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

Accordingly they all took hold again, after the tackle had been shifted. It was not so difficult a thing to do, with six sturdy fellows to pull a rope; and presently the Comfort was elevated at a point that would allow one to kneel under her keel.

Jack made his preparations, and set to work. With the willing Herb to assist in any way necessary, the others of course were not needed.

Josh amused himself after his favorite manner, studying up some new dishes with which he figured surprising his chums some fine day. George could always find plenty to do pottering with his engine, and trying to cure its faults; for hope dies hard in the young and sanguine heart.

Jimmy and Nick took to fishing, because that employment seemed to engross their every waking thought. When Jimmy started out, the fat boy grew uneasy; and before long he, too, paddled away in one of the small tenders.

“Be sure and don’t go out of sight of the smoke from the fire,” Jack had cautioned them both; and Josh agreed to make use of some pine wood he had picked up, in order to create a black smoke; for Florida pine is full of the resinous sap that burns fiercely, and makes a dense smudge.

Jimmy did not remain long in one place. He seemed very restless, as though he wanted to move about, in order to be on the lookout for a chance to make a grand haul. Nick followed from time to time, meaning to be an eyewitness to any remarkable event that took place.

“He’s hoping to get fast to one of them tarpon, that’s what,” was the conviction of the fat youth, who had discovered that the king fish of the coast was in evidence in those warm waters. “I just wish he would right now,” he went on, chuckling; “I’d give a whole heap to see Jimmy pulled around by one of them high skippers of tarpon. It’d curb that ambition of his, some, I guess now.”

And, singular to say, Nick’s wish was fated to be realized. Jimmy’s mullet bait was gorged by a tarpon about the middle of the morning. At the time the Irish boy chanced to be either half asleep or else thinking of something else. At any rate, the first thing he knew of the circumstance, and that he was fast to a streak of polished silver, was when the rod he was holding was almost jerked from his hands.

“Whoa, there, ye omadhaun!” shouted Jimmy, immediately bracing his feet so that he might not be pulled from the dinky outright.

Then something sprang from the water not fifty feet away. It was a lordly tarpon, shaking its head, as if hoping to get rid of the barbed hook.

A shriek from Jimmy, echoed by one from Nick, drew the attention of all the others. Even Jack came crawling out from under the motor boat to watch the sport.

It was certainly a great time Jimmy had. That little dinky was dragged around at a furious pace, now darting to the right, and presently whirled about to head toward the left, as some new whim seized upon the captive fish.

Pretty soon Jimmy seemed to be getting dizzy from the rapid evolutions.

“He’ll never tire that monster out!” cried Herb.

“And perhaps it might carry him out to sea, and lose him there!” suggested the cautious Josh.

“Well, even if he tired the fish out, it wouldn’t weigh more than a hundred pounds; so I think he’d better cut loose,” was Jack’s dictum.

Accordingly he made a megaphone out of his hands, and shouted:

“Better let him go free, Jimmy; he’ll upset you, and perhaps bite you after he gets you in the water!”

“Faith, what shall I be afther doing, then?” came back faintly.

“Cut loose! you’ve got a knife, haven’t you?” called George.

“But I’ll lose me line that way, and the hook in the bargain!” remonstrated the reluctant Irish boy.

“Well, better that than your life, or my boat,” George told him.

So poor Jimmy found himself compelled to creep forward, when the chance offered, and push the blade of the knife against the taut line. Of course it parted instantly; and he came near capsizing when the little dinky sprang up again, freed from the drag of the big fish.

The tarpon went speeding away toward the gulf, leaping madly out of the water now and then, as though still trying to shake that jewelry from its jaw, or else making sport of disconsolate Jimmy, who sat there casting yearning looks after his escaped prize.

He always maintained that it was a two hundred-and-thirty-five-pound fish, though just why he hit upon that odd figure Nick alone could guess. The jewfish he remembered had been calculated to tip the scales at two hundred and thirty pounds. And it is always the largest fish that gets away.

Well, after that disappointment Jimmy might have been pardoned had he given up for the day; but that was not his way. He kept at it all the blessed afternoon. Several bites rewarded his diligence, but he did not succeed in getting fast to another of the silver kings.

