The Project Gutenberg EBook of Dick in the Everglades, by A. W. Dimock This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: Dick in the Everglades Author: A. W. Dimock Release Date: August 13, 2004 [EBook #13168] Language: English Character set encoding: ASCII *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DICK IN THE EVERGLADES *** Produced by Sandra Brown, the Online Distributed Proofreading Team, and Internet Archive; University of Florida, Children Dick In the Everglades BY A.W. DIMOCK Author of "Florida Enchantments" WITH THIRTY-TWO HALF-TONE ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS BY J.A. DIMOCK NEW YORK FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY PUBLISHERS COPYRIGHT, 1909. PREFACE Dick in the Everglades is a true story. All that imagination had to do with it was to find names for the boys and arrange a sequence of events. Other characters, white and Indian, appear under names similar to, or identical with their own. Any old alligator hunter, familiar with the swamps and the Ten Thousand Islands, can follow the course of the explorers from the text of the story. It would be possible for two fearless boys, imbued with a love of Nature and the wilderness, to repeat, incident by incident, the feats of the explorers in the identical places mentioned in the story. Many of the stories are understatements, seldom is one exaggerated. I have been asked if it were possible for a boy to handle a manatee in the water as one of the boys was represented as doing. I have done it myself three times with manatees three times the size of these in the story. In the story the manatees escaped. Two of those which I captured were sent to the New York Aquarium, where one of them lived for twenty months. The crocodiles which the boys sent to the Zoological Park may be seen to-day, alive and well in the reptile house. The frequent swamping of canoes and skiffs by porpoises, or dolphins, tarpon and manatees are all experiences of my own. Aside from the Government charts which give the coast line only, the existing maps of the scene of the story are worse than useless. In them a hundred square miles are given to Ponce de Leon Bay, which doesn't exist, unless the little depression in the coast which is called Shark River Bight is accounted a bay. Rivers are omitted; one with a mouth fifty feet wide is represented as a mile broad. A little stream four miles long is sent wandering over a hundred and forty miles of imaginary territory. I have sailed and paddled for days at a time over the watercourses of South Florida, with a compass before me and a pad at hand on which every change of course was noted and distances estimated, and although no attempt at accurate charting has ever been made, I am quite sure that none of the natural features or products of the country traversed by the young explorers have been misrepresented in the book. The pictures are from photographs taken on the scene of the incidents they illustrate. They show more conclusively than can any words of mine, how beautiful is the region traversed by the boy explorers and what interesting and exciting adventures they enjoyed. CONTENTS I. THE CHUMS 1 II. DICK GOES TO SEA 15 III. LIFE ON A SPONGER 27 IV. CAUGHT IN A WATERSPOUT 38 V. OUTFITTING FOR THE HUNT 51 VI. DICK'S HUNT FOR HIS CHUM 61 VII. THE MEETING IN THE GLADES 76 VIII. OLD DREAMS REALIZED 93 IX. THE CAPTURE OF THE MANATEE 108 X. HARPOONING FROM A CANOE 123 XI. GHOSTS AND ALLIGATORS 129 XII. HUNTING IN HARNEY'S RIVER 136 XIII. EDUCATING AN ALLIGATOR 150 XIV. ENCOUNTER WITH OUTLAWS 157 XV. DICK AND THE BEAR 165 XVI. IN THE CROCODILE COUNTRY 171 XVII. AMONG THE SEMINOLES 183 XVIII. DICK'S WILDCAT AND OTHER WILD THINGS 195 XIX. A PRAIRIE ON FIRE 209 XX. DICK'S FIGHT WITH A PANTHER 219 XXI. CONVALESCENCE AND CATASTROPHE 234 XXII. THE RESCUE 245 XXIII. MOLLY AND THE MANATEE 258 XXIV. TO THE GLADES IN THE "IRENE" 271 XXV. IN FLORIDA BAY 286 XXVI. MADEIRA HAMMOCK AND--THE END 297 ILLUSTRATIONS MAP SHOWING DICK'S CRUISE IN A CANOE "DICK HUNTED ALL THE TURTLES HE SAW" "A SILVERY, TWISTING BODY SHOT TEN FEET IN THE AIR" "THE EVERGLADES AT LAST" "WE'VE GOTTER HAVE ONE OF THEM YOUNG TURKS IF IT TAKES ALL NIGHT" "THE SEMINOLE WAS STANDING IN HIS CANOE LOOKING FIXEDLY AT US" "HE FOUND DICK STANDING IN WATER SHOULDER DEEP, HANGING ON TO THE FLIPPER OF THE MANATEE" "THE STRICKEN TARPON LEAPED SIX FEET IN THE AIR" "THE TARPON BEGAN A SERIES OF LEAPS" "GROUPS OF TALL PALMETTOS, OR MAGNIFICENT TALL PALMS" "HE HELD THE JAWS OF THE 'GATOR SHUT, WHILE DICK SEIZED THE HIND LEGS OF THE REPTILE" "THE TARPON LEAPED AGAINST NED WITH FURY" "OUT CAME THE REPTILE'S HEAD FROM THE CAVE" "SEE THE BABY 'GATOR SIT UP, NED!" "THERE GOES YOUR PET. THAT'S THE LAST OF HIM" "A FEW OF THE HOMELESS BEES LIT ON THE COMB" "ALL BEYOND THE DARK MEADOW WAS A LIVING MASS" "THE BARB CAUGHT IN THE REPTILE'S LOWER JAW" "THE COON SCRAMBLED TO THE TOP OF A LITTLE TREE" "HE SAW THE GENTLY SWAYING HEAD AND THE LIGHTNING FLAY OF THE FORKED TONGUE" "NED FOUND A GOOD CAMPING SITE MARKED BY A FREAK PALMETTO" "THE LYNX SPRANG INTO THE CANOE AND SEIZED ONE OF THE FISH" "PORPOISES ROLLED THEIR BACKS OUT OF THE WATER" "THE HARD, POINTED HEAD OF THE BIG TARPON TORE THROUGH THE BOTTOM OF THE FRAGILE CANOE" "THE INDIGNANT BIRD PUNCHED HOLES THROUGH HIS HAT" "THE LIGHT FROM THE BULL'S EYE SHOWED THE HEAD AND BODY OF THE REPTILE" "SLOWLY LIFTING HIS HUGE HEAD OVER THE SIDE OF THE SKIFF" "YOUNG HERONS SPREAD WINGS AND STRETCHED LONG LEGS AS THEY FLED" "THEY SAW A CROCODILE SWIMMING UNDER WATER NEAR THEM" "THE HARPOON STRUCK THE FISH IN THE MIDDLE OF HIS BROAD BACK" "SIXTEEN FEET OF FIERCENESS LAY STRANDED ON THE BANK" "THEY HAULED THE HEAD OF THE BRUTE OVER THE SIDE OF THE BOAT" "HE TOOK THE BABY CROCODILE IN HIS ARMS" DICK IN THE EVERGLADES DICK IN THE EVERGLADES CHAPTER I THE CHUMS "Come in!" The doctor's voice had a note of sternness which was not lost on the two boys waiting outside his study door. The taller of the two, Ned Barstow, turned the handle and stepped into the study, followed immediately by Dick Williams. The doctor, sitting behind his desk, looked decidedly uncompromising as he said: "Now, Barstow and Williams, you were absent from your room last night. Where were you?" "Camping in Farmer Field's woods, sir," replied Ned Barstow. "How often has this happened before?" "Twice, sir." "Was any one else with you?" "Only last night, sir. Another boy was with us then," said Ned. "Who was he?" "I can't tell you, sir." "Williams, you may go now. I will see you later." After the door had closed on Williams, the doctor turned again to Barstow, and said: [pg 1] [pg 2] "Barstow, I have always felt that I could rely upon your influence with the younger boys being for good. Now, I find you aiding to upset the whole discipline of the school by this camping affair. I hope there has been nothing worse. You know I never insist on tale-bearing regarding mere boyish escapades, but I would like to know if there was any other reason for your refusing to give up your companion's name." "Yes, sir, there was. We had a chicken for supper, that was taken from Farmer Field's poultry-house." "Did you or Williams steal that chicken, Barstow?" "No, sir, but we knew about it and helped eat it, and are just as much to blame as the boy who took it." "And, now, you mean to protect the thief?" "Well, you see, Doctor, a good many fellows don't look at hooking apples, or nuts, or chickens as real stealing." "What do you think about it?" asked the doctor. "I think it was wrong and I am very sorry it happened. It won't occur again." "I have no fear that it will. But it is too serious an offence to be lightly passed over. In the first place you and Williams must see Farmer Field, tell him what you have done and pay for the chicken that was—taken. After that I will talk with you. Now send Williams to me." When Dick Williams came in the doctor began: "Williams, how much do you love your mother?" "Why, more than anyone else in the world, sir." "She is keeping you here at considerable expense. Don't you think you owe it to her to pay more attention to your studies?" "Yes, Doctor, and I am going to do better hereafter." "How will your mother feel when she hears of this chicken-stealing episode?" "Oh! Doctor; she mustn't hear of it that way. We didn't think of it as stealing last night, but this morning Ned and I talked about it and we are going to see Farmer Field and tell him what we did and pay for the chicken." "Do you mean, Dick," and the good doctor's voice shook a little as he asked the question, "that you and Ned decided to tell Farmer Field about the taking of his chicken, before you knew that I had heard of your camping out?" "Why, yes, sir. I supposed Ned had told you." "Your friend Ned is rather a curious boy, but when you are in doubt about the right and wrong of anything, you might do worse than ask his advice." "Oh! I get enough of that without asking for it," said Dick. And the doctor laughed, but he soon looked pretty serious again, and said: "Dick, I think no one will tell your mother and she need never know, but I hope you will tell her all about it of your own accord." "Sure!" said Dick, "I couldn't keep that or anythink else away from Mumsey for five minutes after I saw her." There was a significant pause, during which the doctor stroked his chin meditatively before asking: "Now, what in the world made you two boys go on that camping escapade? I want you to tell me that, Dick." The boy hesitated a moment and then said: "Why, I really don't know, Doctor—we just wanted to. You see, there are so many things to see and listen to at night that way. Birds and animals, I mean. Ned and I are going to be explorers some day, you know." "Hum!" said the doctor. "Well, that will do for the present, Williams. I hope you understand that you are escaping serious trouble very easily and that you mean to be as good as you can for the rest of the time you are at the school." Fanner Field received Ned and Dick with an air of gruffness that was belied by twinkling blue eyes and, when Ned had [pg 3] [pg 4] [pg 5] finished telling his story and offered to pay for the chicken, said: "Did you take that chicken out of my poultry-house?" "Not exactly, but it's the same thing. We knew about it and helped eat it." "Was it tender?" asked the farmer. "No, sir, it was the toughest thing I ever put in my mouth." "I thought so. Why, that rooster was a regular antique. He must have been a hundred years old. Next time you want a chicken for a late supper, better let me choose it for you. Who helped you eat that rooster?" "Please don't ask us that. We'll tell you anything about ourselves, but we can't give him away." "Wouldn't think much of you if you did. No need of it anyhow. I know who it was." "He must have told you then, for we haven't told anybody." "Do you remember that while you were cooking that rooster out in my woods, Steve Daly, your companion, said he heard somebody in the bushes and you said it was only a dog?" "Yes, I remember it. I did say that." "Well, I was that dog!" "And you never told on us?" asked Dick. "Then you've been mighty kind and I'm ashamed to look you in the face." "Never be ashamed to look anyone in the face, my boy. It isn't good to take even a little thing that doesn't belong to you, but that won't happen again to you. But weren't you playing truant when you had that tough supper in my woods? Doesn't your conscience trouble you at all about that?" "Not a bit," said Dick; "that wasn't mean." It was fortunate for Dick's peace of mind that his conscience wasn't troubled by mischief, for he was never out of it and was at the root of about all the purely mischievous happenings at the school. Even the lesson of the camping incident and the doctor's kindly talk wore off in a fortnight. Yet he was popular with teachers as well as pupils. His head was crowned with a mass of sandy hair and his impertinent face plastered with freckles. The boy was quick and full of grace as a wildcat and so well built and lithe that he was a terror on the football team. Dick was often too busy to attend to his studies and fell behind in his lessons, until the good doctor sent for him and gave him an earnest but understanding talk which sent the boy back to his books, filled with remorse and determined to get to