Motor Boat Boys Among the Florida Keys; Or, The Struggle for the Leadership

Jack, stepping off from the Tramp, where he had gone to get some of the tinware needed for coffee and substantial food, was electrified to hear Josh give a whoop; and at the same instant his ears were assailed by a dreadful rattling noise that sounded for all the world like the angry buzz of a diamond-back rattlesnake.

“Thunder and Mars! Great Jerusalem! I’m struck in the leg!” bellowed the lengthy Josh, as he came tumbling back from the edge of the bushes, grabbing at his shin in a frantic manner.

CHAPTER III.

DOWN THE INDIAN RIVER

“Now, what d’ye know about that?” exclaimed Nick, scrambling to his feet after his usual clumsy way; for when the fat boy happened to become excited he generally “fell all over himself,” as Josh put it.

“What ails you, Josh?” demanded Herb.

No sooner had the lengthy one reached a spot near the fire than he threw himself down, and commenced frantically to pull up the left leg of his trousers.

“Gosh! looky there, will you, fellers?” he bellowed, as if in a panic. “He sure got me that time; I guess I’m a goner. Won’t one of you get down and suck the poison out for me? You know, I’d do it in your case. Oh! please hurry up. My leg’s beginning to swell right now, and in a few minutes it’ll be too late!”

“Poison!” echoed Herb, who seemed to be in utter ignorance of the entire matter, and could only stare at the little speck of blood showing on the white skin as if horribly fascinated.

“Yes, oh! didn’t you hear the terrible buzz he gave when he stuck his fangs in me?” groaned poor Josh.

Jack had thrown himself down alongside the wounded one, and was minutely examining the hurt. He looked up at this juncture, and to the astonishment of Herb and George, was apparently grinning.

“Brace up, Josh,” he said, cheerfully; “you’re not going to kick the bucket yet awhile, I reckon.”

“Oh! how kind of you to tell me so, Jack; but how do you know? Please tell me why you say that,” pleaded the cook, beginning to look relieved; for he had fallen long ago into placing the utmost confidence in whatever Jack believed.

“Well, in the first place, there’s only one tiny puncture, you see; and if this was a snake bite there’d be the plain marks of two fangs,” Jack announced.

“Sounds all right, Jack; but perhaps this critter only had one fang. Didn’t you hear the angry shake of his old rattle-box when he struck? It gave me a cold chill, because, right at the same second, I felt something stick me. I’ll never forget the awful sensation, even if I do live through it,” and Josh rubbed his leg vigorously, as though hoping that by inducing a circulation he might avert the threatened dire catastrophe.

“Well, if you only look around right now, perhaps you’ll discover the source of that same buzz,” Jack went on, soberly.

“Why, whatever can you mean?” Josh stammered, staring his amazement.

“Notice how Nick, for instance, is trying the best he knows how to keep his face straight, even while he’s just shaking all over with the laugh that’s in him. Stand up, Nick; and hold out that hand you’ve got behind your back.”

Jack pointed rather sternly at the culprit while speaking.

“Oh, well, I s’pose I’ll have to ’fess,” mumbled the fat boy, as he whipped the hand in question around, so that all could see what he was holding.

“Why, it’s that boozy little rattle he picked up in Jacksonville, and broke on the first trial!” exclaimed George. “He’s been dabbling at it ever since, trying to mend the old thing.”

“Yes,” said Jack, “and just succeeded in getting it to working. Here, give it to me, Nick, and I’ll show them how it whirrs when you turn it around rapidly.”

Taking the little wooden contrivance, Jack gave it a series of quick turns, with the result that a loud angry buzzing was produced, not unlike the warning rattle of an enraged snake.

“Oh! that was it, Jack!” cried the relieved Josh. “Thank you for showing me, too. It sure takes a big load off my mind, because you’ll never know what a nasty feeling I had at the time. It was a mean dodge, Nick, and I can’t forget it in a hurry, either. But Jack, that don’t explain everything.”

“Now you’re thinking of that sudden little pain you had in the leg?” suggested the other, nodding his head understandingly.

“You bet I am!” Josh declared. “It took me at the identical second I heard that whirr. If it wasn’t a snake bit me, what did, Jack?”

“Let’s find out right away, so’s to relieve your mind,” Jack went on. “Lead the way to the very spot where you were when you heard the sound, and felt that sudden pain.”

