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

“Oh, no; the alligators seldom venture into this lake,” Tom replied. “We have to go the length of the lake, I understand, and then penetrate for some distance into the Everglades. There are no alligators here.”

Just at that moment they came to the rise in the ground, then passed on to descend to the boat.

“No alligators here – ” Tom began again, but paused, paling and staring aghast.

For out of the water and up onto the beach crawled two monstrous twelve-foot alligators. They halted on the land just before the boat, opening and snapping their great jaws.

“Ugh! That’s a fine sight to run upon when a fellow hasn’t any firearms,” grated Halstead, hoarsely. He felt the gooseflesh starting all over him.

CHAPTER VII
DODGING THE OLDEST INHABITANTS OF THE EVERGLADES

JUST in the instant that he halted young Halstead thrust out his left arm, sweeping Ida Silsbee behind him.

“Don’t treat me as though you believed me a coward,” she remonstrated, speaking in a low voice.

“You’ll make me less of a coward if you don’t expose yourself needlessly to danger,” Tom retorted, in an equally low voice.

Though the alligator is a cumbersome looking animal on land, both knew from their reading that this four-legged reptile will sometimes show unlooked-for speed on its short legs.

Both alligators were now fully on land, their scaled bodies glistening in the soft sunlight. One had opened its great jaws as though to yawn, and the other at once followed the example.

Both stood within half a dozen feet of the launch’s bow, which meant that a sudden dash for the boat was out of the question.

“With this stick in my hand I feel like an amateur fireman trying to put out the San Francisco fire with a watering-pot,” Halstead whispered, dryly.

Ida Silsbee laughed low and nervously.

“Do alligators climb trees?” she asked.

“I never heard of one that could do it.”

“Then, at the worst, we might climb a tree. I – I suppose you could help me.”

“I’d sooner be in that launch, with the engine started, than up any tree on the island,” the boy answered.

“What would you do, if you were alone?” the girl asked.

“I don’t know. I might take to the water, swim to the stern of the launch, climb in and try to shove off.”

“Then why don’t you do it?”

“And leave you alone, Miss Silsbee, even for a few moments?”

“I could run across the island if those ugly-looking beasts started in my direction. You could pick me up at some other point of the shore.”

“Have you forgotten the snakes?” demanded Tom.

“Ugh! Don’t make me more afraid.”

“I don’t want to, Miss Silsbee. But neither do I want to see you forget any of the risks of our position.”

One of the big alligators, after eyeing them for some moments, started up the rise of ground toward them. From the slowness of its movements it looked as though the huge thing was bent mainly on securing a good point at which to sun itself, but Halstead and the girl retreated slowly.

“See,” whispered Halstead, “the other ’gator is moving a bit east along the shore. Let’s run down to the west shore. There we may be in a position to reach the launch bye and bye.”

As they stole along cautiously, in the direction Tom had indicated, each had to be careful in picking footing on the soft, springy ground, else it was impossible to tell when they might step upon a hidden rattler. Yet they gained the shore, at last, Tom in the lead. Here they halted, a hundred feet from the launch. By this time the first alligator had halted near the crest of the rise. Turning slowly, the beast was eyeing the fugitives blinkingly. The second alligator was now some thirty feet from the further side of the launch, though still quite close to the water.

“I wonder – ” began Tom, hesitatingly.

“What?”

“Whether I could sprint along the shore like a streak, push the launch off, jump in, and then have time to start the engine and get down here for you?”

“Would you do that if you were here all alone?”

“In a second!”

“Then do it anyway,” begged Ida Silsbee. “I’m not brave, but I can take a fighting chance and follow orders.”

“I’m thinking of the risk, if – ” began Halstead again, musingly and in a low voice.

“If what?”

“Well, what if the ’gator, seeing me coming, should turn and charge me, just miss me, and keep coming right on for you?”

“I’d run into the water, Mr. Halstead, for you to pick me up.”

“Good heavens! In the water that ’gator could go a hundred feet, almost, to your one!”

“Then I’d dash along the shore as fast as I could, until you could run the boat down and pick me up.”

