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

H. Irving Hancock

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

CHAPTER I

A KINK IN THE GULF STREAM

“REALLY, I can hardly believe that it’s winter at all,” declared Mrs. Tremaine, languidly, as she threw open her deck coat. “I find it hard – ”

“Now, my dear, don’t try to do anything hard. It’s sure to fatigue you,” laughed Henry Tremaine, coming up from the cabin companionway, where he had paused long enough to light a pipe.

“But here it is,” argued Mr. Tremaine’s pretty young wife, “well into the month of December. We are out at sea, out of sight of land, save for a few of these horrid keys. There’s hardly any breeze; the sun is warm – so warm, in fact, that I am afraid it will work ravages with my complexion. And, actually, the air is so warm and so full of indolence that I feel more inclined to go below and sleep than to do anything else.”

Though Mrs. Tremaine was not more than twenty-four years of age, her husband was a middle-aged man who had seen many more nooks of the world than she had.

“My dear,” he answered, “you are just beginning to experience the charm of the Florida winter.”

“It is delightful,” she assented. “Yet, it is so warm that the feeling one has is almost uncanny.”

“If you’re on deck in a few hours,” broke in Captain Tom Halstead, smilingly, “I’ll promise you much cooler winds, Mrs. Tremaine. You’re in the Gulf Stream, just now, and on an unusually mild day.”

“Don’t we remain in the Gulf Stream all through the present voyage?” asked the pretty young matron, vaguely.

“Oh, no, indeed, madam. We’re almost out of it now, in fact. You see, we’re in the Florida Straits, between southernmost Florida and Cuba, and therefore in the very track of the Gulf Stream. Even at our slow cruising speed we shall soon be past Key West. After that we shall steer in a more northerly direction. It’s four o’clock now. By eleven to-night we shall be between the Marquesas Keys and Dry Tortugas. By then we shall have been for some time out of the warm Gulf Stream, and the air will be much cooler.”

“But the wind is from the south, and has been all day,” objected Mrs. Tremaine, languidly. “It will still be following us.”

“Possibly,” assented Captain Tom Halstead.

“And the south wind is always mild and friendly,” pursued the young woman.

“Is it?” chuckled Halstead.

“Isn’t it?”

“I trust it will be so to the end of the present voyage,” amiably replied the young skipper of the motor boat cruiser “Restless.” “Yet, at this time of the year, some of the worst gales come out of the south.”

As Captain Tom finished speaking he stepped aft to the very stern of the boat. He remained for some moments intently studying the weather.

The “Restless,” a fifty-five foot speedy cruiser, was now going along at the comparatively slow gait of twelve and a half miles an hour. She could go at more than double that speed, but on a long voyage it was wise to travel more moderately and burn much less gasoline in proportion.

Captain Tom Halstead had just come on deck, from a berth in the motor room forward. His chum, Joe Dawson, the engineer of the “Restless,” was now on the bridge deck, where he had taken his trick at the wheel while the young skipper snatched some four hours’ sleep.

Captain Halstead figured on reaching Oyster Bay by four o’clock the following morning, thence proceeding to the mouth of the Caloosahatchee River. This country is on the west coast of Florida, below Tampa Bay.

Though Tom Halstead did not tell his passengers so, he had been called a little ahead of time, just in order that he might look at the weather. Young Halstead – he was but sixteen years of age – had just come aft when he joined briefly in the conversation with Mr. and Mrs. Tremaine.

Now, after gazing to the southward some little time, he turned and went forward.

“Does look nasty, doesn’t it, Joe?” he murmured in his chum’s ear. Joe Dawson, giving the wheel a turn, nodded silently.

“I’m glad you called me, old fellow,” Tom went on.

“Nervous, old chap?” inquired Joe, glancing keenly at the skipper.

“No; not exactly,” smiled the youthful captain. “Yet, in strange waters, so full of keys and reefs, I’m not exactly fond of a storm.”

“Why not change the course, then, and go to the west of Dry Tortugas?” suggested Joe Dawson. “Then you’d have clearer water.”

“And be some hours later in reaching the river,” rejoined Halstead. “Mr. Tremaine has made it clear to me that he wants to eat breakfast on land. I don’t believe there’s much danger, anyway, in the channel between Marquesas and Dry Tortugas. The charts are rather reassuring.”

Tom sighed slightly, though there was the same cheery look in his eyes as he took the wheel from his chum.