the head of his class in a hurry. One of these resolves was usually effective for about a week. After which Dick generally suffered a severe relapse. During his last winter at school, he frequently took long tramps in the woods in the hours when he should have been at his books, and was finally taken to task by his chum for the bad example he was setting the younger boys by playing truant. "But, Ned," said Dick, "I just can't keep away from the woods, and they do me good, I know they do. I am a whole lot better every way after a good long tramp by myself through the thickest woods I can find. I'd like to camp out in them to-night and I believe I will." "That's all right, Dick. I'll camp with you; only we've got to have Doc's permission. He trusts us a lot, and we can't go back on him." "Nice chance we've got of getting that. Maybe he'd camp with us!" said Dick satirically. "Shouldn't wonder if he would. You don't understand Doc. Did you ever know him to refuse a fellow anything he squarely asked for, unless he simply had to do it? Come along." And the boys walked together to the study. "Doctor," said Ned, "Dick and I want to camp out to-night in Farmer Field's woods, if you have no objection." "Want to camp out? Well, so do I, only I am afraid I might be needed here. Do you know how to camp? What do you expect to take with you and how will you keep warm?" [pg 6] [pg 7] "We thought of taking a hatchet, a blanket for each of us and some potatoes to roast. Then we will make a bed of hemlock boughs, build a fire near it and roll up in our blankets." "Well, you may go, and I will help out your commissariat with a loaf of bread and a chicken. But be sure you have plenty of fuel ready before dark. It will be a cold night and you will have to replenish your fire three or four times before morning." "Thank you, Doctor. You don't know how much obliged we are to you for your kindness." "And you don't know how much trouble I am in for, when the rest of the boys hear of this escapade of yours." But after the study door closed the doctor smiled quietly to himself and said under his breath: "Just like myself at their age—have the woods instinct." Ned and Dick slept little that night. There was about a foot of snow on the ground and they scraped bare a place for their camp-fire beside a big stump and gathered enough fuel from windfalls for the night. Then they rolled a log beside the fire for a seat and built a soft bed with fragrant branches of hemlock and spruce. They roasted the chicken over a thick bed of glowing coals and baked potatoes in the ashes of the fire. The chicken was carved with their pocket knives and they got along without forks or plates. By using bark gathered from a birch and softening it over their fire they made cups with which they brought water from a nearby brook. When supper was finished the boys rolled up in their blankets and lying on the bed they had built on the snow, inhaled its fragrance as they watched the eddying smoke of their camp- fire and the stars that shone through the spreading branches above them and listened to the voices of the night, from the distant cry of an owl to the whish of falling snow, shaken from evergreen boughs by the breeze. They had visions of camps, scattered from the equator to the poles, some of which were destined to be realized. Ned formed a plan that night, of which he wrote to his father, but of which he said nothing at the time to his chum. But as Dick stood beside Ned in their last hour at Belleville, and the sadness of parting was in the face and eyes from which fun usually bubbled, Ned said: "My father owns a tract of land in the Big Cypress Swamp of Florida. There is a lot of fine timber on it and he intends to set up a lumber mill in the swamp and perhaps build a railroad from Fort Myers to some part of it. A surveyor with a guide is going into the swamp this fall to locate the best timber and I'm going with them. You know how we have planned to do real camping and exploring together. Well, here's our chance. I've written to Dad and he invites you to go with me. We can start any time. When can you be ready, Dick?" "Ned, I'd give all I have in the world to go with you, but I can't—I can't. Mother has spent more than she could afford to keep me at this school and sometimes I'm ashamed when I think how I've wasted my time. Now I don't mean to be an expense to her or anyone else hereafter. I won't take a penny that I don't earn, from anybody, and I won't go on any trip, even with you, until I can pay my own way, every cent of it." "But, Dick, your companionship and the work you can do will be worth all it costs, twice over, to me and to Dad and he will feel just that way about it." "It's like you, Ned, to say all that, but it's no use and you know it. You've been mighty good to me ever since I came to this school and I'm going to keep your good opinion by not accepting your offer to go with you now. Some time, when I can keep up my end, I'll be with you bigger than an Injun. If you ever find strange footprints down in those Everglades, better foller 'em up. They'll likely be mine. Good-bye, Ned." The boys clasped hands and as Dick walked away tears rolled down his freckled cheeks. Four months after the parting of the two friends, at Belleville, Dick received a letter postmarked "Immokalee, Florida," which was headed: Big Cypress Swamp, 20 miles from anywhere, October 10th. DEAR CHUM: Here I am! on a prairie inside the Big Cypress Swamp, about which we used to talk and where we planned to camp some day. Well, it's bigger than anything we ever dreamed of and every foot of it is alive. Sometimes I sleep in a tent, but more often under the stars. Last night I heard the scream of a panther, so near that it made me shiver, and the next minute a frog dropped from the branch of a tree over my head and fell on my face. I must have screamed louder than the panther, for I scared Chris Meyer, the surveyor, who is camping with me, pretty badly. The guide we expected didn't come, so we are guiding for ourselves. I hope Chris knows where we are, for I am sure I don't. We measure the big cypress trees with a tape line and Chris calculates