“That’s dead easy,” remarked the tall boy; and as he said this he scrambled to his feet, his trousers still rolled up to his knee, and limped across the camp.

Jack noticed, however, that he approached the place cautiously, as though not yet wholly convinced that there might not be a dreadful diamond-back rattler lying in ambush, waiting for another chance to puncture him.

“There it is, right in front of you, Jack!” Josh cried, pointing; “I happened to want a handful of dry timber to hurry up the fire, and stepped over here, because I’d noticed just the thing under this lone palmetto. Just as I banged into that little bunch of brush it happened.”

Jack laughed.

“Look here, fellows, and you’ll see what he ran against!” he announced, taking hold of the long, narrow, dark green leaf of a plant that was growing there.

“What is it?” asked George.

“A plant they call Spanish Bayonet,” replied Jack, seriously now. “You see, like lots of semi-tropical plants, such as the yucca, century plant or Mexican aloe, and others, it’s got a sharp point, almost like a needle. Well, just as luck would have it, Josh banged into one of these leaves at the very second Nick began to rattle his alarm box. No wonder he got a shock! It was enough to stagger the bravest.”

“Then it was what you might call a coincidence?” suggested Herb.

“Huh! a mighty tough one, too,” grunted Josh, as he rubbed his injured limb ere turning down his trouser leg.

“But see here, fellows, are we going to let our funny man try that stunt every little while?” demanded George, frowning at his shipmate.

“I vote for one against such a thing,” declared Herb. “That nasty little box has too suggestive a rattle to please me. If I was going through the saw palmetto scrub, and he happened to amuse himself with it, I just know I’d jump ten feet. It would make life miserable for me right along.”

“Jimmy, what do you say?” demanded Jack.

“Me too!” piped up the Irish lad. “Sure it do be giving me the crapes just to listen to that thing go whirring around.”

“You hear the verdict, Nick?” said Jack, pretending to assume the air of a judge addressing the prisoner in the dock.

“Oh! I ain’t saying a word,” Nick replied, with a shrug of his fat shoulders. “I c’n see myself that it would be a mean trick to play. Never thought much about it that way. Give her a toss, Jack. And Josh, I hope you won’t hold it against me too hard. You know, you’re top-notch yet in that bully contest of ours.”

In this way did the contrite joker attempt to buy peace in the camp; and that he was fairly successful might be judged from the grin that slowly began to spread over the thin face of the cook.

“That’s all right, Nick; so long as it don’t happen again I ain’t goin’ to think too much about it. Fact is, it’s goin’ to give me a cold shiver every time I hear anything like that rattle. And now I’ll be getting back to my work.”

“Then you don’t want anybody to suck the poison out?” asked Nick.

“Let up on that, now, will you? I guess I’m able to hobble around yet,” and bending down, Josh gathered some of the dry trash that he wanted, to hurry the fire on with.

Jack had tossed the little rattle-box contrivance into the fire, where it was soon entirely consumed.

Although they ate supper ashore, it was considered wise to sleep aboard. The only one who grumbled at this decision was poor Nick. He had a hard lot to follow, for the narrow speed boat offered but poor sleeping accommodations for two, and many a time the stout youth was wont to bemoan his sad fate as he rubbed his aching sides in the morning.

They left the camp at Mosquito Inlet an hour after sunrise on the following morning, and started down past New Smyrna, heading for the Haulover Canal that connects Mosquito Lagoon with the famous Indian River.

Under Jack’s wise guidance they found little trouble in navigating the broad or narrow waters of the various channels. As steamboats passed through daily in the season, there were plenty of “targets” pointing out the deeper waters; and where the lagoon happened to be very shallow, canals had been dredged.

Taking it leisurely, they arrived at Titusville about two in the afternoon. Here one of the boys went for the mail, and also to pick up the few things they had on the list of “necessities wanted.”

As the western shore of the river is pretty thickly settled now, it was decided to cross over, and skirt along Merritt’s Island until near its foot, where they could probably find a spot free from civilization’s touch; and this was what appealed to the motor boat boys at all times – wild solitude.

Long before evening overtook them they had come to a halt, and anchored the boats close to the eastern shore, just beyond a point that would protect them from any wild norther that might chance to spring up. All of them had heard so much about these dreaded storms that swoop down upon the pilgrims in small boats when navigating Florida waters that they were always on the watch for their coming.