Joe Dawson, happening to glance aft, saw a girlish figure come up out of the companionway and sink down into a deck chair beside young Mrs. Tremaine. The new arrival on deck was Ida Silsbee, a dark, really beautiful girl of nineteen, in appearance a decided contrast to blond Mrs. Tremaine. Ida Silsbee, too, was ordinarily active and energetic – another respect in which she differed radically from her friend.

“Now, I can chase Dixon out of the motor room,” muttered Joe, in a low voice. “I don’t like the fellow down there with the motors, yet it isn’t nice to be rude to him.”

Tom nodded. His thoughts were on course and weather.

Joe dropped down into the motor room, the door of which was close to the wheel. Lounging on one of the seats, smoking a cigarette, was Oliver Dixon, a smooth-faced, dark brown-haired young man of ultra-fashionable appearance. His was a handsome face, and the brown eyes could light up most tenderly. The young man’s mouth was far from being weak looking; on the contrary it was framed by thin lips, and had, at times, a wholly cruel look. Yet he was of a type of man that makes friends readily.

From the start of the voyage, at St. Augustine, far up on the east coast of Florida, Joe had taken an unaccountable dislike to the dandyish young man.

“Really wonderful, the way these motors work, Dawson,” observed Mr. Dixon, looking up as Joe entered.

“Yes,” nodded Joe. “A little oil, fed steadily, and they go on turning the propeller shaft day after day, if necessary. Miss Silsbee is on deck, and looks as though she had had a wonderfully refreshing nap.”

Dixon rose, stretched, went up the short steps, tossed his cigarette overboard, then strolled aft.

“Didn’t take long to get rid of that chap,” grinned Joe, talking in an undertone, as he stepped up to his chum’s side once more. Looking out of the corner of one eye, Dawson saw Dixon talking animatedly with Ida Silsbee, who did not seem in the least bored by his company.

“Notice how the wind’s freshening, Joe!” asked the young skipper, two minutes later.

“Yes; and a bad looking haze rising, too,” nodded Dawson. “I don’t like the weather’s looks.”

“No more do I. Joe, we’ll be fighting our way through a southerly gale all night.”

“All gales look alike to me,” laughed the young engineer. “We’ve weathered every other gale in the past. I don’t believe we’ll go down in this one.”

“Oh, the ‘Restless’ is staunch enough, as far as seaworthiness goes,” retorted Halstead. “All that can possibly make us uneasy is the dread that we might hit some uncharted reef.”

From the talk of the chums it appeared plainly enough that, though they spoke easily, they much wished the coming night were through with, and that they had their boat inside of Oyster Bay.

Their boat – yes. They owned this handsome craft, did these two boys, and had come into the possession of it through deeds of daring and sterling seamanship.

Readers of the preceding volumes of this series are aware of how Tom Halstead and Joe Dawson, born near the mouth of the Kennebec River, in Maine, came to handle the motor cruiser of George Prescott, a broker of Boston. Aided by their employer the boys went through some rousing adventures in breaking up the crew of Smugglers’ Island. As a result of the fine seamanship displayed by these two youths, Mr. Prescott had conceived the idea of founding the Motor Boat Club of the Kennebec. This club, now deservedly famous, was composed, at first, of Maine boys born of seafaring stock and trained to meet the dangers of salt water life. By degrees boys in other sections of the Atlantic coast, similarly trained to the sea life, and to the handling of motors, had been added to the club.

All this was outlined in the first volume, “The Motor Boat Club of the Kennebec.” In the second volume, “The Motor Boat Club at Nantucket,” was narrated how Tom and Joe, with the help of a Nantucket boy who was soon added to the club, solved the mystery of the abduction of the Dunstan heir, at the same time going through a maze of thrilling adventures. In the third volume, “The Motor Boat Club off Long Island,” we find Tom and Joe, reinforced by a Long Island youth, Hank Butts, serving two financiers, Francis Delavan and Eben Moddridge, through a long sea chase and helping to break up a Wall Street conspiracy. For their loyalty and in recognition of the amazing perils the boys had cheerfully encountered, Francis Delavan had presented the two chums with the “Restless,” while Hank Butts had been rewarded with a smaller motor craft for use along the southern coast of Long Island.

In the volume just before the present one, “The Motor Boat Club and the Wireless,” we found Tom, Joe and Hank all three again at sea, having chartered the “Restless” to one Powell Seaton, for what they thought would be a very quiet cruise. Having the motor cruiser equipped with a wireless telegraph apparatus, which Joe Dawson had fitted himself to operate, our young Motor Boat Club friends found themselves again suddenly plunged into adventures of the most exciting description.

