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

“Yassuh.”

Suddenly the colored steward’s eyes rolled apprehensively.

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

“Why?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Want a crack at that ’gator?”

“Don’t I?”

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

Jeff did so, adding:

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

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

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

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

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

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

“There it – ” began Oliver Dixon.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“It certainly does,” nodded Mr. Tremaine.

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

Both ladies expressed their thanks.

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

“Take this one,” urged Mrs. Tremaine.

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

CHAPTER IX

THE GHOST INVITED

“DE mail man done been yere,” was the greeting of Ham, as the elated party walked up to the porch of the bungalow. The darkey held out a dozen letters to Mr. Tremaine.

That gentleman ran hastily through the letters, dropping four into one of his own pockets and passing some to the others.

“And one for you, Captain, from Tres Arbores,” added Henry Tremaine, passing over the last to the young motor boat skipper.

“A bill for something I ordered for the boat, I guess,” nodded Halstead, slipping the envelope into his pocket.

It was now within an hour of sunset. The alligator had been hauled up onto the pier, where Jeff, with Ham’s aid, would remove the hide later in the evening.

“You don’t seem curious about your letter, Captain,” smiled Ida, when she had glanced through two of her own.

“Is one ever curious or eager about bills?” laughed Tom. “I’ve three or four accounts down in Tres Arbores for supplies furnished for the boat. But I can’t settle any of them until we go back to the bay.”

As the air was growing somewhat chilly, with the sinking of the sun, the others passed on into the living room, where Ham had a blazing wood fire ready for them. Tom, however, remained outside, preferring the fresh air.

After strolling about the grounds for some little time, he stepped into an arbor. It seemed curious to this Northern boy to think of a leaf-clad arbor in December, but here it was, with vines growing luxuriantly over the trellis work. There was a seat there, and Tom sank onto it. He was thinking hard about the robbery in the starboard stateroom on the morning of their arrival in Oyster Bay. No more had been said about it by any member of the party, yet with Tom Halstead the subject would not down.

“Of course, the Tremaines and Miss Silsbee must often remember that I was the only one outside their party who had access to the cabin during the night of the storm,” he mused. “They’re all mighty kind to me, yet what must they think when they sometimes get to wondering? Of course, Oliver Dixon was the scoundrel. I saw him fix the contents of the water bottle from that vial of his. He knew that only Mr. Tremaine drank water just before turning in. Dixon robbed his friend, after drugging him. Yet what a wild story it would be, backed by no word but my own. Joe is right; I’ve got to hold my tongue and be patient. Mr. Tremaine would think it all a cock-and-bull story if I told him what I saw Dixon doing. Gracious, but it’s hard to keep quiet and wait. The truth most likely will never come out – and there’ll always be that lurking suspicion of me!”

After some minutes Halstead remembered the letter from Tres Arbores. Some instinct prompted him to take it out and open it. Instead of being a bill, as he had suspected, it was a letter.

“Jumping bow-lines!”

Tom Halstead was fairly staggered as he glanced through that short epistle in the waning light of day. The letter was signed by Clayton Randolph, the policeman at Tres Arbores, and it ran:

I am taking this chanse of writing you, as I know the mail goes up to-day. I am on board your boat most the time, all is well there. Now I have something to tell you I know will intrest you. You remember the afternoon of the day you landed here, you and partner stayed here in the afternoon, but Tremane and his party drove over to Tunis that afternoon. Dixon must found a chanse to slip the rest of the party, for he went to the xpress office and sent a package to Ninth National Bank New York, said the value was 3200 dollars. Maybe real value was more but he thought that enough to make xpress people careful. Now it happens my oldest boy, Joe, is xpress agent at Tunis. He was down here to-day and when he heard about robbery he told me about Dixon sending package. Maybe you can put two things together. I tell you this because I like you and believe you’re straight.

Tom Halstead read this illuminating missive over slowly, aloud, with growing wonder in his voice.