“I’m going to try it,” decided Halstead, coolly. “It seems to promise the greatest safety for you.”

“But yourself?”

“Oh, confound me! I’m a boy.”

“You’re a man, Tom Halstead, and a splendid one at that!”

“I shall get my head turned, at this rate,” replied Tom, smiling dryly. “I’d better run at once.”

Grasping Ida Silsbee’s right hand, he thrust the tiller stick into it.

“Hold onto this. Don’t drop the stick, no matter what happens,” he directed. “Use it against ’gators – or snakes.”

Then, without loss of an instant’s time, he turned and sprinted desperately. A hundred feet is a short distance when one is traveling as though on air.

Seeing the boy coming, the alligator wheeled clumsily about. By this time, however, Tom Halstead’s hands rested against the bow of the boat. At the start of the run he had opened his sailor’s clasp knife. At one stout slash the boy cut the line holding the boat. Then he shoved off with his hands, and made a flying vault into the boat. Nor did he lose a second, as the boat drifted out from the shore, in starting the motor.

After the first moment’s hesitation the big ’gator started for the boat, as if scenting an enemy that might be vanquished. Seeing the high bow of the launch slip away, the ’gator kept on, lumberingly, toward Miss Silsbee.

Chug! chug! chug! sounded the motor’s exhaust, firing like pistol shots. The clumsy beast stopped an instant, as though wondering what new style of attack this could be on man’s part. Then, finding that no harm came, the big saurian reptile eyed Ida Silsbee’s fluttering skirts, and kept on lumbering toward her.

“Stay where you are!” called Tom Halstead, in a cool, low voice. It was typical of him that, the greater the danger, the more intense his coolness. His right hand on the wheel, the other ready to shift the motor control, he darted in to where Miss Silsbee stood bravely eyeing the oncoming alligator.

As the bow grated, Tom Halstead sprang up.

“Your hand!” he cried. “Like lightning!”

As she sprang, then half-stumbled, the alligator’s head was hardly more than twenty feet away. With a quick out-shoot of its breath the big creature hastened forward.

Tom half lifted, half dragged Ida into the boat, at the same time taking the tiller stick from her. Almost at the instant when her heels cleared the gunwale a huge pair of jaws loomed up close beside the bow.

Not really pausing to think what he did, Halstead let out a yell that would have done credit to one of the Seminole aborigines of the Everglades. In the same flashing instant he rammed the tiller stick far down into the mouth of the alligator.

His left hand caught the reverse gear. The propeller churned and the launch glided out, stern foremost, into deeper water, while the alligator, bringing its jaws down with a crunching snap on the bar of wood, went through some absurd antics in trying to expel the tiller stick from its mouth. Then Tom Halstead laughed.

“Not such bad sport, eh, Miss Silsbee?”

He had backed far enough out, now, to turn on the speed ahead and swing around, heading north.

Though she trembled a bit from excitement, Ida Silsbee leaned forward, catching the boy’s disengaged right hand and holding it in friendly pressure for a moment.

“Tom Halstead, it’s more than a pleasure to know one like you!”

The young captain laughed quietly as he thanked her.

“I reckon we’ll have some appetite for lunch, now, Miss Silsbee. Yet I almost feel that I owe you an apology.”

“For what, pray?”

“For not having been clever enough to find some way of killing that lumbering beast and presenting you with its hide. What a novel suitcase it would have made for you.”

Ida Silsbee laughed merrily. There was so much clear grit in her make-up that she had now recovered her composure fully.

“You’re not easily pleased, are you?” she challenged, whimsically.

“Well, we’ll have to admit we made a bungle of the affair all around,” teased Tom. “For you see, after all we left the moss behind on the island.”

“Oh, that moss!” cried the girl, pouting. “I’m glad I did drop it, for I shall always hate that particular species of moss whenever I think of the fate it so nearly brought upon us.”

The launch was now slipping over the water at its full speed, so it was not long ere these young travelers came in sight of the Tremaine winter bungalow once more.

Henry Tremaine and his wife were alone on the porch as the boat’s whistle sounded just before the landing was made.