At the close of the engagement with Mr. Seaton, Hank Butts had felt it best to return to his Long Island home and his aged parents, but Tom and Joe had gradually cruised south along the coast, making more than a living in chartering their fine craft to a number of different sailing parties.

At St. Augustine, Henry Tremaine had chartered the “Restless” to take himself and his party southward around the coast of Florida, and then northward again, up the west coast as far as Oyster Bay. The charter was to run for a month, and Skipper Tom understood that there would be considerable cruising along the Florida keys during that period.

Mrs. Tremaine was a bride of a year, being her husband’s second wife. Ida Silsbee was an heiress, the daughter of one of Mr. Tremaine’s friends, now deceased, and was now Mr. Tremaine’s ward. Oliver Dixon was the cousin of a schoolgirl friend of Miss Silsbee’s. The Tremaines, having met him at St. Augustine, and being pleased with the young man, had invited him to join them on the present cruise.

As for Dixon, he had been greatly attracted to Ida Silsbee from the first moment of meeting.

Captain Tom had understood that Mr. Tremaine owned some sort of winter home along the Caloosahatchee River.

There were but two staterooms aboard the “Restless.” One of these was occupied by the ladies, the other by Mr. Tremaine and Mr. Dixon. At night, Captain Tom, when not on deck, converted one of the cabin seats into a berth. Joe slept, when he could find time for sleep, in one of the bunks of the motor room, not caring to be far from his engines.

A third member of the crew, for this run only, was Ham Mockus, a negro in his twenties, who served as cook and steward. He had shipped only in order to reach his home near Oyster Bay.

“Going to turn in, Joe?” asked Halstead, as the two chums stood together on the bridge deck.

“Not so close to supper,” laughed Joe. “I may get a little nap afterwards. But – ”

Dawson paused, as though almost ashamed to voice his thought.

“You think it’s going to be a case of all hands on duty all through the night, eh?” laughed Halstead.

“Pretty likely,” nodded Joe. “And I guess I’d better tumble Ham out of his bunk. It’s time he was going to the galley.”

“Yes,” nodded Skipper Halstead. “Tell Ham to get the meal on as early as he can. It’s going to be rough weather for serving a meal.”

As Joe stepped down the short flight of steps to the motor room, a loud, prolonged snore greeted him.

“Come along, now! Tumble out of that!” called Joe, good-naturedly, bending over the bunk in which the colored steward, lying on his back, was blissfully sleeping.

“E-e-eh? W’ut?” drowsed Ham Mockus.

“Get up and get your galley fire going. You want to rush the supper, too,” added Joe, half dragging the steward from his berth. “It’s just as well to wake up, Ham, and to be in a hurry. You needn’t tell the ladies, and scare ’em, but there’s going to be a hard blow to-night.”

“A stohm, sah?” demanded the negro, showing the whites of his eyes.

“A big one, unless I miss my guess.”

“Fo’ de Lawd’s sake, sah!” gasped the colored steward. “An’ in dis little bit uv a gas-tub, at dat!”

“Avast there!” growled Joe. “I’ll kick your starboard light overboard if you call this craft names. You’d better understand, Ham, that the ‘Restless’ is as good as a liner.”

“Huh! It sho’ ain’t much bigger dan a rowboat, an’ nuffin’ but dem two peanut roasters to keep pushin’ de propellers ’gainst monst’ous waves,” snorted Ham, pulling on his shoes and standing up to fit on his white canvas coat. “Fore de Lawd, ef Ah done t’ought Ise gwineter git inter a hurricane in dis yere lobstah smack – ”

“Will you quit calling our boat hard names, and get your fire started?” demanded Joe Dawson, scowling, and taking a step toward the negro.

“Yes, sah! Yes, sah!” exclaimed Ham, moving fast. But there was a wild look in his eyes, for Ham was a sea-coward if there ever was one. Though he started the galley fire, and made other moves, the steward hardly knew what he was doing.

“Er stohm comin’ – a reg-lar hurricane, an’ dis yere niggah ain’ done been inside er chu’ch in a month!” Ham groaned to himself.

As Joe Dawson returned to the bridge deck he noted some increase in the haze to the southward. The wind, too, was kicking up a bit more, though as yet the sea was running so smoothly that a landlubber would never have suspected that the “Restless” was moving in the track of dire trouble to come.

“Can you take the wheel just a moment, old fellow?” requested Tom Halstead. “I don’t want to bother our passengers, but, now that both ladies are on deck, I want to go below and make sure that the stateroom port-holes are tightly closed.”

Mr. Tremaine was now talking to the ladies, Dixon having vanished. Tom went through the passage connecting the motor room with the cabin. As he went he stepped as softly as usual. Even in turning the handle of the door into the cabin he made no noise. And so, quite unexpectedly, the young skipper came upon Oliver Dixon.