“Wow! That’s clear enough. Then Oliver Dixon did steal the money, and he has sent it to a New York bank,” cried young Halstead, all a-quiver with the bigness of the news. “Oh, the scoundrel!”

Nor was “the scoundrel” himself shaking any the less, at that moment. For Oliver Dixon stood on the other side of that thick curtain of leaves. Walking about the grounds, with his cat-like tread, Dixon had heard Tom Halstead’s first excited exclamation. Drawing softly close, he had heard the young skipper’s artless reading of that exciting letter.

First of all Dixon’s face went deathly pale. His knees shook under him. He looked like a man going through the agonies of severe fright.

By the time Tom had finished the reading, however, Dixon had regained his self-control. There was a deep scowl on his face. His fists clenched tightly.

“Now, that young cub will go and show the letter. It will be enough to start even easy-going Henry Tremaine on an investigation. Ruin!” Oliver Dixon confessed to himself. “Oh, what an idiot I was. And yet I needed that money! But now I may as well run away from here at once. I’m done for. Ida Silsbee wouldn’t consider me even fit to be her footmat. I’ll hustle away from here without an excuse.”

Collected, cool enough, but feeling that all was up, Oliver Dixon stole away from the arbor in which the dazed young motor boat skipper still sat, staring at the sheet he held in his hand.

“I guess there’s just one thing to do,” muttered Tom. “That will be to go and show this letter to Mr. Tremaine. He can do as he pleases about it. If that robbery had happened within the limits of Tres Arbores, Clayton Randolph wouldn’t have written the letter; he’d have come here with handcuffs.”

Dixon, having gained the porch, where he found himself alone, paused to light a cigarette and ponder fast.

“I wonder if all is lost, though?” he muttered. “If I could only get hold of that note, and silence Tom Halstead! Then I could try the value of braving it out for a while. It’s a fearful thought, that of losing Ida Silsbee and her fortune!”

Briefly Dixon thought of the possibility of being able to bribe Halstead with a substantial portion of the stolen money. But the rascal shook his head. Much as he disliked the young motor boat captain, the thief was bound to admit to himself that the boy would probably prove incorruptible.

“Especially, if he’s under the witchery of Ida’s eyes!” thought Dixon, with another burst of miserable jealousy.

“I wonder if it would be safe to steal upon him, down in the arbor, and – ”

Oliver Dixon shuddered at the thought that surged up in his mind. Bad though the fellow was, his rascality had its limits.

“I’ll wait and see what I can do,” thought the wretched one, finally. “At the worst, I imagine I could bluff it out, for a day or so, anyway, by claiming that Halstead had put up a job to have that letter mailed to him. By Jove, I’ll stay and fight it out, whatever happens, until I find I’m floored past help. With Ida Silsbee’s fortune in sight, and Tremaine appearing to like me, the stakes are high enough for a really brave, desperate fight. That’s it – fight! Against any odds!”

Tossing away his cigarette into the growing darkness outdoors, and forcing himself to appear wholly at ease, Dixon stepped inside, greeting the group in the living room with one of his pleasantest smiles.

Being rather crudely equipped, the bungalow possessed an old-fashioned wash-room.

Just as Halstead entered, the men-folks were starting for this wash-room, as Ham had announced that supper would be ready in a few minutes. Here Tremaine and Dixon removed their coats, the two Motor Boat Club boys and Jeff slipping off theirs at the same time. There being but two basins, some waiting had to be done. When Mr. Tremaine and Dixon started back to the living room, Tom nudged his chum, whispering:

“Wait a moment, Joe. I’ve something to show you.”

Presently Jeff Randolph, having finished washing and combing his hair, sauntered slowly out. Then the young skipper thrust a hand into his inner coat pocket.

“What! Where did I put that?” muttered Tom, uneasily.

“What was it?” asked Joe Dawson, curiously.

But his chum, instead of replying, rapidly explored all his pockets, then hunted busily about the room.

“It must be something mighty important, whatever it is,” smiled Joe.

