintains a spur entering the hotel grounds. All through trains by this road arrive and depart on the spur.

Dixon, however, appeared about the lobby and the verandas that forenoon, looking as though anything but flight was in his mind. Much of his time he spent in the company of Henry Tremaine, and appeared unusually lively and contented.

“No get-away for him,” decided Halstead, later. “He’s going to stay and have some more tries at his luck with Miss Silsbee. Anyway, it’s too late, now, for him to take the morning train north by either railway.”

Joe went as far as Tampa, of course without result. He took the street car back to the hotel, reporting to Tom, by a mere signal, as he passed, the fruitlessness of his mission. Then Joe hung about, in the background, until after the time for the morning train to leave over the Central road. At that time Dixon was chatting with Mr. and Mrs. Tremaine and Ida Silsbee.

Further vigilance, for the present, therefore, seemed unnecessary. Leaving Dixon with the other members of the party, the two motor boat boys hurried over to the bathing pavilion for their morning salt water swim.

It was just after one o’clock when the chums returned through the hotel office.

“Captain Halstead!” called the clerk.

Tom hastened over to the desk.

“You’re just in time, Captain. Here’s a letter registered for you, and under special delivery stamp. The young man just came in with it.”

“Let me have it quick, then, please,” Tom begged, turning upon the messenger from the Tampa post office.

“Sign, first,” requested the messenger.

This Tom did in a hurry, then seized upon his letter. It was postmarked at Tres Arbores, and the boy remembered the writing. The letter was from Clayton Randolph, and repeated, in a more emphatic manner, the news that the officer had already sent Halstead while he was at the lake.

“I’m sending this just as you ask,” Randolph ran on, “though I don’t suppose it’s necessary, because at the same time I sent you the other letter, I dropped one for Mr. Tremaine in the Tres Arbores post office. Of course he got it on his return to this town.”

“Of course he didn’t!” blazed Tom inwardly. “Oliver Dixon got the mail there, and he was smart enough to keep Randolph’s letter from ever reaching Mr. Tremaine.”

“Something interesting that you have?” smiled Joe, watching his chum’s face.

“Interesting?” palpitated Tom Halstead. “Well, rather! Now, where’s Mr. Tremaine?” – as the boys turned away from the desk.

“Speaking of angels,” returned Joe Dawson. “There he is coming in through the doorway yonder.”