the number of feet of lumber in each tree. Then we estimate the trees in an [pg 8] [pg 9] [pg 10] [pg 11] acre and guess at the number of acres. At least that's the way the business looks to me. Sometimes the walking is easy, but to-day we had to wade through mud waist-deep and the moccasins were pretty thick. I watched out for the ugly things and it kept me on the jump, but Chris marched straight ahead and paid no attention to them, excepting once when a big cotton-mouth that was coiled on top of a stump struck at him. Then he fell over backward into the mud, and I had a good laugh at him—afterwards. Chris killed that snake. It was a short, thick snake and about as pretty as a Bologna sausage, but its mouth opened five inches and its long, needle-like fangs were dripping with venom. I am hungry all the time and enjoy our bill of fare very much, although it is only bacon, grits and coffee, morning, noon and night. We are traveling light, for we carry all our baggage on our backs. We see deer and wild turkey every day and it's pretty hard to keep my hands off my rifle, but I promised Dad not to shoot anything out of season. In three weeks the law will be off and then it will be bad for the first buck I meet. Chris says it's good for me to see a lot of deer before I shoot at any. He says I won't be so likely to miss or only wound them when I really hunt them. I guess he's about right, for when I first saw a deer—it was a big buck and only twenty yards away—I had a regular attack of buck ague and I couldn't have hit the side of a house even if I'd been inside it. Now I can look at one, point a stick at him and say bang, with my nerves just as quiet as if it were a cow. I have seen a few bears, but they are very shy. We'll turn loose on them, too, when we get round to hunting, but in the mean time we are sticking to our timber job for all there is in it. An old alligator hunter is camping beside us to-night. He is bound for Boat Landing, with a lot of alligator hides and otter skins, and I am finishing up this letter to send by him. Just as soon as this surveying business is over I am going to have a glorious hunt. If only you were here we would start out by our lonesomes and have all the adventures we ever talked about. Probably Chris will go with me. I haven't quite the pluck to try it alone, as I know you would do in my place. I may brace up to it, though. Dad has given me permission to do just as I please. He says he trusts me not to be foolish or foolhardy and to keep him informed of my plans. Isn't he a good Dad? Come if you can. Come when you can. Always and forever your chum, NED. Dick's mother read Ned's letter and was quiet and sad all the rest of the day. After Dick had gone to bed she went into his room, sat down on the bed beside him, kissed him and said: "Dicky boy, mother wants you to take a good, long vacation. You've worked hard and been a great comfort to her since you left school and now she's going to send you to your chum Ned, down in Florida where she knows your heart is. Now—don't speak yet—mother knows what you want to say. dear, but she can perfectly well afford to send you and you will hurt her feelings if you don't let her." Dick put his arms around his mothers' neck and as soon as he could speak, half sobbed out: "Oh, Mumsey, I can't take your money. You've got so little." "But mother wants you to, so much." Dick held his mother's face close to his own for a minute and then said, very slowly: "Mumsey, I'll go—and it's really and truly because you want me to—but I won't take any of your money. Hush, now! Don't you say a word, or I'll—disown you. I've got a ten-dollar bill of my own and I'll keep that in my pocket just so you won't worry for fear I'm hungry; and I will bet you ten dollars I'll bring that same bill back to you and I won't go hungry one day either." "But, Dick—" "Not one word, Mumsey, except to say you'll take that bet. I can get a ride to New York on a boat, any day. Then I'll go to the Mallory Line and work my way to Key West on one of their boats; and from Key West I can find a fishing boat that will land me on the west coast of Florida somewhere within a hundred miles of Ned, and I'd walk that far just for the fun of surprising him." CHAPTER II DICK GOES TO SEA Three days after Dick's talk with his mother, he boarded a Key West steamer just as it was leaving its New York pier. He sat on the deck and watched busy ferry-boats in the river, fussy tugs and chug-chugging launches in the harbor, and the white-winged yachts and great ocean steamers in the lower bay. He looked back from the Narrows upon the receding city, to the east upon Coney Island with its pleasure palaces, and to the southwest upon the great curve of [pg 12] [pg 13] [pg 14] [pg 15] Sandy Hook. Every step upon the deck near him brought his heart into his mouth in dread of what he knew he had to face. When the steamer was opposite Long Branch and there was small chance that he could be sent back, he inquired for the captain, whom he found talking to some young girls among the passengers. This somewhat reassured Billy, for he felt that the captain wouldn't eat him up in the presence of the young ladies, and he stood waiting with his cap in his hand until the captain spoke to him. "Do you want to see me, my boy?" "If you are Captain Anderson, I do, sir." "All right, go ahead." "I want you to set me to work, sir." "Why should I set you to work? Do you belong on the boat?" "Not yet, but you see it's this way. I had to get to Key West and I thought I'd work my passage with you." "Why didn't you ask me before we left the dock?" "Because I was afraid you wouldn't take me, if you could help it, and I had to go." "You cheeky little devil, I believe I'll chuck you overboard." "Oh!" said a brown-eyed girl who stood beside the captain, "you mustn't do that!" The captain laughed and said to Dick: "I hope you understand that you owe your life to this young lady. Now, go and report yourself to the cook and tell him to put you on the worst job he's got." "Thank you very much, Captain, but couldn't you make it the engineer instead of the cook? I'd rather work than wash dishes." "I'd like