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

“I’ll stay and help you dress,” proposed Tom, upon which the other two retreated.

“Gracious! How my head feels!” groaned Tremaine, as he got unsteadily onto his feet. Tom had to clutch at him and hold him.

“I feel as though I had been drugged,” muttered Tremaine, slowly. “I – I can’t half think, and my head aches, and is so dizzy – ”

“You’ll want to get in the air, then,” proposed the young skipper, as Tremaine finished getting on the last of his clothes.

“Where – are we?”

“Why, since Mrs. Tremaine saw land from the port stateroom, I think we must at least be in the mouth of Oyster Bay, sir.”

“Then, if we’re going to land so soon,” proposed Henry Tremaine, “I may as well get my money out. Halstead, be a good fellow. I feel so bad that I don’t dare bend over. Here are my steamer trunk keys. Open the trunk and lift out the small iron box you’ll find there. I have ten thousand dollars in bills there. I’ll deposit the money on shore.”

Halstead readily found the iron box, and placed it on the edge of the berth. Tremaine, still groaning about his head, fitted a key into the box, and raised the strong lid.

“What’s this?” Tremaine almost yelled, as soon as he had the iron box opened.

Tom Halstead looked, then gasped.

“Why, there’s not a dollar – not a sou – in this box!” roared Henry Tremaine. “Yesterday, there was ten thousand dollars in it!”

His excited exclamations brought the other passengers to the doorway.

“What’s the matter, my dear?” inquired Mrs. Tremaine.

“Why,” exclaimed her husband, bewilderedly, “I appear to be out ten thousand dollars. The money was in this box yesterday afternoon.”

“Robbed?” gasped Mrs. Tremaine.

“So it would seem,” retorted her husband, dryly. “And – Jupiter! From the way my head feels, I’ve been drugged, too! Of course the thief had to drug me, in order to be sure that I wouldn’t wake up when he came in during the night.”

“Who has had access to this cabin while we slept?” demanded Oliver Dixon. “That negro – Ham?”

“No,” rejoined Tom Halstead, promptly. “Ham has been asleep in his berth. I locked the door into the cabin. I’m the only one who had access here.”

“Do you know anything about where the money went to, Halstead?” inquired Mr. Tremaine, looking up at him.

“I?” stammered the young sailing master of the “Restless.” “Certainly not, sir!”

“Then who does?” demanded Oliver Dixon, shooting a suspicious look at the young captain.

As Tom Halstead glanced swiftly from one face to another, something of the awful meaning of the situation flashed over him.

“See here,” he muttered, hoarsely, “I hope none of you think I could do anything like this! I? Rob my own passengers? Why, it would settle my fate as a yacht commander all in an instant! No, no! You surely must all see that I simply couldn’t have done a thing like this!”

CHAPTER IV

“BOAT-CALL FOR THE POLICE”

“WE’D certainly hate to believe anything of the sort,” said Oliver Dixon, slowly, in a half-purring tone, though reluctant suspicion sounded in his voice.

“I wouldn’t believe that– not if anyone swore himself as an eye-witness,” declared Ida Silsbee, promptly.

Skipper Tom thanked her with a swift, eloquent glance.

“It would seem absurd,” declared Mrs. Tremaine, though there was the briefest touch of hesitation in her tone.

“Confound my buzzing head! I don’t know what to say yet,” grumbled Henry Tremaine.

“I want this matter investigated to the very bottom,” protested Halstead, his voice shaking as no terror of the hurricane could have made it shake.

“Oh, well, the money must be somewhere on board, unless the one who took it threw it into the sea,” replied Henry Tremaine, pulling himself to his feet.

“And we won’t let anyone off this yacht, either, until the search has been made to the very end,” declared Tom Halstead. “Everybody and every nook and corner must stand search.”

“For that matter,” smiled Oliver Dixon, dully, “there must be countless little nooks and crannies on this boat where anyone knowing the craft could tuck away a small bundle of banknotes.”

“I’ll show every nook and cranny I know,” retorted Tom, turning almost fiercely on Dixon. “So will Joe Dawson. And, to prove our good faith, we’ll let the police authorities bring on board as many men as they like whose knowledge will fit them to search a craft like this.”

“Captain Halstead,” asked Ida Silsbee, stepping forward, speaking very softly, while her cheeks glowed, “will you take my hand?”

In sheer gratitude Captain Tom seized the dainty hand offered him, pressing it hard, while Oliver Dixon looked on, green-eyed with jealousy.

“Won’t you let me offer my hand, too, Captain Halstead?” asked Mrs. Tremaine.

Tom grasped hers, in turn.

“Oh, hang it all,” cried Henry Tremaine, “ten thousand dollars isn’t all the money in the world. It isn’t all the money in my little world, either. This will all come out all right. I want to be a decent fellow, and I would be, too, if this raging head of mine would only let me.”

“I’ll help you to a seat, dear, and bathe your head,” suggested Mrs. Tremaine, to which suggestion her husband assented.

“I must go on deck, now – simply must,” announced Halstead. “Yet I’d feel better about it if one of you could come up with me – just to see that I don’t dispose of the money, you know,” he added, with a wan attempt at a smile.

“I’m not needed here; I’ll go with you, Captain,” spoke up Ida Silsbee.

“No, no, no!” protested Dixon, almost hoarsely, as he pressed forward. “I will go.”

“By all means, Mr. Dixon, if you wish,” replied Ida Silsbee, flashing a curious look at him. “But I’m going with Captain Halstead, anyway, and I think you might better remain here, to be of possible service to Mrs. Tremaine.”

“But – but you’ll be in danger on deck,” objected Dixon.

“I doubt it,” retorted Ida Silsbee, with a toss of her head. “But even so, I shall be in the care of two whose bravery I have been made to respect.”

“As you will, then,” replied Dixon, in what he meant to be a coaxing voice. Yet his scowling look followed Tom Halstead.

“It was tremendously good of you – ” murmured the young skipper, as the two walked through the passageway.

“What? To believe you honest?” inquired the girl. “I can’t believe that young men as cool and brave, and as unmindful of fatigue, as you two have been through the night can be anything but staunch and honest.”