two fins shown by a wandering shark swept swiftly across a bank, or three big reddish fins moving in a straight line slowly behind a great, swaying, four-foot weapon marked the course of a fifteen-foot sawfish. There was water to float the power boat in the channels between the banks, and families of porpoises or dolphins were always ready to serve as pilots and point the path through these labyrinthine waterways. A school of porpoises, rolling in the water and leaping in the air, passed the motor boat as if they had been telephoned for in the greatest haste. Two minutes later, a quarter of a mile away, a great splashing could be seen and huge bodies hurled in the air, which seemed to be filled with flying fragments.
The power boat, with Molly at the wheel, started for the fray at its best speed and when it reached the battlefield its occupants saw a little band of porpoises in the midst of a great school of silver mullet. Each blow of a porpoise tail sent several mullet flying in the air, each blow that was struck was followed by a quick turn or leap of the agile animal for the victim which it caught before it fell. Ned and Dick were in the skiff which had been towed by the power boat, hoping to harpoon a sawfish or a shark. They had not before thought of the swift and wary porpoise. They called to the captain to cast them loose, and soon Ned was poling the skiff toward the busy porpoises while Dick stood in the bow of the skiff with his harpoon handy. Quick as a flash the porpoises separated and scattered in every direction and the boys followed several in vain. Then Molly took a hand in the game and sent the power boat at one after another of them until the captain called to her:
“If you’ll stick to one you’ll run him down.”
Then Molly kept steadily after a single porpoise, until the animal came to understand that it was the chosen victim, and quickly put half a mile between it and its pursuer. In a few minutes the half mile between them had vanished and the creature made another frantic dash. After that it swam back and forth as if confused, and traveled in narrowing circles, wasting its strength, while the wheel of the pursuing boat rolled back and forth without ceasing as it followed the course of the animal or took short cuts to head it off. The boys came near with the skiff, but the worried quarry paid so little heed to them that soon Dick sunk his harpoon in the tail of the porpoise. All the life and strength of the creature seemed to come back and it threw a column of water in the air which nearly swamped the skiff, while Dick’s hands were torn and blistered by the outgoing harpoon line, before way could be had on the skiff. The frantic creature tore back and forth, sometimes striking the skiff a powerful blow with its tremendous tail as it passed, sometimes towing it at high speed until Dick, who was not yet strong, was more tired than the porpoise. He changed places with Ned and the two were nearly worn out when the porpoise surrendered.
They took the harpoon from the animal’s tail and tried to drag the creature over the gunwale of the skiff, but found it too heavy for them. At length they lifted and dragged the porpoise up on the gunwale of the skiff which they pressed down until the water was beginning to flow over it. Half of the animal was now over the side of the skiff and the boys threw their weight backward expecting to roll the porpoise into the bottom of the craft. This would have happened if the porpoise had kept still, which it neglected to do. With a blow of its tail on the water the animal threw its own body forward and Ned and Dick found assistance instead of resistance as they pulled, and promptly went over backward into the water with the porpoise and the capsized skiff on top of them. When they got to the surface their captive had escaped, but the power boat was beside them with three highly edified occupants. After the skiff had been righted and bailed out and the floating poles, oar, hats, and line tub gathered in, Ned saw the fin and swaying tail of a shark cutting the surface of the water near them, and calling on Dick to take the harpoon, began to pole the skiff toward the tiger of the sea.
“Look out,” shouted the captain. “That’s a shark. You’ll lose your iron if you strike him.”
Th captain spoke too late, for the shark was struck and the skiff was towed at speed for a hundred feet by the angry fish, which then turned and rolled up on the taut line till it caught the rope in its mouth and bit it in two as easily as scissors snip thread.
“Told you so,” said the captain. “A shark always bites the line and often rolls up in it. An alligator always rolls up in it, but can’t bite it. I’ve had an alligator roll up against a skiff and pretty near come aboard after I’d harpooned it. There’s another harpoon on the _Irene_, and I’ll fix it to-night with a few feet of wire for the next shark to bite on. I reckon it’ll give him a surprise.”
Molly was in full command of the power boat for the day, and as harpooning was over, she ran it at her own sweet will. Sometimes the captain helped her with a hint when he saw her heading for water that was too shoal. The course she took was southerly and brought her near Man-o’-war Bush, from which rose hundreds of man-o’-war hawks, or frigate pelicans, the most graceful bird on the continent, excepting the fork-tailed kite. These birds soared high overhead, circling, rising and falling with scarcely a perceptible motion of their wings. From another key a flock of roseate spoon-bill, or pink curlew, flew at the approach of the boat, while young herons sat fearlessly on branches of trees or spread wings and stretched long legs as they fled in affright.