“I say, Jack!” exclaimed George, as they landed in their small dinkies, intending to again have a fire, and be congenial; “look out yonder on the river, and tell me if that ain’t the same strange launch we saw twice before above.”

“You’re right, George, that’s what,” replied the other, as he whirled around, to shade his eyes with one hand in order to see the better; for the sun was just going down beyond the wide river, Rockledge way, and shone fiercely.

“If I had the glasses now, I’d like to see who they are,” George went on. “Seems to me the parties on that boat act queer. They dodge out of sight whenever they think we’re watching. I don’t just like the way they act, Jack, do you?”

“Oh! I don’t know,” replied the other. “That may be only imagination with you, George. The only thing that strikes me as queer is that the boat seems to be as near a ringer for the Tramp as anything I ever struck.”

“Wow! you’re on the job now, when you say that, and funny I hadn’t noticed it before, Jack,” George declared. “Now that you mention it, I declare if it isn’t just remarkable. I suppose all of our boats have doubles, somewhere in the country; for the makers have a model they follow out heaps of times in a season; but all the same, it strikes a fellow as queer to run across a duplicate of the boat he’s kind of looked on as his own especial property.”

“Well,” grunted Nick, who had been near enough to overhear this talk, “I’m right sorry for somebody then, if there’s a ringer for the Wireless. They have my sympathy, I tell you that right now.”

But George only sniffed, and disdained to notice the slur cast upon his pet. It seemed that the more the others found fault with the actions of the Wireless, the greater became his attachment for the erratic boat.

“Well, they’re ahead of us again, for one thing,” he remarked. “It looks like a game of tag, right along; now we’re leading, and then they forge ahead. I’m just going to keep tabs on that boat, for fun; and some fine day perhaps I’ll have my curiosity satisfied. I’d give something to know who they are, and why they act like they do.”

“Oh! they won’t keep me awake much, I tell you that,” said Nick, loftily. “When I bother my head it’s going to be about something worth while – understand?”

“Sure,” remarked George, quickly. “Something that threatens a calamity in the feeding line, for instance; a running short of supplies. That’s the subject Nick worries about most.”

“Well, is there any more important business known than supplying the human engine with plenty of fuel?” demanded the other, sturdily. “Perhaps the engineer may be the more important fellow of the two; but the stoker is just as necessary, if the machine is to be kept going. But there’s Josh calling me to help him. I’m always Johnny-on-the-spot when it comes to helping Josh get grub ready” – and he waddled off serenely; for Nick was so happily constituted that no matter what jabs he received from his chums, they seemed to roll from him like water from a duck’s back.

“Hear the mullet jump?” remarked Jack, as they ate supper after night had set in. “D’ye know, fellows, this ought to be a good time to try that fish spear? – for we’ll have an hour of dark before the old moon peeps up, and there isn’t a breath of wind to ruffle the water. Jimmy, I appoint you to push me around a bit, and see what we can do, though I wouldn’t count too much on any big score.”

“I’m on, Jack, darlint,” Jimmy immediately responded; “and it’s ready I am now.”

CHAPTER IV.

THAT SAME OLD UNLUCKY WIRELESS

Moving about in the steadiest of the little tenders, with a flare in the bow, and Jimmy to gently push in the stern, Jack sought to strike some game fish. His success was not very flattering, though he certainly did enjoy the experience. It was really worth while to peer down into the shallow depths, and see what lay there.

Several times he caught glimpses of channel bass, sheepshead, or sea trout, which last is only another name for the weak fish of the North; but as a rule they flashed away before he could strike.

He did succeed in spearing one trout of about three pounds, much to Jimmy’s delight. And later on, he struck a nasty creature with what seemed to be a barb on the top of his tail, which he thrust around in a savage manner as Jack held him up on the end of his pole.

“Look out, and don’t get too close to him, Jimmy,” Jack warned.

“Sure now and I won’t,” replied the other, “for, to till the truth, it’s me as don’t like the looks of that little fixin’ on the ind of his tail.”

“It must be what they call a stingaree or stingray,” Jack went on. “I never saw one before, but I’ve read a lot about ’em. They say he can poison you, if ever he hits with that barb. You know what a mudcat can do, out on the Mississippi; well, this is the same thing, only a whole lot worse.”