Dixon stood at the cabin table, facing aft. In one hand he held a vial of water, or what appeared to be water. Now, he lifted a paper containing whitish crystals, all of which he emptied into the vial, corking the container and giving the mixture several shakes.

Holding the bottle up to the light, in order to make sure that all the crystals had dissolved, Dixon happened to turn enough to see Captain Halstead.

“Confound you, boy, what are you doing there?” gasped Dixon, becoming suddenly so excited that he dropped the bottle to the soft carpet.

Tom flushed at the use of the word “boy.” On his own craft he was wholly entitled to be called “captain.” But he replied, steadily:

“Pardon me, Mr. Dixon, but I saw you doing something with the bottle, and I waited so that I wouldn’t take the risk of jogging your elbow in passing you.”

Oliver Dixon, a little pale about the mouth, and with a suspicious look in his eyes, stared at the young sailing master.

“Well, what are you doing here, anyway?”

The tone and manner were so offensive that Halstead flushed in earnest this time, though he answered, quietly enough:

“Pardon me, Mr. Dixon, but as commander and part owner, I don’t have to explain my presence in any part of this craft.”

“You were spying on me!” hissed the other, sharply.

Tom Halstead opened his eyes very wide.

“I might ask, Mr. Dixon, whether you are in the habit of doing things that would interest a spy?”

Dixon drew in his breath sharply, first flushing, then all the color leaving his face. But the young man was quick to feel that he was making matters worse.

“Don’t mind me, Halstead,” he begged, quickly. “You startled me, and I hardly know what I’m saying. I – I – I – am South for my nerves, you know.”

“No; I didn’t know,” replied Skipper Tom, quietly. He felt a good deal of wonder at the statement, for Oliver Dixon looked like anything but a nervous wreck.

“You – you won’t mention this?” begged the young man, bending to pick up the vial, which he thrust into a vest pocket.

“Why, I don’t see anything either to tell or to conceal,” remarked Captain Halstead.

“I – I don’t want Miss Silsbee – or the Tremaines, either, for that matter, to know that I’m so – so nervous,” almost stammered Oliver Dixon.

“I’m not in the habit of carrying tales of any kind,” retorted the youthful skipper, rather stiffly.

He passed on to the staterooms at the after end of the cabin. Dixon followed him with a scowl full of suspicion and hate. Could Halstead have seen that look he would have been intensely astonished.

By the time he had attended to the stateroom portholes and had come out again, Halstead found Ham in the cabin, spreading the cloth for the evening meal. So as not to be in the steward’s way, Tom went up by the after companionway. As Tom stepped to the deck the clatter of dishes came up after him.

“The steward isn’t setting the dinner table so soon, is he?” asked Mrs. Tremaine, in her usual languid voice.

“Yes, madam.”

“But I thought we had made it plain that we didn’t want dinner served, any night, earlier than seven o’clock.”

“There’s a reason, to-night, Mrs. Tremaine,” replied Skipper Tom, standing there, uniform cap in hand. “It is best to have the meal over early because – well, do you see the sky to the southward?”

The haze at the lower horizon had spread into a darkening cloud that was overtaking the boat.

“Are we going to have a storm?” asked Mrs. Tremaine, in quick apprehension.

“Well, a bit of a blow, anyway,” admitted the young captain. “It may prove, Mrs. Tremaine, to be just a little kink out of the Gulf Stream, which we are now leaving.”

“Is it going to be one of the ugly, southerly December gales which I’ve read cross the Gulf of Mexico with such violence?” asked Ida Silsbee, turning around quickly.

“We’ll hope it won’t be much,” replied Captain Tom, smiling. “You can see that I don’t look very worried.”

“Oh, you can’t fool me, Captain Halstead,” cried Mrs. Tremaine, rising from her chair with what was unusual haste for her. “You know more than you are telling! Things are going to happen to-night!”

More things, indeed, than Captain Tom Halstead yet dreamed!

Before Skipper Tom had turned to walk forward a long, rolling wave, a foretaste of the weather to come, had rolled in from the south, causing the “Restless” to take a plunge. A shorter wave followed, rocking the craft noticeably. In an instant the colored steward’s head was poked up through the companionway.

Ham took a look about him at the weather, and an eerie glint flashed in his eyes.

“’Fore de Lawd, dere’s goin’ ter be wedder dis night!” he muttered. “Don’t Ah know?”