That night Mr. Barstow called a council on the cabin top.
“Boys, I would like to have you make Miami in four days from now, if you can manage it.”
“That’s easy,” said Ned. “We can make the trip in a day. That leaves us one day here and two at Madeira Hammock to find Dick’s pet crocodile.”
“If you’re going to Miami by way of Madeira Hammock,” said the captain, “you’d better allow two days for the trip. You’re likely to get some tangled up in that country.”
“Then we’ll cut out our day here. We have had our share of fun out of this place. What is there in that bay to the east of us, Captain?”
“There’s a creek that leads to the Cuthbert Rookery, but it isn’t the season for that. It’s a hard trip anyway, through small salt-water lakes and little overgrown creeks where you have to drag your skiff most of the way. And you’ve got to carry all the water you drink and you won’t find that a joke.”
“We have had all we want of that kind of country, Captain, so we’ll hike out of here at daylight and get to Madeira Hammock quick as you can find the way.”
“I can find the way now, anyhow as far as Lignum Vitae Key, and if the tide doesn’t bother me too much in the cut, maybe to Hammer Point. Beyond that I want daylight and then I ain’t sure. Do you want to make a night run?”
“Sure,” said both the boys together.
“If you will excuse me from any share in this night navigation,” said Mr. Barstow, “I think I will turn in. How is it with you, Molly?”
“Oh, I’ll stay up a while and help Captain Hull navigate the ship.”
The moon rose soon after the anchor was broken out, and its light reflected from the white canvas of the bellying sails and the tops of the white-capped waves, gave a dream-like beauty to the night. Captain Molly called to Engineer Dick:
“Stop that noise in the engine room!” and Dick promptly shut off the gasoline from the motor. Captain Hull made no complaint of this mutinous interference with his authority, but said:
“That’s right, we don’t need the engine now and I reckon we ain’t going to need it to-night.”
The wind was fair and strong from the north, and every minute its sweep grew wider and the waves bigger as the _Irene_ drew from under the shelter of the cape. The captain and Ned stood by the wheel, while the girl and Dick sat on the front of the cabin in the moonlight, watching the white water that rose from under the bow of the clumsy craft, with each heavy blow that it struck upon the waves.
[Illustration: “YOUNG HERONS SPREAD WINGS AND STRETCHED LONG LEGS AS THEY FLED”]
As they sailed the wind grew stronger and at Horse-neck Shoals the crest of breaking waves covered the deck of the _Irene_ with foam. Following the swish of each heaving wave as it lifted and swept past the boat came a heavy jar as the craft struck in the soft mud beneath her and her headway was checked.
“It’s all right,” said the captain, in answer to Ned’s look of anxiety. “I expected her to touch, but she’ll pull through.”
No one else was alarmed, for Mr. Barstow was asleep in his bunk below, while Molly and Dick were too busy watching the effect of the moonlight on the breaking waves and the distant keys to notice that anything unusual was happening. Soon the water became deeper, the waves ceased breaking and subsided, and the _Irene_ sailed smoothly on till she was hauled up in the wind to enter the cut in the bank near Lignum Vitae Key, through which an adverse tide was pouring. Dick was called from his post near the bow to start the motor, which was kept running until the boat had made her way through the channel between the white banks that showed clear under the moon as daylight could have made them. Then the motor was shut off and Dick returned to his post and resumed his study of moonlight effects as its rays fell on the palms of Lignum Vitae, the line of outer keys, the Matecumbies, and the jewel of an Indian Key, of which he told Molly the legend. At this Molly jumped up and said:
“It’s all too lovely for anything and Daddy has got to come on deck and see it.”
She went below and when she returned had Mr. Barstow in tow, to whom she pointed out the beauties of sea and sky, of clouds and light just as Dick had been doing to her. Then she went for Captain Hull, who turned the wheel over to Ned and came forward, where he answered the rapid fire of the girl’s questions, about Shell, McGinty and other keys as they passed them and about the channel and cuts through which their course lay, until he assured her he had told all he knew and if she remembered it she was as good a pilot as he. But questions continued until, having passed Tavernier Creek and neared Hammer Point, the _Irene_ was anchored for the night.
All hands were on deck when the rays of the next morning’s sun first fell on the mirror-like water about them, but Ned spoke sadly as he said:
“I’ve shipped as cook and I s’pose I’ve got to get breakfast, but I wish my assistant didn’t waste so much of her time.”
“If you’d let me keep the cook I hired we’d have crawfish for breakfast,” said Captain Hull.