to oblige so modest a boy. Report to the chief engineer, give him my compliments and tell him you are to have the hottest berth on the boat. He'll probably set you to shoveling coal." Dick thanked him again; then looking into the face of the girl, he said: "Thank you, Miss Brown-Eyes, for saving my life," and, bowing low, turned away. "Captain, couldn't you see that he was a gentleman? What made you give him such hard work?" asked the girl. "Because he was such a cheeky gentleman that if I let him stay on deck he would take command of the boat by to- morrow and all you young ladies who helped him would be guilty of mutiny and would have to be executed." Dick was put to work in the engine-room, oiling the machinery. Some of the work was easy and safe, some of it was easy but not safe. Oil cups had to be filled as they flew back and forth, bearings must be oiled after great steel rods had flashed by and before they returned. The swift, silent play of the great piston and the steady motion of the resistless, revolving shaft, half hypnotized the boy and he stood, dazed and in danger, until called down by the sharp rebuff of the engineer. "'Tend to your business, there. Don't watch that shaft or you'll go dotty." On the second day of the trip there was trouble in the fire-room. The steamer had started on the trip short of firemen and now a fireman who had fallen in the furnace-room, striking his head on the steel floor, was lying unconscious in his berth. The pointer on the steam-gauge fell back, the engine slowed down, crisp commands came from pilot-house to engine-room, sharper messages passed between engine and fire rooms, while overworked men grew sullen and threatened to throw down their shovels. Dick offered to do the work of a fireman, but the engineer shook his head and said: "That's a man's work, boy." "Give me a shovel and a chance." And they were given him. He soon learned to throw the coal evenly and feed the furnaces like a fireman, but his unseasoned body shrank from the fierce heat; he staggered back from the hot blast every time he swung open a great furnace door and, until the clang of its closing, he could scarcely draw a breath. He threw off his jumper and his white skin fairly gleamed in that grimy place. The other firemen looked curiously at that slight, boyish form which was doing a [pg 16] [pg 17] [pg 18] man's work like a man and there was no more shirking in front of those furnaces. The fireman nearest the boy often pushed him aside and spread shovelfuls of coal over his grates, rushing back to his own work that it might not fall behind. A strong beam wind sprang up and the boat rolled badly, while Dick, with his hands blistered, fought fiercely to keep off seasickness and to keep up his fire. Up in the main saloon and around the deck a young girl wandered as if she wanted something without quite knowing what it was. She climbed stairs under the sign "passengers not allowed," went in and out of the pilot-house and, meeting the captain, asked if she couldn't go wherever she wished on the boat. He replied: "Yes, Miss. I appoint you third mate, with power to give any orders you please and go wherever you wish." A little later, with a dark waterproof drawn tightly over her light dress, she opened the door leading to the engine-room, and clinging to the heavy brass rail, climbed slowly down the narrow, greasy iron stairway till she stood beside the mighty engine. The engineer hastened to her side. "It's against the rules and very dangerous, Miss, for a passenger to come into this room." "But the captain told me I could come." "All right, but please be very careful and hold tight to that rail. I am afraid I haven't any right to let you stay, anyhow." "Thank you very much and I'll be very careful." The girl watched the engine for some time and then crept slowly along a steel bridge that looked like a spider's web, from which she could look into the furnace-room, with its roaring fires, scorching heat and constantly clanging iron doors. For some minutes she gazed silently, then turning quickly, hurried across the bridge, up the greasy stairs and on to the main saloon where she found her father in a big arm-chair, buried in a book. The girl first pulled the book out of her father's hands, then, sitting on the arm of his chair, clasped her hands on his shoulder and whispered eagerly into his ear. "Daddy, I want you to get that boy out of that hot place down in the bottom of the boat where he is at work. I know he's sick, for I saw him lean up against the wall and shut his eyes and he was just as white—" "Why, Molly, where have you been to see all this?" "First, I went where the big engine is, then I went a little farther and saw—Oh! Daddy, hurry, please; if you don't I know he'll die." "So you want me to get this boy up in the saloon to play with you?" "I don't mean that at all, Daddy. I should think you'd hate to see anybody worked to death down in that hot hole." "Well, I'll see the captain about it as soon as I have finished my book." "Don't you think you'd better see him now? I'm quite sure you won't enjoy your book while I'm here and I've decided to stay with you for the present." "All right, Molly, come along," and they hunted up the captain, whom they found sitting near the pilot-house. "Captain, I have taken an interest in that stowaway of yours. Is there any objection to having his name put on the cabin list, at my expense, of course?" "No kick coming from me," said the captain, "though we are short-handed in the fire-room and the boy has been doing a man's work there. I don't believe he will accept your offer, for he's an independent little cub and, as I have put him to work, I can't insist upon it." The captain sent a deck-hand for Dick, and the boy appeared on deck in overalls and jumper, cap in hand. "Dick," said the captain, "this gentleman has put your name on the passenger list. The purser will give you a room and a seat at the table." "Oh, Captain, please don't take me from my work. I know I've got to leave it if you say so, but—" "No, you haven't," interrupted the captain; "you are on the pay-roll and can hang on to your job as long as you do