“Ham,” called Ida Silsbee, laughingly, “if it rains this evening, and keeps us below, you’ll have a fine chance to tell us that story about the Ghost of Alligator Swamp.”

“On sech a night like as dis’ll be?” demanded Ham Mockus, rolling his eyes. “’Scuse me, Missy Ida. Ah don’t talk ’bout ghosts on deir night!”

“What’s going to be the matter with to-night, Ham?” inquired Mrs. Tremaine, showing signs of listless interest.

“Ter-night?” repeated the colored man, slowly. “’Scuse me, Mis’ Tremaine, but dis is gwine ter be der berry – ’Scuse me. Ah mean, ole Satan is shuah gwine ter be in de gale ter-night!”

CHAPTER II

HAM TURNS OUT TO BE A PROPHET

“YASSUH! yassuh! Dat’s de story ’bout de Ghost ob Alligator Swamp,” declared Ham Mockus, solemnly.

It had been hard work to get the yarn out of the colored steward. The meal was over, and the howling of the wind through the rigging of the signal mast made a dismal sound that was enough to get on any timid person’s nerves. But the electric lights were turned on brilliantly in the cozy, snug little cabin of the “Restless.” All being light and warmth there, and the four passengers being in merry mood, Ham had gotten his courage together. As the two men lighted their cigars at the end of the meal, after having secured the permission of the ladies, Mr. Tremaine had pushed the cigar box toward the steward, intimating that Ham might remain and indulge in a cigar if he would tell them, truthfully and without holding back any part, the story of the ghost in question.

“For you know, Ham,” Mr. Tremaine had explained, “I haven’t been near my place in these parts for three years, and I’ve heard only the faintest rumors about the ghost. I want a real, true account.”

So Ham, with many mutterings under his breath, with many sharp indrawings of air and much rolling of his eyes, had told the startling tale. Not all of it need be told here, as the Ghost of Alligator Swamp was destined to appear to all now on board. According to Ham Mockus the spectre could take the form of either man or woman, or even of any of the better-known beasts. Water was no barrier; it could travel at sea. Distance meant nothing to this grisly apparition, which, at need, could travel fifty miles in a second. Ham told tale after tale about the ghost. The others listened mostly in amused silence; but the narration caused the hair of Ham himself to stand on end.

“Why, then, Ham,” suggested Mr. Tremaine, taking a few thoughtful whiffs of his cigar, “there’d be really nothing to prevent the ghost from coming on board here to-night in the midst of the storm, if we have one.”

“Yassuh! yassuh! Dat ghost can done come, ef it wanter.”

“I wonder if it will?” asked Miss Silsbee, musingly.

“Don’ say dat, Missy! Don’, fo’ de lub ob hebben!” begged Ham, growing terror-stricken. “Many time dat ha’nt done go wheah it been asked ter go. Don’ ’vite it heah! Ole Marse Satan, he shuah ter ride in de gale dis night, an’ ole Marse Satan, he am ernuff, fo’ shuah! ’Scuse me, now, ladies an’ gemmen. I gotter finish clearin’ offen de table.”

With that, the steward began to remove dishes and other things in a hurry, his feet sounding constantly in the passage forward of the cabin. Then, at last, he appeared to inquire:

“Is dat all fo’ me, now, ladies an’ gemmen?”

“Yes; we shan’t need you any more, Ham,” replied Mrs. Tremaine.

Ordinarily, Ham would have gone to the galley, where, with hot water ready, he would have cleaned up all the dishes.

“But Ah ain’t so shuah dere gwine ter be any mawnin’,” he muttered to himself, after he had bobbed his head up into the open for a long look at the threatening sky overhead. So Ham came out on deck, to walk about as long as he could still find it safe to do so.

Following the early winter twilight an increasing darkness had settled down over the waters. Every few minutes Captain Tom, once more at the wheel, turned on the electric searchlight, swinging it around in an arc of a circle before the boat, seeking to inform himself of any danger that might lie in their path. For the rest, the young skipper was content to steer through the darkness, having only the binnacle light upon the compass for a guide, and carrying the chart memorized in his mind.

For the last hour the waves had been crested with white-caps. Every now and then a mass of foam leaped over the bulwarks of the bridge deck, the water retreating through the scuppers. The wind was blowing at nearly twenty-five miles an hour. Yet, so far, there was nothing in the actual weather that could make a capable captain’s mind uneasy. Joe, after a look out into the black night, and after wetting his finger and holding it up in the breeze, had gone below, where he found his motors working satisfactorily. So he had turned into his bunk, hoping to catch an hour or two of sleep ere the call came for duty on deck all through the night.