“Where would we get them?” inquired Ned.
“Every one of these coral keys is built on crawfish and Snake Creek here is full of ’em.”
“Then after you’ve shown us a lot of crawfish and we’ve caught them we’ll have breakfast.”
Captain Hull lashed two tarpon hooks to broomsticks, and getting in the skiff with Molly and the two boys, poled to the nearest key. Beneath the water the steep coral banks of the key were filled with deep holes from out of many of which long feelers projected. Pushing a hook into one of these holes the captain gave it a quick turn and brought out a squirming, squeaking imitation of a young lobster. Then he handed the hooks to the boys. Ned got overboard and began to haul out crawfish at the rate of two a minute. Dick was less successful, for Molly had promptly commandeered his hook and left him nothing to do but watch her when she tried to hook the shell-fish. They didn’t get many fish and when Ned came along with a bunch of crawfish which he dropped in the skiff, he said:
“Here, you kids, you aren’t earning your salt. Just take my hook, Dick, and catch some crawfish. I’ll help Molly do whatever she’s doing.”
On the way to the _Irene_ Molly called out:
“Oh, the beautiful, beautiful, bubble!”
“Don’t touch it,” shouted Dick.
But he was too late, for Molly had picked up a Portuguese man-o’-war and sat wringing her hands with the pain of its poison. For, while nothing in nature is more exquisite, few things are more virulent than this animated, opalescent, iridescent bubble with its long, delicate, purplish tentacles.
Molly’s hand pained her all that day and the next, while Dick’s commiseration was boundless, but was kept in restraint by Ned, who frequently assured both of them that, although a surgical case, it was probably not quite hopeless. A run of two hours in directions that varied, but averaged northwest, brought the _Irene_ to Madeira Hammock, where the anchor was dropped.
CHAPTER XXVI
MADEIRA HAMMOCK AND–THE END
[Illustration: “THEY SAW A CROCODILE SWIMMING UNDER WATER NEAR THEM”]
Mr. Barstow wanted to explore Deer Key which was nearby and Ned took him there in the power boat. The captain took Molly and Dick out in the skiff to show them a crocodile and Dick stood in the bow with the harpoon while Molly sat amidship and the captain poled. Almost as they left the _Irene_ they saw a crocodile swimming under water near them, but failed to get another sight of him. They cruised vainly in open water, beside banks and in narrow channels. Finally while going through a narrow creek a wave rolling high ahead of the skiff showed that some big creature was fleeing before them. The next moment a four-foot weapon of a hand’s breadth, armed with a double row of teeth, was lifted for a second above the surface and was followed by the three fins, tandem, that proved the presence of a sawfish. Dick fairly quivered with excitement as he held his harpoon at ready.
“Captain,” said he sharply, “will there be the least bit of danger to Miss Barstow if I strike that fish now?”
“There’ll be some, of course. If he turns round and comes back at us in this narrow creek the only safe place will be in the bottom of the boat.”
“Dick Williams, don’t you stop for me. I’m not a bit afraid. If you don’t harpoon that sawfish and give me his saw, I won’t speak to you for a week,” said the excited girl.
“No use, Molly, I wouldn’t do it if it meant that you’d never speak to me.”
“If Miss Barstow will wait on the bank for half an hour you can bring her the saw, all right,” said the captain, who seemed anxious to oblige both of the passengers.
“Put me ashore quick, then.”
The girl was soon standing on the bank and the chase was renewed. A hundred yards farther up the narrow stream the great sawfish was found swimming slowly across a bank where the water was shoal, with his two fins and tail showing in line above the water. As the harpoon pole was lifted and Dick’s every muscle strained for the throw, the captain shouted:
“Throw three feet ahead of that forward fin. That’s where his back is.”
The harpoon struck the fish in the middle of his wide back and as the freed pole splashed in the water the sawfish made a mighty swirl and was off at express speed. The line was strong, the barb of the harpoon was under the tough leather of the creature’s back, and the skiff seemed to fly through the water as Dick gave the line a turn around his hand and the captain fended the skiff from the banks when sharp turns were made by the flying fish as it followed the channels of the crooked creeks. Sometimes the stream broadened, often it narrowed; once the sawfish dashed through an overgrown waterway where Dick and the captain crouched to the gunwale to avoid the arching branches that swept over and tore at the sides of the skiff. There was half an hour of this work. Dick’s hands were blistered and numb and his brain dizzy with the quick turns and changing courses of the fish, when suddenly he became panic-stricken and called to his companion:
“Captain! Are you perfectly _sure_ you know where you are? _Sure_ you can find Miss Barstow?”