Oliver Dixon had stolen away by himself, consuming himself with rage over the fact that Ida should have chosen to slip away without inviting him. Dixon came outside, however, as the young people came up the boardwalk together.

“Oh, Mrs. Tremaine, you have missed such a stirring time,” hailed Miss Silsbee, gayly.

Tom Halstead laughed, quietly. Hearing their arrival, Joe also came out. Miss Silsbee, of course, had to describe their adventure, in which Tom Halstead’s share lost nothing by her telling.

“I hope you’ll take a sufficient warning from this, child,” said Mr. Tremaine, presently. “Never venture onto any of the islands, or in any of these woods hereabouts, unless beaters go ahead of you to rouse up and despatch whatever snakes there may be lurking under the bushes.”

“Beaters?” inquired the girl.

“Yes; any of the negroes, like Ham, for instance. They don’t mind snakes. They hunt them for sport.”

Ham Mockus made his presence in the background noted.

“Men of your color don’t mind hunting snakes, do you, Ham?” asked the host.

“No, sah. Ah reckons not much, sah.”

“In fact, none of the natives here stand much in dread of reptiles,” continued Tremaine. “They’re used to hunting them, and seem to develop a special instinct for knowing where the snakes are. Young Randolph and Ham, I venture to believe, would go through a twenty-acre field, finding and killing all the snakes there happened to be there.”

“This talk is becoming rather annoying, my dear,” shivered Mrs. Tremaine.

“I beg your pardon, then,” responded her husband, quickly. “We’ll consider something more cheerful.”

“Dat’s w’ut Ah gwine come to tell yo’ ’bout,” declared Ham, gravely. “Ladies an’ gemmen, luncheon’s done served. Yassuh!”

CHAPTER VIII
A CRACK SHOT AT THE GAME

WHILE the party were thus engaged in discussing the luncheon, the young Randolph referred to, Jefferson being his Christian name, was busy in another room of the bungalow, cleaning alligator rifles.

Jeff was the sixteen-year-old son of Officer Randolph. Despite his youth, this young man, who was tall, slim, wiry and strong, had already led several successful alligator hunts in the Everglades. He had been engaged, on his father’s recommendation, for this expedition. Officer Randolph, in the meantime, had consented to make his headquarters aboard the “Restless,” which fact permitted both Tom and Joe to get their first taste of alligator sport.

Throughout the luncheon, Oliver Dixon, though he had succeeded in obtaining the chair next to Ida Silsbee’s, remained for the most part silent and distrait, a prey to hatred of the young motor boat captain.

“If a few more things like this adventure happen,” Dixon told himself, “I shall be pretty certain to find Ida slipping away from me altogether. It seems absurd to think of a full-grown young woman like her falling in love with a mere boy. Bah! That really can’t happen, of course. Yet it isn’t wholly unlikely that she’ll become so much interested in Tom Halstead’s kind that my sort of man won’t appeal to her. I must be watchful and keep myself properly in the foreground.”

If young Dixon felt himself much devoted to Ida Silsbee, even he knew that he was much more attracted by the fact that, as money went, Ida Silsbee was a rather important heiress.

One of Dixon’s basic faults was that he hated useful work. He would much rather live on a rich wife’s money.

By the time that the meal was over the fortune-hunter had come to one important conclusion.

“If I want to stand well with Ida,” he told himself, “then I must conceal my feelings well enough to keep on seemingly good terms with this young Halstead cub. I’ve got to treat the boy pleasantly, and make him like me. Otherwise, a girl who places her friendships as impulsively as Ida Silsbee does is likely to conceive an actual dislike for me. That would be a fearful obstacle to my plans!”

So, as all rose from the table at Mrs. Tremaine’s signal, Dixon inquired, pleasantly:

“Going back down the lake for a chance at that pair of ’gators this afternoon, Halstead?”

“I don’t know,” Tom answered. “I’m wholly at Mr. Tremaine’s disposal.”

“Jove! I don’t know that it would be such a bad plan,” mused Henry Tremaine. “What do you say, my dear?”

“Would it be necessary for any of us to leave the boat?” asked Mrs. Tremaine, cautiously.

“Not at all necessary.”

