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

“I’ll tell you what, sir,” proposed Halstead, finally. “Joe and I will remain on guard, on opposite sides of the house. You and Mr. Dixon may as well turn in and get some sleep.”

“All right, then,” agreed the owner. “But see here, you call me in two hours, and Dixon and I will come down for a turn at this business. We’ve got to catch this ’ghost,’ if there’s any chance at all; yet we must all of us have some sleep.”

So the two Motor Boat Club boys, each provided with rifle and box of cartridges, stepped outside to keep the first watch. At some distance apart both patrolled slowly around the house, keeping sharp watch of the shadows under the nearest of the trees that covered most of the landscape. Once in a while the two boys met for consultation in low tones.

“Nothing doing in the ghostly line,” yawned Tom, at last.

“There won’t be,” nodded Joe, “as long as the ghost knows there’s an armed, unafraid guard patrolling.”

“Then what can it all mean?” wondered Halstead. “What object can any human beings have in annoying other human beings in this fashion?”

Joe shook his head. It was all equally past his powers of comprehension.

Nothing happened up to the end of the two hours. Then, while Joe remained outside alone, for a few moments, Halstead went to call Mr. Tremaine. That gentleman and Dixon soon appeared to take up the guard work, which would last until within two hours of daylight.

“Tremaine, can you keep the watch here by yourself, for a while?” inquired Oliver Dixon, in an undertone.

“Yes, of course. Why?”

“Then I want to slip away presently. I won’t do so at once because I don’t want to attract attention of anyone who may be watching us in the woods. Yet I want to get into the woods, to hide and watch there.”

“You evidently are not afraid to go into the creepy places,” smiled the host.

“Of course I’m not,” rejoined Dixon. “What I want to do is to see if I can’t trap some of the human beings who are at the bottom of this nonsense.”

“Try it, and good luck to you, my boy,” agreed Tremaine, cordially.

Some time later, Oliver Dixon succeeded in slipping quietly away under the trees. Not even Henry Tremaine knew quite when it was done. After that, an hour passed, during which the owner of the bungalow patrolled alone about his grounds. Then with startling rapidity there came from the woods the sound of four rifle shots.

“Dixon must have stumbled into something!” muttered Henry Tremaine, wheeling and running towards the spot from which the shots seemed to come.

Just before he reached the edge of the woods Mr. Tremaine halted, for Dixon rushed out from under the trees at him. The young man was panting.

“You act as though you’d really seen the ghost,” laughed Henry Tremaine, dryly.

“I – I – guess I did!” gasped Dixon. “It was something white, anyway, and about ten feet high – an indescribable, almost shapeless mass of white.”

“You fired four shots at it?”

“Yes; almost at arm’s length.”

“Did it drop?”

“No; nor run away. It came straight at me – my legs saved me.”

“Let’s go back into the woods after it,” proposed Tremaine, intrepidly.

But Oliver Dixon caught at his host’s arm, muttering hoarsely:

“N-n-not until I get my nerve back, anyway!”

CHAPTER XI

TOM HAS A SPOOK HUNT OF HIS OWN

“WHY, my boy,” murmured Mr. Tremaine, in a kindly tone, “you appear to be altogether demoralized.”

“I am a bit upset, just for the moment,” Dixon admitted. “Yet I am not a coward.”

“You don’t believe, actually, there are any such things as ghosts?” queried his host.

“Certainly not!”

“Then – ”

“But I can’t begin to account for what I saw, nor for what happened. Tremaine, what would you say if you saw a white apparition – a big one – and if you fired four shots through it, almost at arm’s length, without injuring that apparition? What then?”

“I’d be puzzled, I admit,” assented the older man. “I can’t understand your experience.”

“I guess I’m a bit steadier, now,” laughed Oliver Dixon, presently. “Now, what do you want to do, Tremaine? I’m with you for whatever you say.”

“Why, we can’t both leave the house. Will you watch here while I go into the woods where you met with your adventure?”

“Are you going alone?” demanded the younger man, as though a good deal astonished.

“Why, yes; certainly.”

“Don’t you think it foolhardy?”

“Well, you got out alive, didn’t you?” questioned Henry Tremaine, with a quizzical smile. “I’ll hope for at least just as good luck.”

“Shan’t I call the boys, and have at least one of them go with you? Or else, leave them on guard here, while I go with you?”