And, greatly to his disappointment, the evening came on with the grinning Nick still holding high record in the contest.

Jack had been quite as successful as he had ventured to hope. George and Herb both declared that he had patched the fracture in the ribs and planks of the Comfort in a truly shipshape manner; and that there could be no question about the repair holding, up to the time they expected reaching Tampa.

“Then we go on tomorrow, do we?” asked Nick, anxious to get Jimmy away from the tarpon temptation; for he feared the lucky Irish lad might sooner or later get hold of some monster, which would put his prize out of the running.

Jack said there was nothing to hinder; and with all of them, save perhaps Jimmy, feeling quite happy and contented, the night came on.

In the morning they were off again, and that day they saw the last of that weird region charted as the Ten Thousand Islands. None of them were sorry; indeed, the very monotony of those mangrove covered mud flats had begun to pall upon every member of the expedition.

When they began to see plumed palmetto trees along the shore, the sight brought forth cheers from several of the more joyous among the voyagers.

And it certainly looked more like life to note the buzzards floating overhead again, with pelicans skimming the waves out on the gulf, in search of their fish dinner. There were also many water turkeys, with their snake-like necks, and black cormorants swimming in the lagoons behind the keys.

Jack, who had read up on the subject, related how the Chinese fishermen make use of such birds as these latter, trained for the purpose, to do their fishing for them: a band being fastened around each creature’s neck, so that it can never swallow its capture, which is, of course taken possession of by the master.

“We want to make sure to get a good anchorage tonight,” Jack remarked to Herb; for the two boats were moving along close together, late that afternoon.

“Why so particular tonight; is it going to be any different from others?” asked the skipper of the Comfort.

“Well, I don’t just like the looks of that sky over yonder” – and Jack pointed to the southwest as he spoke. “We’ve been told that in nearly every case these Northers swoop down after the clouds roll up there, the wind changing to nor’west, and the cold increasing. There’s something in the air that makes me think we’re due right now for our first Norther.”

“But to Northern fellows that oughtn’t strike a wave of dread,” declared Herb. “We’re used to winter ice and snow. The thermometer down below zero never bothered me. Why should it down here, when it don’t even touch freezing?”

“Let’s wait and see,” laughed Jack. “After it comes, we’ll know more than we do now. But a harbor we must have. Keep your eye peeled for what looks like a good landing place, Herb.”

They found this presently, though the key was not so heavily wooded as Jack had hoped to find; and he did not think it would wholly break the force of the wind, should a gale come roaring down upon them during the night.

When they crawled under their blankets about ten, the sky was clouded over, but nothing else had come to pass. This condition of affairs puzzled Jack, who did not know what to think of it.

But when he was awakened later on by a dull roaring sound, not unlike the noise of a heavy freight train passing over a long trestle, he sprang up, understanding full well what it meant.

“Wake up, everybody; here comes your first Norther!” he shouted at the top of his young and healthy voice.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE SHELTER BACK OF THE KEY

“Oh! what happened?” Nick was heard to call out, in a tremulous voice.

“Get up and hustle! Show a leg here, or you’ll be frozen in your blanket!” George shouted, excitedly, for his canvas tent was wabbling in the wind like a thing possessed.

Of course, those in the other boats had little need to worry, since their hunting cabins protected them in a great measure from the violence of the gale. The neglect of George to have the same sort of contrivance placed on the Wireless, for fear lest it might reduce the great speed of the boat, always cost him dear when night came, or a storm howled about their ears. One has to pay in some way or other for his whistle; and George was a “speed crank” without any doubt.

For a short time it was feared that the tent on the Wireless would actually blow away. Half dressed, the pair aboard hung on with might and main to save the canvas, Nick’s teeth chattering tremendously as he shivered in the rapidly falling temperature.

It certainly did get cold in a hurry, too. Jack would never more smile when he heard old “crackers” tell about the terrors of a Norther. Why, in spite of the protection of the cabin walls, the bitter wind seemed to penetrate to their very marrow.

“Say, Jimmy, this is mighty tough on George and Nick,” he remarked to his boatmate, when the wind had passed its worst stage, but the cold seemed to be on the increase.

