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

“Would you do that if you were here all alone?”

“In a second!”

“Then do it anyway,” begged Ida Silsbee. “I’m not brave, but I can take a fighting chance and follow orders.”

“I’m thinking of the risk, if——” began Halstead again, musingly and in a low voice.

“If what?”

“Well, what if the ’gator, seeing me coming, should turn and charge me, just miss me, and keep coming right on for you?”

“I’d run into the water, Mr. Halstead, for you to pick me up.”

“Good heavens! In the water that ’gator could go a hundred feet, almost, to your one!”

“Then I’d dash along the shore as fast as I could, until you could run the boat down and pick me up.”

“I’m going to try it,” decided Halstead, coolly. “It seems to promise the greatest safety for you.”

“But yourself?”

“Oh, confound me! I’m a boy.”

“You’re a man, Tom Halstead, and a splendid one at that!”

“I shall get my head turned, at this rate,” replied Tom, smiling dryly. “I’d better run at once.”

Grasping Ida Silsbee’s right hand, he thrust the tiller stick into it.

“Hold onto this. Don’t drop the stick, no matter what happens,” he directed. “Use it against ’gators—or snakes.”

Then, without loss of an instant’s time, he turned and sprinted desperately. A hundred feet is a short distance when one is traveling as though on air.

Seeing the boy coming, the alligator wheeled clumsily about. By this time, however, Tom Halstead’s hands rested against the bow of the boat. At the start of the run he had opened his sailor’s clasp knife. At one stout slash the boy cut the line holding the boat. Then he shoved off with his hands, and made a flying vault into the boat. Nor did he lose a second, as the boat drifted out from the shore, in starting the motor.

After the first moment’s hesitation the big ’gator started for the boat, as if scenting an enemy that might be vanquished. Seeing the high bow of the launch slip away, the ’gator kept on, lumberingly, toward Miss Silsbee.

Chug! chug! chug! sounded the motor’s exhaust, firing like pistol shots. The clumsy beast stopped an instant, as though wondering what new style of attack this could be on man’s part. Then, finding that no harm came, the big saurian reptile eyed Ida Silsbee’s fluttering skirts, and kept on lumbering toward her.

“Stay where you are!” called Tom Halstead, in a cool, low voice. It was typical of him that, the greater the danger, the more intense his coolness. His right hand on the wheel, the other ready to shift the motor control, he darted in to where Miss Silsbee stood bravely eyeing the oncoming alligator.

As the bow grated, Tom Halstead sprang up.

“Your hand!” he cried. “Like lightning!”

As she sprang, then half-stumbled, the alligator’s head was hardly more than twenty feet away. With a quick out-shoot of its breath the big creature hastened forward.

Tom half lifted, half dragged Ida into the boat, at the same time taking the tiller stick from her. Almost at the instant when her heels cleared the gunwale a huge pair of jaws loomed up close beside the bow.

Not really pausing to think what he did, Halstead let out a yell that would have done credit to one of the Seminole aborigines of the Everglades. In the same flashing instant he rammed the tiller stick far down into the mouth of the alligator.

His left hand caught the reverse gear. The propeller churned and the launch glided out, stern foremost, into deeper water, while the alligator, bringing its jaws down with a crunching snap on the bar of wood, went through some absurd antics in trying to expel the tiller stick from its mouth. Then Tom Halstead laughed.

“Not such bad sport, eh, Miss Silsbee?”

He had backed far enough out, now, to turn on the speed ahead and swing around, heading north.

Though she trembled a bit from excitement, Ida Silsbee leaned forward, catching the boy’s disengaged right hand and holding it in friendly pressure for a moment.

“Tom Halstead, it’s more than a pleasure to know one like you!”

The young captain laughed quietly as he thanked her.

“I reckon we’ll have some appetite for lunch, now, Miss Silsbee. Yet I almost feel that I owe you an apology.”

“For what, pray?”

“For not having been clever enough to find some way of killing that lumbering beast and presenting you with its hide. What a novel suitcase it would have made for you.”