“It isn’t necessary,” decided the owner of the bungalow, promptly. “The boys need some sleep to-night. Let them sleep. You stay here and I’ll try to pick up your route through the woods. Now, describe to me, as well as you can, where you went.”

This Dixon either did, or pretended to do.

“Keep your eyes all around the outside of the house here,” was Tremaine’s last word, after which, holding his rifle at ready, he trudged off over the grounds and into the woods.

More than an hour passed before the owner of the bungalow came back.

“I saw nothing – absolutely nothing, nor heard anything,” reported Mr. Tremaine. “Dixon, I can’t fathom your experience in the woods.”

“I can’t either,” admitted the younger man.

It did not occur to the older man to doubt Dixon. Though their acquaintance was recent, Dixon had impressed Henry Tremaine as being a gentleman, and dependable.

For some little time the two discussed Dixon’s alleged experience with the ghost, as they strolled around the house through the dark. At last it came time to call Tom Halstead and Joe Dawson for their next tour of watch duty, and Tremaine went inside to arouse them.

Though gaping a bit drowsily, both boys responded promptly, taking over the rifles and a supply of ammunition from the men whom they were to relieve.

“When you two get through it will be daylight,” announced Mr. Tremaine. “Slip into the house, then, and get at least a bit of a nap. I’ll see to it that you’re called in plenty of time for the day’s sport. Get all the sleep you possibly can.”

Following this, Mr. Tremaine gave a brief account of Dixon’s “adventure.” Then Dixon himself gave a more detailed description of his alleged meeting with the “ghost.” To him, however, Tom and Joe listened with but scant attention. Their dislike of Dixon had grown to a point where it was difficult even to pretend politeness to him.

“Humph!” uttered Joe, when the two men had gone inside the bungalow.

“That’s your opinion of Dixon’s yarn, is it?” demanded Halstead.

“He’s either lying, or dreaming,” proclaimed young Dawson, bluntly.

“I’d like to find out which,” muttered Captain Tom, “though I can guess, already. Joe, old fellow, you don’t say much, but I’m fast learning to pin to your judgments of people. You didn’t like Dixon from the first moment he showed himself on board the ‘Restless,’ did you?”

“I don’t believe I enthused over him,” grimaced Dawson.

“Dixon couldn’t really be responsible for the Ghost of Alligator Swamp, could he?” demanded Tom Halstead, suddenly.

After that abrupt query both boys were silent for a while as they trudged about the grounds together.

“No,” decided Joe, at last. “It isn’t at all likely, for, according to Ham Mockus, and also according to some of the white people we talked with in Tres Arbores, the Ghost of Alligator Swamp has been doing business for the last three years, at least.”

Twice more around the house they went. Tom, thinking deeply, at last burst forth:

“Joe, I’m going to do just what Dixon did. I’m going into the woods yonder, and see whether I can have the luck to encounter that big white spook.”

Joe Dawson halted, peering queerly into his chum’s face.

“Tom, you don’t mean that!”

“Yes, I do.”

“But the risk? I don’t mean the spook. You’d like only too well to meet that, I know. I mean the snakes. In a country as full of rattlers as this section is, it’s mighty dangerous to go stepping about through the woods on a dark night.”

“Dixon braved ’em, didn’t he?” challenged Tom Halstead, defiantly.

“He only says he did, remember. My idea is that he didn’t go very far into the woods.”

“Well – I’m going,” said Tom, deliberately, after a thoughtful pause.

“Be careful, then, old fellow!”

Joe, who seldom said much, and who rarely did anything demonstrative, reached out his hand, gripping Halstead’s.

“I’m wishing myself good luck,” laughed Halstead, over his shoulder, as he started away. “If I’m gone a goodish while, don’t worry. And remember that your post is guarding the house!”

Joe Dawson felt a sense of almost unaccountable uneasiness steal over him as his straining eyes watched his chum slowly vanish into the gloom, and then finally disappear under the shadows of the trees at the edge of the forest.

“I wonder if I ought to have kept him back?” chafed Joe Dawson, again and again, as he trudged vigilantly around the bungalow, pausing to peer off into the darkness whenever he came around to the side from which Skipper Tom Halstead had departed.

Joe became more worried every moment. Yet the time slipped by. From the forest came not a sound or a sign of any kind. At last the first pale streaks of dawn appeared.

“Say!” muttered Joe, almost angrily, halting to glare off at the forest. “What on earth is Tom doing – taking a nap under the trees?”