“It do be the same; and ’tis myself that feels bad for thim this blissed minute,” the warm-hearted Irish lad answered, as he swung his arms back and forth to induce circulation, and bring a bit more comfort.

“Just as I feared, the growth ashore is too thin to fend off all the wind; and if this keeps up we’ll have the meanest night we ever struck,” Jack continued.

Jimmy knew from the signs that the skipper had an idea. He was used to reading Jack by now.

“What can we be afther doing, I dunno, Jack darlint?” he remarked, or rather shouted; for it was simply impossible to hold a conversation in ordinary tones as long as that howling wind kept shrieking through the mangroves and cypress trees near by.

“Get ashore, and throw up some sort of protection, behind which we can make our fire,” Jack answered, readily enough.

“Hurroo! that’s the ticket! Let’s be afther getting to worrk right away. Sure, annything is betther than howldin’ the fort aboard, and shakin’ enough to loosen ivery timber in the hull of the dandy little Tramp.”

Jimmy was always enthusiastic about everything he went about doing. Consequently, he started ashore immediately, with Jack trailing behind.

When George realized what his chums were doing, he made haste to join them, for he could not but understand that it was mostly on account of the unfortunates aboard the exposed Wireless that the effort to build a fire was attempted.

Many hands make light work; and as there happened to be plenty of wood available near by, a fire was soon blazing. Then Nick, unable to hold aloof any longer, came waddling ashore, to offer his services, when nearly everything had been completed.

Jack had found a means of building a wind shield out of various things, and in the shelter of this they hovered, keeping the fire going at top-notch speed.

That night seemed endless to several in the party. They huddled around, swathed in blankets like Esquimaux, and trying to sleep, though Nick was about the only fellow who managed to accomplish much in that line.

Fortunately it did not rain, which was rather an unusual thing, since these cold storms generally start out with a downpour, until the wind shifts into the northwest, when it clears, and turns bitterly severe.

But morning came at last, when they could see to improve the situation. After Josh had cooked the breakfast – and he had plenty of help on this occasion, since every one wanted to cling to the fire as close as possible – all felt better able to meet the situation.

“Nothing like a full stomach to make things look brighter,” commented Nick, sighing, as he scraped the frying pan for the last remnant of fried hominy.

The wind kept up all that day, so that the pilgrims found themselves actually stormbound. Jack would have made a try for another harbor of refuge, only it was so very rough between their key and the main shore that he doubted the ability of the speed-boat to make the passage without a spill; and surely a bird in the hand was better than two in the bush. They could not be sure about improving on their quarters by going further.

Another thing influenced him to remain where they were. Gradually but surely the wind was going down. The cold remained, but with a dying breeze it did not penetrate so much. It was decided that all of them but the crew of the Wireless should sleep aboard their boats on this night. George and Nick were made fairly comfortable by the fire back of the wind shield.

And as Jack had expected, during the night there came another shift of the wind. Following the natural course of the compass, it was in the northeast when dawn arrived, and would soon work around to the east. For, strange to say, down in this country, during the winter season at least, the southeast wind is the very finest that blows; whereas in most other places it has a reputation for being just the meanest known.

All of them were so dead for sleep that the next night passed very quickly. And when morning came the change in the temperature pleased them greatly.

“Let’s get a move on, fellows,” Jack said, after the customary attention had been given to taking care of the inner man. “We ought to make a big dent in the distance separating us from Meyers today.”

“And by the same token,” piped up Jimmy, eagerly, “I’m afther hearin’ that the fishing is mighty foine around this section.”

“Huh!” grunted Nick, scornfully; “when you beat that record I’ve hung up, just wake me, and let me know. Time enough then to get a hustle on. Just now it’s up to you, Jimmy, to do all the worrying. I’m going to take things easy after this.”

“All right, me bhoy, just do that same, and by the pipers it’s ye that will be hearin’ a cowld, dull thud, which will be that record droppin’ to the earth. Sure, it do be a long lane that has no turnin’; and sooner or later, belave me, ’twill be me day.”

They made a brave start. George was quite elated with the splendid way his engine worked, and frowned whenever Nick made out to mention that his word had been pledged about that change of motive power at Tampa.

Two hours later the inevitable came to pass.