“Is there any danger of the horrid things trying to climb into the boat?”

“I never heard of a ’gator trying to do such a thing.”

“Or would an alligator be at all likely to swim under the boat, then rise, overturning us?”

“I think I can promise you that no self-respecting alligator would think of doing such a thing,” laughed Mr. Tremaine.

“Then I’m ready enough to vote for going,” agreed Mrs. Tremaine.

“Halstead – Dawson – you know what that means,” warned the owner of the place.

“How soon will you start, sir?” inquired Tom.

“We ought to be ready within twenty minutes.”

“Then Joe and I will have the boat ready, sir. Anything we can carry down to the launch?”

“No; we’ll take only rifles and ammunition, which will be all we’ll want. Ham, you’ll watch the house while we’re gone.”

“Yassuh.”

Suddenly the colored steward’s eyes rolled apprehensively.

“But Marse Tremaine, yo’ll sho’ly be back befo’ dahk, sah?”

“Why?”

“Because, sah, Ah don’ wanter be lef yere after dahk, sah. Dat yere Ghost ob Alligator Swamp, sah – ”

“Oh, I quite understand, Ham,” laughed Henry Tremaine. “Well, we’ll promise to be back quite a bit before early candle-lighting.”

Soon afterwards the launch party started, young Jeff Randolph going along in charge of “the arsenal,” as he termed the shooting outfit.

Joe, after starting the motor and seeing the boat clear the dock, settled back lazily. Tom was up in the bow, beside the steering wheel. Miss Silsbee found the seat next to him. Mr. Dixon took the seat at her other side, exerting himself to be agreeable both to her and to the young captain.

“Take us right to that same island, Halstead, if you can find it,” requested the owner.

“Do you expect the alligators will have remained there all this time?” questioned Dixon.

“It’s hardly likely,” admitted Tremaine. “Yet, that particular island will be a good starting point from which to look about. Of course, the chances are that we shan’t find the ’gators. Isn’t that right, Randolph?”

“Yes, sir,” replied Jeff, slowly. “The only sure way to get some really good sport will be to leave your house some morning before daylight, go right along the lake and be well into the Everglades by ten o’clock. That would give us about six hours to look for ’gators, and we would be pretty sure to bag one or two in that time. But ’gators know how to be wary, sir, as you know from having hunted them before.”

“Yes,” agreed the host. “I’ve known a party to be out four days before one of the rascals was landed at last. But he was a whopping fellow – almost as big as one of the pair Miss Silsbee and Halstead encountered this morning.”

“Don’t you suppose,” laughed Dixon, turning to the girl, “that your eyes magnified, just a bit, the pair you saw this morning?”

“I know my eyes must have exaggerated,” laughed Ida, “for, at the time, I’d have been willing to depose that neither brute was less than a hundred and fifty feet long, which all the natural history books declare to be impossible.”

“There’s the island, isn’t it, Miss Silsbee!” Captain Halstead asked, after a while.

“Yes,” nodded the girl. “I’m sure it must be. Yes! There’s the identical tree you robbed of the moss that we forgot to bring away with us.”

She laughed heartily, her mirth and the resting of her gaze on Tom making Dixon secretly more furious than ever.

“Let me have the wheel, now,” volunteered Joe, moving into place. “You’ll want your eyes on the lookout for game now.”

“Slow down the speed a whole lot,” directed Halstead. “If we’re going to explore this stretch of water we don’t want to travel too fast.”

“That’s right,” nodded Mr. Tremaine. “And, Dawson, if we sight an alligator, we don’t want more than to creep over the water. ’Gators are wary of fast-moving boats, and they’re easily scared below the surface by voices.”

“I see something,” whispered Ida Silsbee, some ten minutes later, pointing over the water.

A dark object floated on the water, some four hundred yards distant. It was plain, too, that the object was moving.

“’Gator snout,” whispered Tremaine, enthusiastically. “Jove, I didn’t think we’d sight anything out on the lake, like this!”

“Shall I steer for it, sir?” asked Joe, in an undertone.

“Yes, but let the boat just barely crawl.”