your work." Dick's face was still troubled as he turned toward Molly and her father, meeting a reproachful look from the girl, which made him wonder if he had seemed ungrateful for the kindness shown him, and said: "I want to thank you a thousand times for your kindness and I will come to the cabin if you think I—Have you any boy [pg 19] [pg 20] [pg 21] of your own, sir?" "Yes, I have a boy of about your age." "If he were here, in my place, what would you like to have him do?" "I'd be proud of him if he did just what you're doing, my boy." Tears were in Dick's voice as he said: "Thank you very much, sir," then, turning to Molly, a roguish smile lit up his face as he bowed to her, saying: "Thank you again, Miss Brown-Eyes." The next day when Dick was off duty, instead of going to his bunk, he dressed himself carefully and went up on the promenade deck. It was quite contrary to the rules, but the officers only smiled and looked away, while many of the passengers spoke to him, for the story of his having refused cabin passage was pretty well known on the boat. He walked about restlessly, as if in search of something or somebody, until he caught sight of a girl in the extreme bow of the boat, looking down upon the water twenty feet below her. Dick suddenly discovered that he wanted to look over the bow, too. A minute later he was leaning on the rail behind the girl, looking down upon a school of porpoises, or herring hogs, which were playing about the boat. A jet of water and spray curled upward from the cutwater of the steamer, which was running at high speed, but the graceful little creatures kept abreast of her without apparent effort. There were twenty or thirty of them, gliding in and out as gracefully as if they were moving to the measure of a waltz. Sometimes one touched the prow or side of the boat; usually they kept pace with the steamer as evenly as if they were a part of it; but occasionally one darted ahead at a speed which left the boat behind as if it were standing still. At last the girl, long conscious that some one was standing beside her, putting out her hand to that somebody, said: "Aren't they dears? Oh!" she added, as her hand was taken and she looked around, "I thought it was Daddy. Please excuse me." Dick looked as if he might be persuaded to forgive her, and for some minutes they stood in silence, leaning over the rail and looking at the playful porpoises beneath them, when he said: "I hope you don't think I didn't appreciate your father's lovely offer. You will never know how grateful I really was to him—and to somebody else, too, who, I think, had something to do with it." "Of course I don't think you were ungrateful, but I did hate to see you at work down in that hot place and I don't see why you couldn't have come up in the cabin and been comfortable and not had to wear such greasy clothes." "How did you know where I was at work?" "I happened to be looking at the big engine and I walked along a little way and saw you way, way down near the bottom of the boat in front of a hot furnace, shoveling coal into it." "Now I know where that offer came from," said Dick, "and I want you to see why I couldn't accept it. I wanted very, very much to get to Key West and I was very glad of the chance to work my passage. Perhaps it was wrong to come aboard the way I did. I guess it was. But Captain Anderson gave me a job and made it all right. Now I'm not ashamed to look anyone in the face, even when I have on my fireman's clothes, while if I gave up my work and let a stranger give me what I could earn myself I would feel like a charity scholar and I don't think I'd have the cheek to speak to you or any one else on board." Molly told her father of her talk with Dick and he said: "I can use that kind of a boy in my business. I'll have a talk with him when we get to Key West." Three days later the great steamer lay beside her wharf in Key West. Dick was paid the full wages of a fireman for the trip and when he said he wasn't worth so much, was good-naturedly told to shut up and advised that if he refused to take money that was offered him in that town he was likely to be caught and exhibited as a freak. He shed his jumper and overalls and exchanged hearty good-byes with the whole crew of the steamer. He walked through the saloons, but it was early, most of the passengers were yet in their berths and neither Molly nor her father was to be seen. Dick went out on the dock to inquire for a boat to Chokoloskee, Caxambas or Marco. He was referred to a Captain Wilson, who told him that the boat for Chokoloskee had just sailed, was beyond hailing distance and wouldn't leave again for a week, and that there was no Caxambas or Marco boat in port. Dick found the captain so genial and friendly that he told him something of his story. "I'll fix you out," said Captain Wilson. "I own a sponging outfit and am just starting out on a cruise, but I'm one man short. So you come in his place. It will be a short trip, not over four weeks. You'll make good wages and I'll find you a chance to get to Chokoloskee when we get back. You can live on board till I find it. If you stay here you are bound to lose a week and your board anyhow." [pg 22] [pg 23] [pg 24] [pg 25] "I'd like to go first rate, but I don't know anything about sponging." "You'll learn fast enough. Can you scull?" "A little. I can row better." "Have to scull in sponging, but you'll pick that up. Can you come aboard now? I want to be off." "I need some clothes and would like to say 'good-bye' to some friends on the steamer." "I can fit you out on board with all the clothes you will need on the cruise, so hurry up and see your friends. I'll wait here for you." But Molly and her father had left the steamer and Dick went with Captain Wilson aboard his sloop, which sailed at once. The captain hunted up some clothes for Dick to wear while sponging and as the boy came on deck after putting them on, his first glance fell on the white sails of a schooner yacht which had just passed them, but was then two hundred yards away. The beauty of the boat appealed to Dick and his eyes rested lingeringly upon her. How much greater would have been his