“George has hauled up short, Jack!” Herb called out; for the Comfort was not a great distance behind the Tramp at the time, with the other boat, as usual, ahead.

“Perhaps waiting for us?” suggested Jack; but the smile on his face declared that he entertained different ideas about the stoppage.

“That may be,” replied Herb, skeptically; “but the chances are he’s bucking up against trouble again. Won’t we all be pleased as Punch when he does get a motor that can motor without eternally breaking down? There, Nick’s waving his red bandana, which I take it means they’ve broken down.”

And so it proved. A weak place had developed as usual, so that George would be compelled to spend an hour or two mending the same.

Herb generously offered to give him a tow; but this the proud spirit of George would not brook. It was bad enough having to suffer that ignominy when threatened with a storm, but when the gulf was smooth nothing could induce him to accept.

“You fellows go right along,” George called out; “and I’ll overtake you later.”

But neither Jack nor Herb would think of such a thing. If a heavy wind chanced to come up while the Wireless lay there, positively helpless, she would roll frightfully, and stand a chance of capsizing.

And so they simply hung around until the makeshift repairs had been completed, so that the speed boat could again proceed under her own power.

This lost them so much time that it was no longer possible to think of reaching the mouth of the Caloosahatchee River, and ascending as far as Meyers, that day. So they kept an eye out for a snug harbor, where they might pass the night.

The coast was not so desolate here as below. They had passed the settlement of Naples; and here and there could see where shacks, or more pretentious buildings, told of the presence of fruit or truck growers.

Finally, toward the middle of the afternoon, coming upon just the place that would afford them a good camping ground, the three boats pulled in.

Jack had noticed that Jimmy was showing signs of growing excitement as they proceeded to anchor. The Irish boy had been using the marine glasses with more or less eagerness; and no sooner was the boat made secure than he broke out with:

“Excuse me, if ye plase, Jack darlint, but I’ve a most pressin’ engagement this minute. I do be sayin’ me chanct to get aven with me rival.”

He was even at the time throwing a number of things into the little dinky, among others a section of rope. Nick, while not overhearing what was said, must have noticed the active preparations for a sudden campaign. His round, red face appeared over the side of the Wireless, as Jimmy pushed off and rowed furiously away.

“Now, what in the dickens does all that mean, Jack?” he asked. “Is Jimmy going to make the trip to Meyers in that dinky, or has he got an idea in his head he can bag something that will make me look like thirty cents?”

“I rather guess that’s just the sort of bee he’s got in his bonnet, Nick,” laughed Jack, “and if you look out yonder, where that reef lies in shallow water, with the little waves breaking over it, you’ll see what’s started him going.”

Nick hunted around until he found George’s glasses, which he clapped to his eyes, to burst out with a cry of astonishment and chagrin.

“Say, it must be a big porpoise that’s got stranded out there! My eye! look at it kick up the water, would you? Oh! if Jimmy ever gets a rope around that thing, and tries to ride it ashore, won’t he be in a peck of trouble, though? But when Jimmy sets out to do anything, you just can’t frighten him off; and, honest now, I believe he’s bent on doing that same mad caper!”

CHAPTER XVIII.

JIMMY FORGES TO THE FRONT

None of them could have any doubt about it; for was not the excited Jimmy making toward that same reef with all speed? Determined to wrest the laurels from his rival, if it could possibly be done, he had only too eagerly seized upon this fine chance to get in some strenuous work.

Looking beyond, they could see that the stranded porpoise, if the object out yonder really proved to be such a creature, still threshed the water and strove to break away from its place of captivity.

“What ails the bally thing?” grumbled the anxious Nick. “Why don’t it back off, the same way it came on? That’s the only way it could get into deep water. Did you ever see such a looney, trying to keep on shoving ahead, when all the while it gets in more shallow water?”

“Huh! seems to me there are others!” chuckled Josh; “jewfish, for instance, don’t seem to have one bit more sense. Sometimes they get left on a shallow place, and kick like fun, while waiting for the tide to rise and help ’em off.”

“Ah! let up on that, Josh; ’taint fair to take his side all the time,” complained the fat boy, straining his eyes to follow the movement of his rival, now more than half way out to the reef.

“Well, we always stand up for the under dog; and just now Jimmy’s in that position,” continued Josh.