Daylight became more pronounced. Surely, there could be no harm in leaving the yard for a moment or two – now. Joe darted into the bungalow, up the stairs, and into the room where Jeff Randolph slept.

“Come, get up!” commanded Dawson, energetically. “Get a gun and come down by the door. Tom Halstead is missing, and I’ve got to go after him.”

Though Jeff was, at first, inclined to resent the arousing, as soon as he understood what was in the wind the Florida boy tumbled off his cot in lively fashion and began to pull on his clothes.

“Anything up, Dawson?” softly called Henry Tremaine, poking his head through the doorway of his bedroom.

“Tom Halstead went into the woods, and hasn’t come back,” quivered Joe. “I’m going to look for him.”

“Don’t stir until I get down below,” called Henry Tremaine, sharply. “I’ll be there in a minute and a fraction.”

Nor did Joe Dawson have to wait long ere Henry Tremaine, with hunting rifle in hand, bounded out from the house, followed by Oliver Dixon.

“Dixon will stand on guard here, while the rest of us go into the woods,” declared Tremaine. “Now, lead on quickly, the way you saw Halstead go.”

Off at a quick run started Joe Dawson. They entered the woods, spreading out in a line as they went.

“Here – everybody!” yelled Henry Tremaine, within two minutes. His hail brought Joe and Jeff to him on the jump.

“Look at the ground here,” cried the owner of the bungalow, hoarsely. “There’s been a struggle here.”

“And good old Tom was in it!” panted Joe, making a dive for the ground, then holding up one of the brass uniform buttons bearing the monogram of the Motor Boat Club.

The three discoverers stood staring blankly at one another for the next few seconds.

“See if there’s a trail – look about for it,” commanded Tremaine, himself beginning to search about over the ground.

“Here’s the start of one,” called Jeff, presently. “And now it dies out. Hunters of the Everglades, I reckon, were the men who did this trick. They know how to cover trails. Yet perhaps they’ve given us a clue, for the trail, as it starts, heads toward the water.”

Feverishly these startled ones pressed on to the lake’s edge. As they came down to the water they saw no craft out yonder – nothing but the morning mist over the surface of the lake and the many small islands visible from where they stood.

“Great Scott!” roared Joe. “Look at the pier! The launch is gone – taken from under our very noses!”

It did not require a second look to make sure that the motor boat was, indeed, gone!

CHAPTER XII

WHAT BEFELL THE YOUNG SKIPPER

MINDFUL of the danger from rattlers, which makes the section near the Everglades a dangerous one to travel by night, Tom Halstead proceeded into the forest with great caution.

Every here and there, too, were boggy bits of land in which the feet would sink.

So much care did his choice of path need that the motor boat skipper did not have time to give much heed to anything else.

“Hss-sst!”

That sharp, yet low, sound came to his ears before he had been engaged ten minutes in exploring the dark forest.

Halstead halted instantly, gooseflesh beginning to come out over him, for his first thought was that he was nearing one of the dreaded rattlesnakes.

“Oh, pshaw!” he muttered to himself, after a moment. “Rattlers don’t hiss; they rattle. It must be I imagined that sound.”

Once more he started forward.

“Hss-sst!”

Again the youthful skipper stopped dead short, this time feeling less startled, though he became, if possible, more alert.

“That isn’t a ghostly noise, either, even if there were such a thing as a ghost,” the boy muttered inwardly. “I must be getting close to the makers of the noises. Confound this darkness!”

Tom stood quite still, peering in the direction from which he fancied the slight noise had come.

Suddenly Tom Halstead felt himself seized from behind. There was no time to cry out ere he pitched violently forward on his face, which was instantly buried in the soft grass of a bog. At least two men were a-top of him. Barely had he struck the ground when the young skipper felt the hunting rifle torn from his grasp.

Powerful hands gripped at his throat, the while his hands were yanked behind him and bound. Then he was rolled over onto his back. The grip about his throat was continued until his mouth had been forced open and filled with a big handful of the hanging moss that grows so picturesquely on Florida trees. This was swiftly and deftly made fast in place by a cord forced between his teeth and passed around his head.

“Now, I reckon the young cub can be yanked onto his feet,” came in a low, cool voice from one of the assailants.

Tom Halstead was brought up onto his feet with a jerk. At last, he was able to see all his captors as well as the almost total darkness permitted.