interest had he known that the two forms which he could see on the deck of the yacht, near the companionway, were the Molly of whom he was thinking at that moment, and her father, and that they were talking of him. What a pity that he couldn't have known that Key West had been searched for him and that Molly's father had offered a reward for his name and address! Had Dick come on deck two minutes sooner the bow of the yacht Gypsey would have been thrown up in the wind and that tiny launch lowered from the boat's davits in less time than it takes to tell of it. And then, had Molly's father known Dick's name, he would have taken the boy to his yacht, if he had had to tie him to do it, but if Dick had once heard the name of Molly's father it would not have been necessary to tie him. However, if either had known the name of the other this story would not have been written. CHAPTER III LIFE ON A SPONGER The yacht sailed on and Dick, walking up to Captain Wilson, who stood at the wheel, said, as he lifted his cap: "I beg to report for duty, sir." The captain grinned, as he replied: "I hope you'll always be as polite. You'll sure be a curiosity on this coast. I'll put you in with Pedro. He doesn't know much English, but you can talk enough for both. There he is, that black-mustached fellow, with little rings in his ears. He will let you know what your duties are." A string of four dingies trailed behind the sponger and as many poles, each thirty feet long, with a sponge-hook at one end, lay upon the deck. Pedro was examining one of these poles when Billy went to him and said: "Pedro, I am to go in your boat. What do I have to do?" "You scull where I tell you—slow—I look in glass—see sponge—take up pole—you stop still—then you scull where pole go—you work good or I keek you." "Pedro, if you ever keek me, you'll go overboard queek and don't you forget it." The sponger lay at anchor on the sponging ground for nearly a week before the water was clear enough for work. Dick spent most of his time sculling his dingy and soon learned to throw his weight on the big sculling oar to the best advantage without going overboard very often. One day while Pedro sat in the bow, they saw a 400-pound loggerhead turtle lying asleep on the water. Pedro motioned to Dick to scull up to the turtle and when the dingy was within three feet of the creature he jumped on its back and seized the edge of its shell just behind the head, with both hands. Pedro's weight was so far aft on the turtle's deck that the bow pointed upward and the reptile's struggles only served to keep its head above water and thus carry the man comfortably on its back. Soon Pedro shifted his right hand to the tail-end of the turtle and thereafter navigated his living craft with ease. Dick sculled the dingy beside the turtle and, while trying to make fast the boat's painter around the creature, fell overboard. Pedro didn't know enough English to express his feelings fully, and so talked Spanish for a while. Dick thought he could get the rope around the turtle more easily if he stayed in the water, and he finally succeeded, though the reptile got one of the sleeves of his shirt while he was doing it. Then the boy and Pedro got into the boat and pulled the turtle beside it. In rolling the reptile aboard they shipped a lot of water and as the turtle dropped suddenly to the bottom of the dingy Dick fell backwards out of the boat. Pedro began to express himself in Spanish again, and, as the sponger was less than two hundred yards distant, Dick swam to it, leaving his companion to bail out the dingy and scull it to the big boat. The boat's tackle was required to hoist the [pg 26] [pg 27] [pg 28] [pg 29] turtle aboard, where it was turned over to the Cook, who butchered it on deck. The heart of the reptile continued to beat for hours after it had been removed from the body, so strongly that its throbbing could not be restrained by the grip of the most powerful hand. Pedro said that the heart would beat till the sun went down, and it did. For days Dick hunted all the turtles he saw lying on the water. At last he got near enough to one to grab him before he dove. But he got hold too far back, the reptile's head was already turned downward and his flippers forced him rapidly forward. Dick hung on as well as he could, which wasn't for long, for the strong rush of the water and its great pressure as the reptile made for the bottom quickly compelled the boy to let go. Yet he was under water so long that when he came to the surface Captain Wilson was in a dingy sculling like mad to reach him. The captain gave the boy a kindly warning, which affected him so much that in ten minutes he was off after another turtle, which he saw asleep. The creature began his dive just as Dick jumped for him, and the boy got hold of his tail-end as it was lifted above the water, in time to get a sharp slap in the face from the heavy hind flipper of the turtle. Dick sculled for an hour without seeing another turtle, when, as he was returning to the boat and within a hundred yards of it, one rose beside the dingy so near that the boy was on its back before it could go under the surface. He soon had his charger in fair control, but the science of riding a big loggerhead turtle isn't picked up in a minute. One of the crew came out in a dingy to help, but Dick asked him to pick up his boat and oar and take them to the sponger and said that he would ride back on the turtle. Sometimes his steed was manageable, and once he got within a few yards of the big boat, when it broke loose and carried him fifty yards away. Then, as Dick tried to check the reptile, he pulled its head too far and tipped it over on its back on top of himself, with his own head so near the parrot-like jaws of the loggerhead that when they were snapped in his face they missed his nose by about an inch. The turtle was as anxious to turn over as the boy, and, by favoring his motions, Dick soon had the creature right side up, while he again rode triumphantly on his back. In another hour the halyards were fast to the turtle and Billy had made good his promise to ride it back to the boat. "DICK HUNTED ALL THE