“It is,” was all Tom vouchsafed. Then, unable to discover any trace of the letter, Halstead turned to his comrade with a blank face.

“What have you lost?” demanded Joe Dawson, struck by Tom’s serious look.

“I – I guess I won’t speak about it, until I find it,” responded Halstead, slowly, in a dazed, wondering voice. He felt as though passing through some dream. Had he really received such a letter? But of course he had.

“Oh, just as you like,” responded Joe, readily.

“Wait!” begged Tom. “I want to look – and think – before I say a word, even to you, old fellow.”

“All right, then,” nodded Joe, patiently.

Oliver Dixon, who had slipped back to where he could see and hear without being detected, smiled in a satisfied way. He knew where that missing letter was!

Five minutes later all hands were seated at the table, while Ham, with the important look he always wore when presiding over a dinner, bustled about.

When the hot, steaming food was laid before them, Tom was barely able to eat, noting which, Joe wondered, though he was content to wait for the answer.

Oliver Dixon, on the other hand, was in excellent spirits, eating with relish while he chatted brilliantly with his hosts and with Ida Silsbee. Indeed, his companions thought they had never seen the young man to better advantage. Ida was conscious of an increased interest in her suitor.

“Let’s see, Ham,” propounded Henry Tremaine, after a while, “we’re right in the region of your famous ghost, now, aren’t we?”

“Don’ talk erbout dat, sah – please don’t yo’,” begged the negro, glancing uneasily at his employer.

“Why not?” inquired Mr. Tremaine.

“’Cause, sah, talkin’ erbout de Ghost ob Alligator Swamp is jest erbout de same t’ing as ’viting it heah, sah. Ef yo’ speak erbout it, sah, it’s a’most shuah to come heah, sah.”

That Ham Mockus believed what he was saying was but too evident, so kindly Henry Tremaine dropped the subject with a short laugh.

“It was one of the tightest places I was ever in,” declared Oliver Dixon, who was relating an imaginary hunting adventure to Miss Silsbee and Mrs. Tremaine. “I felt buck ague when I saw that animal’s glaring, blazing eyes – ”

Just at that moment Ham was re-entering the room with a tray laden with good things.

From outside there came a sudden, sobbing sound. It was followed, instantly, by a long-drawn-out wail. Instantly this was taken up by a chorus of high-pitched, unearthly shrieks.

Crash! Ham dropped the tray and its contents, which went to smash in the middle of the room.

“Dere it am – oh, Lawdy, dere it am!” yelled Ham Mockus, sinking to his knees. “It’s It – de Ghost ob Alligator Swamp!”

CHAPTER X

THE VISITATION OF THE NIGHT

AS suddenly as it had started the weird noise died away.

“Get up, Ham, you idiot,” commanded Henry Tremaine, crisply.

“Ah – Ah’s shuah scahd to death!” stuttered the negro, looking up appealingly, but not rising from his knees.

“You look it,” laughed the owner of the house. “But it’s all foolishness. There’s no such thing as a ghost.”

“W – w – w – w’uts dat yo’ say?” sputtered Ham Mockus, turning the whites of two badly scared eyes in Mr. Tremaine’s direction.

“I say that there is no such thing as a ghost.”

“Yo? say so aftah hearing —dat?”

“Neighbors giving us a grisly serenade,” retorted Tremaine, grinning. “Whatever it is, that noise came from strictly human sources.”

“Yassuh! Yassuh!” quavered Ham, as though he wanted to be accommodating, yet pitied the white man’s ignorance.

“You really think it’s all nonsense of some kind, my dear?” asked Mrs. Tremaine, who, though not giving way to fright, looked unusually grave.

“I’m so certain it’s all nonsense – or malice,” replied her husband, “that I’m going on with my supper if I can prevail upon Ham to bring me something more to eat.”

The colored man had risen from his knees, but had moved over close to the table, where he stood as though incapable of motion.

“You heard Mr. Tremaine, Hamilton?” asked Mrs. Tremaine, rousingly.

