Motor Boat Boys Among the Florida Keys Part 3

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

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

Jack laughed.

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

"What is it?" asked George.

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

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

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

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

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

"Jimmy, what do you say?" demanded Jack.

"Me too!" piped up the Irish lad. "Sure it do be giving me the c.r.a.pes just to listen to that thing go whirring around."

"You hear the verdict, Nick?" said Jack, pretending to a.s.sume the air of a judge addressing the prisoner in the dock.

"Oh! I ain't saying a word," Nick replied, with a shrug of his fat shoulders. "I c'n see myself that it would be a mean trick to play.

Never thought much about it that way. Give her a toss, Jack. And Josh, I hope you won't hold it against me too hard. You know, you're top-notch yet in that bully contest of ours."

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

"That's all right, Nick; so long as it don't happen again I ain't goin'

to think too much about it. Fact is, it's goin' to give me a cold shiver every time I hear anything like that rattle. And now I'll be getting back to my work."

"Then you don't want anybody to suck the poison out?" asked Nick.

"Let up on that, now, will you? I guess I'm able to hobble around yet,"

and bending down, Josh gathered some of the dry trash that he wanted, to hurry the fire on with.

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

Although they ate supper ash.o.r.e, it was considered wise to sleep aboard.

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

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

Under Jack's wise guidance they found little trouble in navigating the broad or narrow waters of the various channels. As steamboats pa.s.sed through daily in the season, there were plenty of "targets" pointing out the deeper waters; and where the lagoon happened to be very shallow, ca.n.a.ls had been dredged.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Well, is there any more important business known than supplying the human engine with plenty of fuel?" demanded the other, st.u.r.dily.

"Perhaps the engineer may be the more important fellow of the two; but the stoker is just as necessary, if the machine is to be kept going. But there's Josh calling me to help him. I'm always Johnny-on-the-spot when it comes to helping Josh get grub ready"--and he waddled off serenely; for Nick was so happily const.i.tuted that no matter what jabs he received from his chums, they seemed to roll from him like water from a duck's back.

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

"I'm on, Jack, darlint," Jimmy immediately responded; "and it's ready I am now."

CHAPTER IV.

THAT SAME OLD UNLUCKY WIRELESS.

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

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

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

"Look out, and don't get too close to him, Jimmy," Jack warned.

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

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