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

“I guess I am, all right,” came the dogged answer.

“We’ll have to put these on yo’, suh.”

“Handcuffs?” rose the voice of Oliver Dixon, in protest. “Ugh! Such things belong to felons!”

“Well, suh, what do yo’ consider yo’se’f!” demanded the policeman.

A groan that was almost a sob escaped the prisoner. Those waiting above heard the steel circlets click. Then they descended.

Oliver Dixon sat on one of the transom seats in the little cabin, his face a ghastly gray.

“I guess you’re glad to see this, Halstead?” demanded the prisoner, holding up his manacled hands.

“As sorry as I can be!” retorted Tom Halstead, heartily. “It’s a tough sight, Dixon.”

“It certainly is,” groaned Henry Tremaine, turning to hide his face.

“If your ward, Tremaine, had been kind enough to accept me, I never would have come to this pass,” declared the young man, coolly.

“Silence!” commanded Tremaine, sternly. “Don’t dare couple Miss Silsbee’s name with your own dishonored one!”

“Are you going to take me back to Tampa on this boat?” inquired Oliver Dixon after a moment’s silence.

“On the ‘Restless’,” replied one of the policemen.

“You are going to bring me face to face – after this – with Mr. Tremaine’s ladies?” demanded Dixon, paling still more. “That’s tough treatment.”

“You’ll have to go on the ‘Restless,’” insisted the policeman. “We have nothing to do with this craft.”

President Haight, who had at first remained on the “Restless,” now came over the side, appearing at the after companionway.

“Is the money safe?” inquired the bank man, huskily.

“You’ll find it all in the satchel in that stateroom,” stated Dixon, nodding at the door of the apartment in question.

The satchel was quickly brought out. Haight, as the most expert money-counter, was assigned to the task of counting then and there, which he did at the cabin table.

“Sixty thousand dollars, less seven hundred,” he announced, finally. “Dixon, where’s the missing seven hundred?”

“Ask Captain Beeman,” rejoined the prisoner, nodding at the commander of the “Buzzard.”

Captain Beeman looked at once alarmed.

“Why, gentlemen, that seven hundred dollars is what your friend – ”

“Our prisoner,” interrupted Haight.

“It’s what your prisoner paid me to take him to the coast of Mexico.”

“As it is stolen money, Captain Beeman,” rejoined Mr. Haight, frigidly, “I reckon you’ll have to give it up.”

“That doesn’t seem fair,” argued Beeman, hoarsely. “I accepted the money, and I didn’t know it to be stolen.”

“No, of course; you didn’t even suspect, when your passenger agreed to an exorbitant price for his fare to the Mexican coast,” jeered the bank man. “You had so little suspicion, in fact, that you caused us to all but ruin our engines in the effort to reach you. You ignored our bunting signals after we hoisted them.”

“I didn’t see your signals,” protested Beeman, with an injured air. “I stopped as soon as you fired, and I realized – ”

“When you realized that we meant business,” sneered the policeman who had handled the rifle.

“We could not prove to the satisfaction of a court that Beeman deliberately tried to aid a fugitive to escape,” broke in Tremaine, rather impatiently. “Haight, we’ll let this captain keep his passage money. I’ll make the amount good, for, at least, Beeman promptly and properly foiled Dixon’s effort to destroy himself. So keep your passage money, Captain Beeman.”

“I thank you, sir,” cried the commander of the “Buzzard,” his eyes lighting up with pleasure.

“None the less, Captain,” went on Tremaine, dryly, “my private opinion is that you would have gone on laughing at us had the fates favored you.”

“You wouldn’t have got the money again, if I could have prevented it,” sneered young Mr. Dixon. “I’d have burned it, only I saw I hadn’t time. I’d have thrown the satchel overboard, but I knew it would float. The only weight I could find was my revolver, and I knew that wouldn’t be heavy enough to make the satchel sink with all that paper in it.”

“You’re going back to Port Tampa, aren’t you, Captain?” demanded one of the policemen of Beeman. “We are not going to arrest you, but we may want you as a witness.”

“I’ll go back to the port,” nodded the commander of the “Buzzard.”

As Oliver Dixon stepped over the rail and onto the deck of the “Restless,” he hung his head, his gaze wandering along the seams of the deck. Mrs. Tremaine and Ida averted their eyes. Dixon was led below. With one of the policemen he was locked in the very port stateroom in which he had committed the theft of the ten thousand dollars.

For he afterwards admitted drugging and robbing Henry Tremaine. He also acknowledged that it was he who had sprung and fastened the door that had almost smothered Captain Halstead in the air chamber compartment.

When the two white men and the two negroes whom Captain Tom had brought in triumph out of the Everglades were arraigned for trial for their various offenses against the law, they confessed that they had constituted the once famous “Ghost of Alligator Swamp.” This ghostly business of theirs had been carried on for the purpose of frightening hunters and cottagers away from Lake Okeechobee that their camps or bungalows might be robbed of any supplies. Occasionally, too, Uncle Tobey had succeeded in charging a goodly fee for “exorcising” the ghost away from one bungalow or another, and these fees Uncle Tobey had always divided with the members of the gang. These members of the gang were all sent to the penitentiary for offenses committed in the past. Uncle Tobey, too, was “put away” on a charge of swindling.

Sim confessed that Oliver Dixon had met him in the woods, that night, and had urged him to abduct Captain Tom Halstead, representing that Henry Tremaine would readily pay three thousand dollars for the young man’s safety. In Tom’s absence Dixon had hoped to put his own plans through.

Within a few days it turned out that Oliver Dixon was wanted in the north for an act of dishonesty that he had believed would never be traced to him. As Tremaine was disinclined to drag his own household through the courts as witnesses, he arranged with the Florida authorities to drop the charge against Dixon, allowing him to be extradited to the Northern state where the young man was also wanted. Dixon is now serving a term in prison for embezzlement.

Six months afterwards Ida Silsbee became engaged to a cavalry officer in the Army, to whom she is now married.

The motors of the “Restless” proved to be uninjured. The boat and her crew remained for some weeks longer under charter to Henry Tremaine, most of the time being spent in cruising in Florida waters.

The Ghost of Alligator Swamp was so effectually laid that it has never been heard from since by the residents of lower Florida.

Jeff Randolph remained for some weeks aboard the “Restless,” learning more and more about the work and the life. He is now a member of the Motor Boat Club, and mate aboard one of the largest motor yachts in Southern waters.

Ham Mockus is now assistant steward on one of the Havana boats.

Tom Halstead and Joe Dawson? They remained afloat, of course. They had their most stirring adventures and their most thrilling experiences with sea perils yet ahead of them, as will be related in the next volume of this series, which will be published at once under the title: “The Motor Boat Club at the Golden Gate; Or, A Thrilling Capture in the Great Fog.”

[The End.]