Two of them were white men, in ragged jeans and wearing coarse woolen jackets and nondescript caps. The other two men were negroes; if possible they looked more ragged than their white companions. All seemed to be between the ages of thirty and forty.

“Whew! But this is a hard-looking crowd,” reflected young Halstead, as coolly as he could. “So this is the composite Ghost of Alligator Swamp? Humph! I’ve found the ghost, but I wish it were under better circumstances!”

“This yere,” whispered one of the white pair, to his companions, “is the one we want – the fellow that’s captain of the yacht down in Oyster Bay.”

“Now, why on earth do they want me, especially, and how on earth do they recognize me so easily?” wondered Tom Halstead, with a new start.

“We’se right glad t’ see yo’, suh!” remarked the other white man, with an evil grin. “So glad we won’t even trouble yo’ to walk. Jabe, I reckon yo’ can carry the young gentleman. Pick him up.”

Humming softly, the more stalwart negro of the pair clasped Halstead around the waist, easily raising the helpless boy to one of his broad shoulders.

“Don’ make no trail, now,” warned one of the whites who appeared to be the leader, as he led the way carrying Halstead’s captured rifle.

Their path took them down straight to the water’s edge. From there they worked around to the pier, which, in the darkness, was not visible from the front of the bungalow.

“Thanks to the pair o’ oahs in this yere boat I reckon we can borrow it,” observed the leader, in a low tone. “Jabe, put ouah passenger in the bow o’ the boat an’ set close by him. We can’t have him lettin’ out no yells.”

After Tom had been disposed of in the bottom of the boat – Jabe unconcernedly resting one foot on the body of the prostrate prisoner – the others got in cautiously.

Casting off, one of the white men and one of the negroes possessed themselves of an oar each. With these they noiselessly shoved off into deeper water, after which they took to sculling softly. Thus they went along until they had placed the first of the little islands between themselves and the bungalow. Now, the other pair took oars and began to row in earnest. The oars were always kept in the boat for use in case the motor should break down. The boat was a heavy, cumbersome thing to row, but these men seemed possessed of enormous strength. By the time that daylight began to creep into the eastern sky, some three miles down the lake had been covered.

“Now, I reckon we can staht the motor a little bit, anyway,” observed the leader of these rascals. “Ef we run easy fo’ a few miles, then we’ll be fah enough away so that ouah noise won’t be heard from Marse Tremaine’s house, anyway.”

As soon as the oars had been shipped this fellow bent over the motor. It was evident that he knew something about starting such an engine, for he soon had the motor running all but noiselessly and carrying the boat along at more than four miles an hour. One of the negroes had taken the wheel.

“An houah of this,” chuckled the leader, “and I reckon we can go at the fullest kind o’ speed – straight for the Evahglades.”

As he could not speak, Tom Halstead had been putting in his time with the liveliest kind of thinking, while he silently watched his captors.

“I guess I can place these chaps without the aid of a directory,” thought the motor boat captain savagely. “When white men mix with negroes, in Florida, they’re a pretty poor sort of white men. This whole gang must belong to the class of fugitives from the law that flee to the Everglades when they can get ahead of the police officers. They’re a desperate gang, out for any kind of plunder, stopping at few crimes.”

Not a little had young Halstead read of these outlaws of the Everglades. Since reaching Florida he had heard much more of them. In these vast, desolate stretches of swamp land there are a multitude of trackless ways. Once a criminal, fleeing from justice, gets two or three miles into the Everglades, he is almost certain to remain a free man as long as he stays there. In all these vast reaches of swamp and dark waters, with every advantage in favor of the hiding criminal, the officer of the law, if he pursues, has a very little chance of ever finding his quarry.

Florida police officers are not cowards. The men of Florida are brave. Yet officers have been known to pursue fugitive criminals into the Everglades and never come out again. Those who do get out alive often have a tale to tell of days or weeks of patient search through the gloomy, swampy fastnesses without ever once having caught sight of the men they sought.

When a criminal in southern Florida escapes with his booty, and is seen no more, the officers are wont to shake their heads and say:

“He has hiked it into the Everglades.”