The captain laughed.
“Find her? Why she’s here within a hundred feet of you now.”
And, sure enough, the next turn in the creek showed the girl standing on the bank by the water’s edge.
“Can’t I get aboard?” she called out as the skiff swept past, and Dick would have said “Yes,” but the captain shook his head.
“There’s trouble ahead. That fish is just getting ready to fight.”
Before they had passed out of sight of the girl, the sawfish turned around and for the first time headed for the skiff.
“Down, quick!” yelled the captain and both Dick and he crouched low in the skiff as a great broad sword, swung with all the power of the tremendous fish, swept over their heads. As the angry creature passed them, a second blow which fell upon the skiff and threatened to wreck it was echoed by a cry from the girl. The attack on the skiff was the last great effort of the fish, and though he still swam strongly he could be controlled. The captain ran the skiff on a shallow bank and helped Dick with the line until sixteen feet of fierceness lay stranded on the bank. As the sawfish is a species of shark, Dick had no hesitancy about killing it, but wanted Molly to first see his captive and have a look at her saw, before it left the place where it grew. The captain brought the girl, and then a rope was made fast to the saw of the fish and tied to a tree, after which the brute’s brain was explored with an axe and the saw cut off as a trophy.
[Illustration: “THE HARPOON STRUCK THE FISH IN THE MIDDLE OF HIS BROAD BACK”]
“Better wake up,” shouted the captain the next morning, before the boys were stirring. “There’s a shark outside waiting for you, and I’ve wired your harpoon line.”
The boys omitted their ablutions that morning and must have hurried their devotions, for three minutes after they were called found them aboard the skiff which they drove toward a big fin and a swaying tail, which was cutting the water a hundred yards from the _Irene_. As they neared the shark, Dick took the harpoon pole and made ready with the harpoon, while Ned sculled quietly in the wake of the ugly fish. Twice the shark heard them and darted away, but on the third approach Dick drove the iron deep in the back of the brute. The shark lashed out with its tail, sending the water flying as the harpoon struck, and then made a straight-away dash for a hundred yards while the boys rode in triumph behind it. Then the maddened creature turned, and rolling up on the line, bit it savagely but vainly.
Again and again the brute dashed away and again and again it turned, biting at the line and attacking the boat with its teeth. Dick held the skiff close to the shark, which lifted its head and seized the gunwale in its huge mouth, when Ned struck the furious creature a powerful blow on its nose with the axe. For a moment the brute seemed paralyzed, but soon returned to the attack, when the boy drove the point of the big gaff through the tough hide of the tiger of the sea.
Ned held on to the handle of the gaff, although almost dragged overboard during the first wild struggles of his captive, and then hauled the head of the brute over the gunwale, where a few blows with the axe ended the trouble.
When the boys got back to the _Irene_, Ned was happily surprised to find ready a dainty breakfast which his assistant had graciously prepared for all hands and which drew from him the unusual praise:
“A girl on a cruise is a mighty nice thing–sometimes.”
The day was to be devoted to crocodile hunting and Dick went in the skiff with the captain, while Molly was put in command of the power boat with Ned as engineer and Mr. Barstow as passenger.
Several crocodile caves were found, but none of the inhabitants were at home. One large crocodile showed itself for an instant, but the river was deep, the overhanging banks offered good hiding places, and the reptile escaped. It was after they had given the hunt up for the day and were on their way to the _Irene_ that Dick, who had stood faithfully at his post in the bow, with his harpoon ready, threw hastily at something he saw crawling on the bottom and found on the end of his line a squirming baby crocodile, scarcely four feet long. The harpoon had barely touched the side of the little reptile and the barb held by a thread-like bit of skin. When the boy saw how lightly the iron was held he dropped the line and grabbed the baby with both hands. His arms were scratched and his clothing torn by the needle-like teeth before he could tie the jaws of the creature, after which he took the baby crocodile in his arms and tucked it away in the bow of the skiff. Before he had time to tie the little reptile in its crib Ned shouted from the power boat:
“There’s one under that bank, a big fellow.”
The captain sculled the skiff slowly toward the crocodile, which was lying on the water, just under the bank. As they approached, the creature slowly sank beneath the surface of the water, which was shallow, and beneath it a bottom of mud in which the fleeing reptile had left his trail. The captain followed the trail by the furrow-like track of the tail, the spoor of the paws and the roiled water, until Dick got a shot with his harpoon. Then the crocodile towed the skiff into the deeper channels of the river, among logs and snags and under banks, sometimes rolling up on the line and biting at the skiff while Dick vainly tried to get a bight of the harpoon line around the creature’s jaw. The reptile was too wary for him, until finally the captain threatened the crocodile with a pole, while Dick got a line around its jaws and took it in the skiff. There was so little room in the skiff that Dick sat on the back of his captive until they reached the _Irene_. If he had tried this with an alligator he would have gone overboard, _pronto_, but when a crocodile’s jaws are tied he is gentler than most lambs.