Tom Halstead’s eyes were gleaming, now, with the spirit of the chase.

“That’s the snout of a mighty big old rogue of a ’gator,” murmured Mr. Tremaine in Tom’s ear. “It must be one of the pair you and Ida saw this morning.”

“Gun, sir,” murmured Jeff Randolph, passing over a loaded rifle.

“Do you know how to shoot, Halstead?” asked the launch’s owner.

“Do I?” murmured the boy, his eyes gleaming.

“Want a crack at that ’gator?”

“Don’t I?”

“Pass Halstead a rifle,” nodded Mr. Tremaine.

Jeff did so, adding:

“If you never shot a rifle of as heavy calibre as this one, Captain, look out for the recoil.”

Tom Halstead caressed the barrel of the rifle lovingly as Joe Dawson made the boat slowly creep toward that floating head.

“I’m going to try a shot now,” announced Mr. Tremaine. “You be ready, Halstead. If I miss, you fire instantly.”

Bang! A bullet splashed the water just beyond that dark head. Before Tom could fire the snout dropped below the surface.

“Stop the speed. Reverse!” whispered Mr. Tremaine, tensely. “There! Hold her just where she is.”

For some moments the launch drifted without headway, while every pair of eyes watched eagerly for the reappearance of the alligator’s snout.

“There it – ” began Oliver Dixon.

Bang! As the alligator’s head showed again, some distance from the spot where it had vanished, Tom Halstead sighted swift as thought, and pressed the trigger.

“Jove! You hit the beast!” cried Mr. Tremaine, excitedly, as a commotion started in the water where the huge reptile floated.

Then, suddenly, the whole length of the body appeared. The ’gator rolled over on its back and lay motionless.

“Great curling smoke! You killed the beast, Halstead!” cried Henry Tremaine, a-quiver with enthusiasm.

There could be no doubt that the creature was lying still on its back.

“I fired for one of the eyes,” admitted the young motor boat skipper.

“You hit the eye, then, and pierced what little brain the beast has,” declared Henry Tremaine. “Run us up alongside, Dawson. Jeff, get out one of the towing lines. Jove! What a fine afternoon’s sport, almost within sight of the bungalow.”

“You shoot as splendidly as you do everything else, Tom!” effused Ida Silsbee.

“I guess it was a fluke shot,” Tom laughed, modestly.

But Oliver Dixon noted the use of his first name by the girl, and Dixon’s heart burned with jealousy.

Joe ran the boat up alongside the motionless, overturned alligator. Mr. Tremaine and Jeff bent far out over the gunwale, deftly, expertly slipped a noose taut over the hard, scaled tail of the dead creature, then made the line fast at the stern of the boat.

“We’ll cruise about a bit longer,” decided Mr. Tremaine. “I don’t believe we’ll get anything more like this, though, out in the open lake. I don’t believe I ever heard of a ’gator being shot out here in the lake before.”

“It happens once in a while,” nodded Jeff, gravely.

They cruised for an hour more, after which Henry Tremaine declared they might as well return.

“We may do bigger shooting in the Everglades, to-morrow,” he suggested. “Still, one big brute like this in a day is sport enough for any crowd.”

“I’m sure it’s one of the beasts that crowded us off the island,” asserted Ida Silsbee.

“It looks very much like the one that charged you,” Tom assented.

“Then you two adventurers told no fibs about the size,” laughed Mr. Tremaine. “That fellow is fully a dozen feet long.”

“What are you going to do with your prize, Captain?” asked Mrs. Tremaine, as Joe drove the launch northward at somewhat diminished speed on account of the tow behind.

“Does the ’gator belong to me?” Halstead asked.

“It certainly does,” nodded Mr. Tremaine.

“Then I offer the hide and the teeth to Mrs. Tremaine and Miss Silsbee,” responded the young motor boat captain.

Both ladies expressed their thanks.

“If I get a second one,” Tom continued, “I shall send the hide to a manufacturer to have a genuine alligator bag or two made for my mother.”

“Take this one,” urged Mrs. Tremaine.

“No; it’s only fair that the first prize should go to the ladies of this party,” argued Halstead.