TURTLES HE SAW" When the water became clear the dingies were sent out with two men in each, one of whom sculled while the other sat with his face in a water-glass watching the bottom for sponges. The water-glass is a bucket with a glass bottom which so smooths the surface of the water as to produce the effect of a perfect calm to one who is looking through it. The first day of sponging was like a dream to Dick. The water was smooth as a mirror and no water-glass was needed. He sculled slowly over water so clear that he seemed to be floating in the air. Beneath him was fairyland, filled with waving sea-feathers and anemones, paved with curious shells, strangely beautiful forms of coral and sponges of various kinds, and alive with fish of many varieties. Sometimes there floated on the surface of the water Portuguese men-of-war, most beautiful of created things, like iridescent bubbles, with long silken filaments, delicately lined in pink, purple and entrancing blue. Lighter than thistledown, fitted to drift with the merest zephyr, they can nevertheless force their way against a breeze. Harmless as a soap-bubble in appearance, each of them is charged with virulent poison, and when Dick touched one with his hand he received a shock that made him wonder if a bunch of hornets had hidden in that innocent-looking bubble. Sometimes schools of little fish gliding beneath the dingy began to dash wildly about, and a moment later a group of jackfish or Spanish mackerel could be seen darting around and picking up stragglers from the little school, which often huddled for protection close beside and beneath the dingy. Dick like all brave boys, was on the side of the under dog, and he laughed with glee when a quick-moving mackerel shark appeared among the pursuers of the little fish and picked up a few of them for his breakfast as he drove the rest away. As Dick sculled easily with one hand, he kept an [pg 30] [pg 31] [pg 32] eye upon Pedro, and obeyed the signals of his hand, to go to the right, the left, or stop, as sponges were seen. Then from time to time the long pole with the claw at the end was lowered to the bottom and a sponge torn loose. Sometimes Dick changed places with Pedro, and manipulated the long pole with the claw, while Pedro handled the sculling oar. Then Dick began to learn the difference between coarse grass and common cup sponges, and the finer fibred glove and choice sheep's wool varieties. For when he was clumsy with the pole, Pedro only swore softly in Spanish, but when he brought up a worthless grass sponge, the big oar was lifted, and the boy might have been knocked overboard but for the iron claw which he held high, while a purpose gleamed in his eye which made Pedro peaceful. But Dick felt that Pedro was half right and he set to work studying sponges until he knew them almost as well as his teacher. His strength and skill with the sponge hook were less than the Spaniard's, but his eye was quicker and Pedro's chronic growls were often changed to grunts of approval. When the surface of the water was ruffled by a breeze it was needful to use the water-glass. Then Pedro sat with his head in the bucket, studying the bottom, and when he took up the heavy pole which lay on the thwarts of the dingy and dipped it vertically in the water, it was the duty of Dick to stop sculling at once. But once while Dick was sculling and looking for sponges he saw gliding beneath the dingy, a whip-ray, the most beautiful member of the ray family. Shaped like a butterfly, its back is covered with small, light rings on a black background. Its long, slim tail is like the lash of a coach-whip and at its base is a row of little spears with many barbs, which are capable of inflicting exceedingly painful wounds. The roof of the mouth and the tongue of the fish are hard as ivory and shell-fish are ground between them as rock is pulverized by the jaws of a quartz-crusher. As Billy watched the graceful swaying of the body of the whip-ray under the impulse of its wings, a wandering shark came upon it. In its first rush the tiger of the sea almost caught the beautiful creature, which fluttered for a hundred yards upon the surface of the water, with the jaws of its pursuer opening and closing within a few inches of its body. Dick was so busy watching the chase and so earnest in his sympathy with the frightened, fleeing whip-ray that he quite forgot his duties. He was reminded of them when Pedro, who had been frantically signaling him, took his head from the bucket and made a speech in Spanish to Dick that must have used up all the bad adjectives in that language. Dick's conscience hampered him so much that he was quite unable to reply fittingly, and the battle of words was won by Pedro. The dingy drifted so far during the discussion that they were unable to find the sheep's wool sponge that Pedro had seen, and which he now described as the finest one ever found. Each day the spongers in the dingies worked farther from the sloop and each day more time was lost when the sloop made its round to pick up the spongers for dinner. There were too few sponges to please Captain Wilson, who sailed over the ground whenever the water was smooth, studying the bottom with practiced eye and throwing out little floats, with anchors attached, wherever a sponge was seen. "I'm going to the 'Lake,'" said the captain, one afternoon at the end of a day of little success. "It's a feast or a famine there. You get rich or go broke." "What is there at the 'Lake'?" asked Dick. "Sponge, all sponge, the bottom lined with sponge. If the weather is just right we'll pile the deck with sponges in a week till you can't see over them. If the weather isn't exactly right we won't get a sponge. On one cruise there, the men on this sloop averaged twenty-five dollars a day apiece. I've been there five times since without ever making enough to pay for our salt." A week later the captain said to the boy: "Dick, you are a mascot. You've brought us big luck. We never had such weather here but once and I don't care now how soon it comes on to blow. I reckon it'll begin to-night from the looks and we'll hike for Key West to-morrow." Dick wa...