“Drop the squirmin’ bog-trotter back into the wather, Jack, me bhoy; for ’tis us as don’t want too close an acquaintance with him. He’d make it too warrm for us, by the same token,” Jimmy declared; and Jack complied only too willingly.

“I guess we’ve had about enough of this, so let’s go ashore,” he suggested.

Nick awaited them, eager to ascertain the amount of their captures. He whiffed on discovering only one fish aboard the dinky.

“Huh! could eat that all by myself, and then not half try,” he remarked.

“All right, then; if you do the needful to it, you’re welcome, Nick,” laughed the one who had captured the sea trout.

Of course, Nick became suddenly suspicious.

“You wouldn’t play any trick on me, now, I hope, Jack, and get me to eat a fish that wasn’t fit for the human stomach?” he questioned, uneasily.

“That’s what they call a sea trout down here; but up North it’s the weakfish, and said to be as toothsome as almost anything that swims,” Jack remarked.

“Oh! all right, then I accept your kind offer. I’ll get busy right now, and have him ready for the morning. Wish you had got one apiece, I hate to seem greedy, you know, fellows,” he went on to say, as if thinking he ought to excuse himself.

When the morning came Nick was astir before anybody else, for he had a duty on his mind. He bothered Josh so much that finally the cook made him start a blaze of his own, over which he could prepare his breakfast; and Nick managed pretty well, considering that he had never made a study of the art of cookery.

They started off at a booming pace. The run down Indian River that day would always remain a pleasant memory with the young cruisers. Fort Pierce was reached on schedule time, after passing through the Narrows, and securing a mess of oysters from a boat engaged in dredging there.

Again one of the voyagers went after mail and supplies. There was always something lacking, besides the necessary gasoline. Six growing boys can develop enormous appetites when living a life in the open, and upon salt water. Besides, there was Nick, capable of downing any two of his chums when it came to devouring stuff. No wonder, then, that the question of supplies was always uppermost on their minds.

Once more they headed across to the eastern shore, where they would be more apt to find a quiet nook for the next night’s camp. One more day’s run, if all went well, would take them to Lake Worth; and after serious consultation it had been decided that they would, when the right chance came, put to sea through that inlet, to make the run south to Miami.

Once again had both Nick and Jimmy been seized with the fever of rivalry. During the day they had been busily engaged preparing set lines, which they expected to put out over night, in the hope of making a big haul.

Nick had bought a lot of material in Jacksonville. This in the main consisted of large hooks, with snells made of brass wire, which latter he manufactured himself, Jack having shown him how; and a large swivel at the end of the foot length. Then he had secured a large quantity of very strong cotton cord, made waterproof by some tarring process, after the manner of the rigging aboard sailing vessels.

One thing Jack had bought in Fort Pierce, which they understood would be pretty much of a necessity during the many weeks they expected to spend among the keys that dotted the whole coast line of Florida.

This was called a cast-net, and was some eight feet in length, though when fully extended it would cover a circle twice that in diameter.

There were leads along the outer edges, and a series of drawing strings running up through a ring in the center.

“You see,” said Jack, that evening, when they were ashore, “I watched a fellow use one up above, and even took a few lessons, so I’ve kind of got the hang on it.”

“Then please show us?” asked Nick, eagerly.

“Listen to him, would you?” exclaimed Herb; “to hear him talk you’d think Nick had a sneaking idea he might some day haul in a big giant of a fish in this flimsy net.”

“No, but it’s good to get mullet for bait,” the fat boy remonstrated; “and as I expect to do lots of fishing on this trip – and it may not always be convenient for Jack to haul the net – why, I thought I had ought to know the ropes.”

“Good boy, Nick!” laughed Jack; “and I’ll be only too glad to show every fellow all I know, which isn’t any too much. Now, here’s the way you gather up the line, so as to let go suddenly. Then you hold the net like this.”

“Sure do ye ate some of the leads?” questioned Jimmy, seeing Jack take several between his teeth.

“Oh! not any! but this is one of the times when a fellow wishes he had been born with three hands. As I haven’t, I must hold these leads by my teeth. The next thing is to swing the whole net around this way, and let fly with a rotary motion, at the same time letting go with your teeth. That is a very important thing to remember, for you might stand to lose a few out of your jaw if you held on.”

