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

TOM HAS SOME OF HIS OWN WAY

“OH, what a pity!” cried the girl, in a voice of genuine distress. “I’m almost certain Mr. Tremaine won’t like that.”

“It is a matter with which Mr. Tremaine has very little to do,” replied the youthful skipper of the “Restless.” “A robbery has been committed on the boat I command, and it’s my duty, as well as my own desire, to have the police come aboard.”

On shore, in the sleepy-looking little town, nearly a dozen people of varying ages were visible from the boat. All of these had turned waterward when the whistle sounded so long and shrilly.

“Likely as not the police force has taken a small boy with him and gone fishing somewhere,” observed Halstead, dryly, as he reached once more to sound the whistle.

The Tremaines and Dixon had come up on deck through the after cabin hatch, and now stood looking curiously ashore.

As the second series of long whistles woke the echoes of this little Florida town, a negro was seen to amble down to the shore, step into a boat and push off. He rowed until within hailing distance, when he called:

“W’ut you-uns gwinter want – provisions or gas-oil?”

“We’ve been sounding the police call,” Tom shouted back. “Send a policeman on board.”

“Good Lawd!” ejaculated the black man at the oars. But he put about, beached his boat and vanished up the street. Presently he came back, followed by a drowsy-looking white man, not in uniform. After he had gotten his passenger aboard, the negro rowed more lustily than he had previously done, and soon ranged up alongside the “Restless.”

“Ladies and gentlemen,” sang out the white man, “this amiable black Ananias tells me you want a police officer.”

“I do,” replied Halstead. “I am captain of this yacht – ”

“You?” returned the Tres Arbores officer, staring hard.

“I am captain of this yacht,” Tom nodded, “and there has been a disappearance of money on board. I shall be much obliged, as will most of the others, if you’ll come on board and search all the men. Afterwards, if necessary, the boat.”

“I reckon, I’ll have to understand this,” responded the lone policeman, as the negro in the small boat held out an oar which Ham seized, then drew the rowboat in close. As the officer stepped up onto the deck of the “Restless,” he threw back his coat, displaying a police star beneath.

“I am the one who lost the money,” explained Henry Tremaine, stepping forward and introducing himself. “I don’t want to subject anyone, especially this young captain and engineer, to any search. I’d sooner lose the money than bring upon any innocent person such a humiliation.”

“It won’t be any humiliation to me to be searched, when I know I didn’t take the money,” rejoined Tom Halstead, hotly. “Officer, I want the search made, and I’ll submit to it first.”

“But I object,” broke in Mr. Tremaine. “I don’t want anybody searched.”

“I reckon p’raps you-all had better explain this to me,” requested the policeman, who gave his name as Randolph.

Henry Tremaine told the story quickly.

“Why, sir,” replied Officer Randolph, “if you, Mr. Tremaine, refuse to make any complaint, I don’t see that I can do a thing.”

“But a crime has been committed,” insisted Halstead.

“It was committed outside this township, then,” responded Randolph. “And, since Mr. Tremaine refuses to press the matter, I might lay myself liable if I were to search anyone.”

“Why do you object, Mr. Tremaine?” appealed Tom, turning to the charter-man.

“Because,” replied that gentleman, “it’s all a puzzle to me, as it must be to the rest of us. I am satisfied that, somehow, the whole matter will be cleared up, presently, without recourse to the law.”

“But I want my boat and ourselves cleared,” protested the young skipper, looking more than ever worried.

“You and your boat will be cleared – somehow – not long from now,” replied Henry Tremaine, shortly. “I decline to be mixed up in any legal proceedings.”

“But Ah reckon Ah’s gotter hab de officer look me ober,” declared Ham Mockus, coming up from below, ready to go ashore, and carrying a most dilapidated valise. “You-all will see each other again, you-all, but I’se gwine ashoah, an’ likely yo’ll nebber see me again. So I asks de officer kindly to look mah bag frou, an’ den come below an’ look me ober. Ah don’ want to have you-all t’ink, bimeby, mebbe yo’d better had Ham Mockus looked ober.”

“Well, open your baggage, then,” grinned the police officer. “I’ll accommodate you, Mockus.”

Ham’s meagre baggage, on exploration, proved innocent enough. Then the officer took him below to the engine-room, soon coming back to the deck with the young colored man.

“He hasn’t much money about him,” reported Mr. Randolph.

“He’ll have a little more money now, though – his wages for the cruise,” replied Captain Tom, handing the black man an envelope.

“But Ah didn’ bargain fo’ no wages,” gasped Ham, in surprise. “Ah said Ah’d work fo’ passage.”

“Anyone who works for us gets paid for it,” rejoined Halstead, laconically.

Plainly enough Ham was overjoyed at this. His teeth showed in the grin that he gave, while he protested his thanks.

While Mr. Tremaine was bargaining with the negro boatman to put them ashore, Ida Silsbee moved over to Tom’s side.

“I know, Captain Halstead,” she whispered, “that you feel disappointed over not having a search made. But believe me, Mr. Tremaine does not understand how you feel. He doesn’t for a moment suspect, now, that you or Mr. Dawson took the money, and he knows Ham hasn’t it. Mr. Tremaine has his own notions of sensitiveness, and he prefers to drop the whole matter. He has been drugged. There isn’t a doubt about that, and his head is still bothering him so that he isn’t able to think clearly. Having made up his mind as best he can, however, he won’t change it.”

“It’ll be all right,” replied Tom, moodily, in a low voice. “I’ll have the thing settled myself.”

“This man is going to take us ashore,” broke in Mr. Tremaine, from several feet away. “Then he’ll come back for the baggage. Captain, you and Mr. Dawson will join us ashore at breakfast, won’t you?”

“One of us will,” Halstead made answer. “The other must remain aboard the yacht to look out for it.”

Ham went over the side with the late passengers, Officer Randolph remaining behind at Tom Halstead’s almost whispered request.

By the time that the boat put out from shore again the two boys and the Tres Arbores policeman were just coming up from below.

“Since they want one of us ashore, Tom,” urged Dawson, “you’d better be the one to go.”

“Why don’t you get on land and stretch your legs?” Halstead inquired.

“Humph!” grunted Dawson. “I don’t believe it would be safe for me to sit at table with that fellow Dixon. I’d feel a violent impulse, all the time, to put my closed hand against his face.”

“Not in the presence of ladies!” smiled Skipper Tom.

“It would be quite easy to decoy the fellow outside. Especially,” Joe added, in a whisper, “after what you told me about that vial Dixon had, and his dropping some stuff in the water decanter. Why didn’t you, or why don’t you, tell Mr. Tremaine about that?”

“He’d be likely to suspect I was trying to throw suspicion on his guest to keep it off myself,” Halstead replied, shaking his head.

While this was being said, Officer Randolph, who had walked astern, was out of hearing. While they were below Tom had found chance to tell his chum, in whispers, about the incidents of the vial and the water bottle. They had even investigated the water bottle on the sideboard, but had found it empty.

So it was Captain Tom who, on the third and belated trip of the boat, went ashore. Randolph went with him, even accompanying the young sailing master to the little hotel of which Tres Arbores boasted.