“Yes,” spoke up George, encouragingly, “and when you get there, Nick, as you may sooner or later, you’ll see how gladly we’ll all give you our sympathy, eh, boys?”

Nick refused to be comforted by the prospect.

“Hey! Jack,” he said, turning to the skipper of the Tramp, who seemed to be bending over his motor, as if about to turn his engine; for a sudden idea had come into his head, “is a porpoise a real fish, now?”

“Whatever makes you ask that?” demanded Herb.

“Oh! I want to know, that’s all,” replied Nick, coolly. “That Jimmy tries to just throw his old net over anything that creeps, swims or walks, and call it a fish. He tried it on us with his blessed old alligator, you remember, fellers; then, when we wouldn’t stand for that, don’t you know how he tried to hook up one of the sea cows they call a manatee, and make us take that? Now he’s after a porpoise; and if he keeps on he’d grab a hippopotamus, and try to bluff us at that. Anything that goes in water answers for Jimmy.”

“Well, if he gets a porpoise, he’s got a fish without any reason to kick over the traces, Nick, and don’t you forget that,” George declared.

“Say, where you going, Jack?” demanded Nick, suspiciously.

“Why, I thought I’d better take a little spin out there, to keep an eye on Jimmy,” replied the other.

“What for? You don’t think of lending him a hand, I hope? Remember, the rules of the game knocks all that sort of thing on the head,” Nick protested, vigorously.

“No danger of my forgetting,” laughed Jack. “But I happened to think how bold Jimmy can be, and wondered if he mightn’t get in trouble somehow.”

“That’s right, Jack,” spoke up George, himself a very rash fellow on occasion; “it’d be just like him to hitch on to that porpoise, and help work him loose. Then we’d see our poor chum going out to sea like a railroad limited express. And Jack, if you’ll allow me, I guess I’ll drop in, and keep you company.”

“Same here,” declared Herb, crawling aboard, as he pulled the Tramp close to the starboard quarter of the Comfort.

“Hey! wait for me, can’t you!” exclaimed Nick, all excitement now. “Who’s got as much interest in this business as me, tell me that? I ought to be along to judge if he takes his fish in fair play, you know.”

“Fair play!” jeered Josh, as he too slid into the other boat after Nick; “well, I like that, now, after the way you lugged that poor old weakened jewfish to camp. Any way Jimmy can grab his game will count; and you might as well make up your mind to it first as last, my boy.”

“Oh! don’t you get to bothering your head about me, Josh Purdue,” Nick went on to say, stoutly; “I’m a true sport, and can take my medicine when I have to, as good as the next one. And I guess I don’t give up easy, do I? But it ain’t time for the shoutin’ yet. Jimmy hasn’t got his porpoise; and it mebbe don’t weigh more’n two hundred and thirty pounds, either.”

Leaving the other two boats anchored in quiet water, Jack headed the Tramp for the reef, where the water was breaking softly over the submerged rocks; with the unfortunate porpoise floundering in a helpless manner, for the tide was almost at its lowest level.

Jimmy had by now arrived on the spot. He must have arranged his plan of campaign as he was rowing frantically out, for he lost no time in getting down to business.

Those who looked saw him push his way up to the reef after his usual bold fashion. If some water came aboard the little dinky, Jimmy gave the circumstance no heed. All he could see was that struggling monster of the deep, and the happy opportunity that had been thrown in his way whereby he might cut his rival out of the lead he had held so long.

For that joyous conclusion Jimmy was ready to take all sorts of chances.

“Look at him, getting right up alongside the kicker!” exclaimed Nick, with an expression of amazement on his rosy face; for he could not help admiring the nerve exhibited by his rival, even though deep down in his heart he hoped the other might fail to land the prize.

“Sure he is!” laughed Josh. “Why, just keep your eye peeled, Nick, old boy, and my word for it, you’ll see our little chum climb right on the back of that bucking broncho of the gulf, put a bridle in his mouth, and ride him home!”

“Oh! rats! you can’t get me to believe that!” Nick flashed back; and yet, despite his brave words, he watched the actions of the Irish lad with deep anxiety, as if believing that no one could tell what wonderful things Jimmy might not attempt.