“Oh, I see!” remarked George; “and the net flings open as it whirls through the air, falling on the water that way?”

“Just so, with the leads taking the outer edge rapidly down. Then, by pulling at the line, which is tied, you see, to all these strings, the net is drawn shut like a big purse, enclosing anything that was under it when it struck the water.”

One by one they made trials with the net, but all of them proved pretty clumsy. Jimmy was nearly dragged into the shallow water when he made his first attempt.

“Glory be!” he howled, as he put his hand quickly to his mouth; “if I didn’t have the teeth of a horse I do belave I’d have lost the whole set thin. But once bit, twict shy. Nixt toime I’ll let go, rest easy on that. And I’m going to get the hang of that Spanish cast-net, if it takes ivery tooth in me head, so I am.”

“And you’ll do it, Jimmy, never fear,” laughed Jack. “That do-or-die spirit is going to win the day. Here, Nick, try it again. You seem to have got the knack of it pretty well, only you want to throw harder, or the mullet will get away before the net falls on the water.”

Finally the boys tired of the strenuous exertion, and as Josh announced supper ready, they turned their attention to more pleasant duties.

“This is something in which I can shine, anyhow,” chuckled Nick, as he sat there, with a pannikin cram-full of various good things, and a cup of steaming coffee on the ground close beside him.

No one disputed the assertion; in fact, there was a general grin, and a series of nods around the circle, to prove that for once their opinions were unanimous.

Frolicsome ’coons seemed numerous at this camp on Hutchinson’s Island. They attempted to pillage, after the boys had settled down to sleep. Twice was the quiet of the camp disturbed by the rattle of tin pans, and upon investigation it was found that some prowling little animal had endeavored to devour the hominy Josh had cooked, intending to fry slices of the same for breakfast.

Nick made out to believe that it might have been a wildcat, or possibly a bear, until Jack showed him the plain tracks of long slender feet close to the receptacle of the hominy, and explained that only a raccoon could have made these.

When the morning came, an early start was made, for they had quite a little run down the river, through Jupiter Narrows, and then by means of the canal into Lake Worth.

Arriving at this latter place early in the afternoon, they spent some time looking about – although it was out of the season for the fashionable crowd that flock to Palm Beach during February and March.

Jack had studied his coast charts most carefully. He knew they would have a dangerous outside passage to Miami, that must consume some seven hours, because of the Comfort’s slowness; and as they could not afford to take any chances, it became absolutely necessary that they wait until the weather gave positive signs of remaining fairly decent during the day.

As this meant a combination of favoring breezes and calm waters, it was impossible to tell how long they might have to wait. It might mean one day, and then again they could be kept here at Lake Worth a week.

“You’re wondering why I’m so particular, fellows,” Jack had remarked, when they talked over the matter among themselves, “especially when we made a heap of outside runs coming down the coast. But this is really the worst of the bunch, and I reckon much more dangerous than any we’ve got ahead of us. For seventy miles here there isn’t really a decent harbor where a small boat could put in to escape a sudden change in weather. And when things do go crooked down here they beat the band. The nearer you get to the tropics the harder the winds can howl when they want to show their teeth.”

“That’s all right, Jack,” remarked Herb; “we depend on you to use good judgment in all such matters. And you can see how much we rely on what you decide, when we’re ready to follow you like sheep do the bellwether.”

“I wonder, now,” remarked George, “if that bally little boat that’s a ringer for the Tramp has gone further south?”

“What makes you ask that?” Jack inquired.

“Well, ever since she passed us that evening across from Rockledge I haven’t seen hide nor hair of the mystery. So somehow I reckon she must either be further down the lake, or else gone to Miami by the outside route, like we intend to do.”

“That don’t necessarily follow,” Jack laughed, for he saw that George actually had the subject on his mind, and was deeply interested. “The boat might have been in any one of twenty little coves we passed on the way down. Or, again, she could have been prowling in some of the many passages about the Narrows.”

“All right,” George declared, stubbornly, as though his mind were set, and nothing could move him; “you mark my word, Jack, we’ll set eyes on that sneaker again, before we’re done with this trip.”

“Oh, perhaps!” said Jack, turning away, as though the subject did not interest him to any great extent; for he did not happen to be built on the same lines as his chum, who had a little more than his share both of suspicion and also curiosity.