[Illustration: “SIXTEEN FEET OF FIERCENESS LAY STRANDED ON THE BANK”]
As soon as Dick had his new pets safely on the _Irene_ he examined them carefully and then shouted to Ned:
“This is my old crocodile, the very one we turned loose when we were here before. I’d know him in a thousand. Don’t you remember the broken point to the tooth that stuck out through his upper jaw, on the right side, too? Why, Crocky, old boy, how are you? I’m mighty glad to see you again.”
“Don’t you want to set them free to-morrow, Dick?” asked Mr. Barstow.
“I don’t, but I’ve got to.”
“Would you rather send them North to be educated?”
“I surely would. I wish I could.”
“I think it can be managed. I know of a zoological collection where they will be very welcome. If you think they haven’t been injured, I will ship both of them North from Miami.”
“They are all right. I know that. I made two bad throws and barely touched both of them. I don’t believe you could find where either of them was hit, now.”
“Then North they go.”
The boys made a box for the little crocodile, gathered a lot of grass for his bed and stowed him away in the hold where he would be safe from the attentions of Tom. There was not enough lumber on board to make a box for the big crocodile and the brute was put overboard to pasture at the end of a hundred-foot line. As soon as the crocodile was overboard Dick drew it beside the boat and untied its jaws. At first it tried to get away, but soon gave it up and thereafter rose to the surface every few minutes and gazed gravely upon its new friends on the boat. When later the _Irene_ was ready to sail, Dick drew his pet up to the side of the boat and tied his jaws without remonstrance from the reptile. It took three of them to haul the creature aboard, where it was fastened to a ringbolt on deck for the first stage of its journey to the Zoo.
[Illustration: “THEY HAULED THE HEAD OF THE BRUTE OVER THE SIDE OF THE BOAT”]
“Captain Hull,” said Ned, as the whole party were watching the stars from the cabin top and waiting for the moon to rise that night, “we have got back from the Madeira Hammock every thing we lost there, so we will start for Miami to-morrow.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
“You know you said we might lose a day round here, and now we have got a day to spare.”
“You’ll be lucky if you don’t lose it. There’s lots of chances between here and Miami, or between here and anywhere. There isn’t six inches between the _Irene’s_ bottom and the rocks this minute and we’re going to stir the mud a dozen times to-morrow.”
“Supposing a storm comes while we are anchored so near the rocks?”
“Anybody who supposes in this country won’t ever do anything else.”
“Would we make anything by another night run?”
“Make sure to pile up on a bank so high that you’d have time to homestead a farm before you got off.”
The _Irene_ stirred the mud a few times the next day, but passed through Blackwater, Barnes and Card sounds and all the cuts and channels to Biscayne Bay without trouble. There a high wind and a heavy sea held her back, so that it was dusk when the anchor was dropped just outside of the mouth of Miami River. During this, their last evening on the cabin roof of the _Irene_, Mr. Barstow said to Dick:
“Do you feel perfectly well and strong again?”
“Never felt so well before in my life and am getting my strength back fast.”
“Then vacation ends for you and Ned to-day. To-morrow morning you will take the train for the North, where you will have about two weeks to spend with your mother. I will wire her from Miami about our arrangement, which I am sure she will approve, and tell her when she may expect you. Very soon you will receive your instructions. You and Ned will be together, work the same, pay the same, and both of you have my perfect confidence that you will justify every hope I have of you.”
“Mr. Barstow, I haven’t any words–“
“Don’t say anything, Dick, I understand it all, my boy. Just go ahead and make good, both for yourself and me.”
[Illustration: “HE TOOK THE BABY CROCODILE IN HIS ARMS”]
In the morning Ned and the captain distinguished themselves by waking up a dealer, buying some lumber, hustling it aboard and having the two crocodiles boxed up for transportation North in time for the train of that day. How much of a feat that was requires a residence in South Florida to appreciate.
The _Irene_ was run up the river to the railroad dock, where the crocodiles were put on the cars and the boys took their train for the North. When the good-byes were said, the captain carried Tom across the dock on his shoulder and Dick’s last act before leaving was to formally present him to Molly.
THE END