“Yassum. Yassum.”

“Then why don’t you bring food to replace what you dropped?”

“Yassum.”

“Then why don’t you start?”

“W’ut? Me gwine ter dat kitchen – all alone?” almost shrieked Ham.

“Go with him, won’t you, Jeff?” asked the host, turning to their young guide.

Jeff Randolph pushed away his chair, rising and signing to the negro to follow. This Ham did, though moving with reluctant feet. At the door of the kitchen Jeff halted, to scowl at Ham and hurry him up. Then both stepped through into the next room. As they did so, both with a howl retreated back into the living room, while an outer door banged.

“Now – what?” demanded Henry Tremaine, rising from the table and rushing toward the pair.

“Well, sir, I don’t want to look like a fool,” retorted Jeff, just a bit unsteadily, “but I certainly saw something in white – and about ten feet high – cross the kitchen. That something ducked and stole out through the back door.”

There was no doubting Jeff’s truthfulness, nor his courage, either, in any ordinary sense. Yet, at this moment, the Florida boy certainly did look uneasy.

“Come along, you two, and I’m going out with you,” spoke Tremaine, decisively, stepping into the kitchen and drawing a revolver from a hip pocket. “If we run into any ghost – then so much the worse for the ghost!”

With Henry Tremaine on guard in the kitchen, Jeff and Ham went, too, getting what food was necessary, then returning to the dining room with it. Tremaine locked and bolted the outer kitchen door, dropping the key into his pocket. After that, the meal was finished in peace, though Ham took mighty great pains to remain close to the white folks.

Nor was there any further disturbance through the evening. All retired, to their rooms on the second floor, before ten o’clock.

“What do you make of all this?” asked Joe, as he and his chum were disrobing in their room.

“Some kind of buncombe, of course,” replied Tom, thoughtfully. “Yet I can’t see any object or sense in it.”

“One thing we know, anyway,” decided Joe. “Whatever is behind the rumpus, there’s something in all this talk about the Ghost of Alligator Swamp.”

“There’s usually a little fire underneath a lot of smoke,” was Captain Halstead’s answer.

Joe Dawson went to sleep very soon. Not so with Tom Halstead, who lay tossing a long time, thinking over that letter and its sudden disappearance.

“However, there’s no doubt about Dixon, now, anyway,” Halstead reflected. “I’ll watch him from now on. Somehow, he’ll take enough rope, sooner or later, to hang himself.”

He was thinking of that when he dropped asleep. How long he slept he did not know. It was some time well along in the night when every human being in the bungalow was awakened by the sharp crashing of breaking glass. After the happenings of the early evening all the party were sleeping lightly.

Tom and Joe hit the floor with their feet almost in the same second. While Dawson raced to a window, throwing it up, young Halstead began hastily to throw on his clothing.

From the two adjoining rooms, occupied by the Tremaines and Miss Silsbee, came the sound of women’s voices, talking excitedly.

“I didn’t see anything,” reported Joe, bustling back, “though the racket was on this side of the house.”

As Tom Halstead darted into the hallway he encountered Henry Tremaine. They raced down stairs together, Joe coming next, with Dixon promptly after him. Then Jeff arrived at the foot of the stairs. Ham Mockus, as might have been expected, did not put in an appearance.

Tremaine carried with him a lighted lantern. Tom quickly lighted two lamps.

All the lights of glass in three windows of the living room had been smashed, the fragments of glass strewing the floor.

“This is an unghostly trick,” declared Tremaine, wrathily. “This is plain, malicious mischief. Fortunately, I have glass and putty with which we can repair this damage. But I want to tell you all, right now, if you see a ghost, pot it with a bullet if you can. We’ll keep the rifles at hand during the rest of our stay here.”

They went to the rifles, loaded them and waited, after extinguishing the lights. No more sounds or “signs” bothered the watchers. After an hour of watching, Tremaine, who was a good sleeper, began to yawn.