“Which is as good as saying that the criminal is where he can’t be found or tracked, and that he is safe from the law unless he should take it into his head to come out once more into the communities. Nor is it necessary for these men to return to the haunts of civilization, unless they wish to do so. Crops may be raised in these hidden fastnesses, and wild animals may be shot for meat and clothing. Yet it is the nature of mankind to yearn for a return to old haunts. So every now and then a fugitive from the Everglades is caught, though rarely or never in the Everglades themselves.

“A nice crowd I’m with, and a fine chance I’ve got ever to get back to my friends!” was the thought that rushed, with swift alarm, through Tom Halstead’s brain. “And it was plain they did want me. They were looking for me, more than for anyone else. But why?”

The more Halstead racked his brain for the answer the more puzzled he became.

“Of course, Oliver Dixon might want me out of the way; undoubtedly he does. Yet he had no acquaintance with these ruffians. Dixon is as much of a stranger to this section as any of the rest of us.”

Then, at last, came the stunning thought:

“Jupiter! Dixon claims he met something that looked like a ghost! Was that all a lie? Did he go alone into the woods, and call so convincingly that he brought some of these scoundrels to him? Did he pay them to take me away? Were his story and his wild shots, his scared looks and his wild talk all parts of a monstrous lie?”

Tom Halstead throbbed with agony as he became more and more sure in his own mind that he had solved the mystery of his abduction by these wretches of the Everglades.

If he had not solved the puzzle correctly, then he could think of no other explanation that seemed at all plausible.

“And I determined to investigate Dixon’s story for myself, and went right out into the forest – right out into the very trap set for me!” muttered the young motor boat skipper, trembling with rage and disgust. “Oh, what an impulsive, hot-headed fool I was! How Oliver Dixon will shake with inward laughter at finding me just the idiot he expected me to be!”

So utterly angry was he with himself that Halstead did himself injustice. It is doubtful if Dixon was clever enough to have planned it all just as it had happened. It had been a chance – a lucky one for Dixon – that had placed Tom Halstead in this terrible situation.

As the boat swept along under increased speed the four men regaled themselves on food that they drew from their various pockets. Halstead felt a ravenous gnawing under his belt, but none of his captors offered him anything to eat.

“There ain’t grub enough to throw any of it away, younker,” observed the leader, as he swept the last crumbs into his own mouth. “But I reckon maybe yo’ would like some use or yo’ mouth. Jabe, take that packing out from between the younker’s teeth.”

This service the negro performed, rather roughly, it is true. But at last Tom Halstead could take a really deep breath; he could talk, if he so desired; but he was in no mood to do that.

The young skipper knew that the boat was now traveling rapidly, though he could not see above the gunwale of the craft. From the actions of these Everglades ruffians, however, the boy knew that they did not sight any other boats. Thus the forenoon wore along until, at last, the leader, whom the others addressed as “Sim,” remarked:

“Jabe, yo’ may as well let the younker set up on a seat, now. He-un won’t try to jump ovahbo’d. If he-un does, so much the easier fo’ us.”

“Let him have his hands?” inquired the bulky negro.

“Yep; might jest as well.”

So the bonds were removed from the young skipper’s wrists. He accepted this favor in sullen silence, then raised himself to one of the seats.

“Thought yo’ might like to see the country yo’ are goin’ into,” vouchsafed Sim, with a grin.

As Tom Halstead glanced about him he saw that Lake Okeechobee was behind them. The boat was now running along, at a speed reduced to some six miles an hour, on a gloomy-looking lagoon not more than forty feet wide. Just ahead of them were great, gaunt cypress trees, laden with hanging moss, that almost met over the water.

“We don’ brag none erbout the scen’ry heah,” observed Sim, “but it’s a good, safe country in the Evahglades. Plenty o’ snakes an’ ’gators heah, but we-uns is used to ’em. Evah eat a ’gator steak?”

“No,” answered Halstead, shortly.

“Likely ernuff yo’ will, in the months to come,” asserted Sim. “An’ it’s a powahful good rifle yo’ brought to us. We-uns was out o’ cartridges but now we done got some ’at will fix ’gators all right.”

A mile further on they came to broader waters, a sort of swamp lake that was at least a quarter of a mile wide. Through the windings of this body they traversed for three or four miles, the water at last narrowing, until the waterway was barely more than wide enough or deep enough to allow the handling of the boat. Yet Sim managed it remarkably well.

“I reckon this yere boat is goin’ to be powahful handy to us, after this,” the leader laughed. “We-uns sho’ly can get away fast ef anyone tries to chase us ’cross Okeechobee.”