Ida Silsbee laughed merrily. There was so much clear grit in her make-up that she had now recovered her composure fully.

“You’re not easily pleased, are you?” she challenged, whimsically.

“Well, we’ll have to admit we made a bungle of the affair all around,” teased Tom. “For you see, after all we left the moss behind on the island.”

“Oh, that moss!” cried the girl, pouting. “I’m glad I did drop it, for I shall always hate that particular species of moss whenever I think of the fate it so nearly brought upon us.”

The launch was now slipping over the water at its full speed, so it was not long ere these young travelers came in sight of the Tremaine winter bungalow once more.

Henry Tremaine and his wife were alone on the porch as the boat’s whistle sounded just before the landing was made.

Oliver Dixon had stolen away by himself, consuming himself with rage over the fact that Ida should have chosen to slip away without inviting him. Dixon came outside, however, as the young people came up the boardwalk together.

“Oh, Mrs. Tremaine, you have missed such a stirring time,” hailed Miss Silsbee, gayly.

Tom Halstead laughed, quietly. Hearing their arrival, Joe also came out. Miss Silsbee, of course, had to describe their adventure, in which Tom Halstead’s share lost nothing by her telling.

“I hope you’ll take a sufficient warning from this, child,” said Mr. Tremaine, presently. “Never venture onto any of the islands, or in any of these woods hereabouts, unless beaters go ahead of you to rouse up and despatch whatever snakes there may be lurking under the bushes.”

“Beaters?” inquired the girl.

“Yes; any of the negroes, like Ham, for instance. They don’t mind snakes. They hunt them for sport.”

Ham Mockus made his presence in the background noted.

“Men of your color don’t mind hunting snakes, do you, Ham?” asked the host.

“No, sah. Ah reckons not much, sah.”

“In fact, none of the natives here stand much in dread of reptiles,” continued Tremaine. “They’re used to hunting them, and seem to develop a special instinct for knowing where the snakes are. Young Randolph and Ham, I venture to believe, would go through a twenty-acre field, finding and killing all the snakes there happened to be there.”

“This talk is becoming rather annoying, my dear,” shivered Mrs. Tremaine.

“I beg your pardon, then,” responded her husband, quickly. “We’ll consider something more cheerful.”

“Dat’s w’ut Ah gwine come to tell yo’ ’bout,” declared Ham, gravely. “Ladies an’ gemmen, luncheon’s done served. Yassuh!”

CHAPTER VIII
A CRACK SHOT AT THE GAME

WHILE the party were thus engaged in discussing the luncheon, the young Randolph referred to, Jefferson being his Christian name, was busy in another room of the bungalow, cleaning alligator rifles.

Jeff was the sixteen-year-old son of Officer Randolph. Despite his youth, this young man, who was tall, slim, wiry and strong, had already led several successful alligator hunts in the Everglades. He had been engaged, on his father’s recommendation, for this expedition. Officer Randolph, in the meantime, had consented to make his headquarters aboard the “Restless,” which fact permitted both Tom and Joe to get their first taste of alligator sport.

Throughout the luncheon, Oliver Dixon, though he had succeeded in obtaining the chair next to Ida Silsbee’s, remained for the most part silent and distrait, a prey to hatred of the young motor boat captain.

“If a few more things like this adventure happen,” Dixon told himself, “I shall be pretty certain to find Ida slipping away from me altogether. It seems absurd to think of a full-grown young woman like her falling in love with a mere boy. Bah! That really can’t happen, of course. Yet it isn’t wholly unlikely that she’ll become so much interested in Tom Halstead’s kind that my sort of man won’t appeal to her. I must be watchful and keep myself properly in the foreground.”

If young Dixon felt himself much devoted to Ida Silsbee, even he knew that he was much more attracted by the fact that, as money went, Ida Silsbee was a rather important heiress.

One of Dixon’s basic faults was that he hated useful work. He would much rather live on a rich wife’s money.

By the time that the meal was over the fortune-hunter had come to one important conclusion.

“If I want to stand well with Ida,” he told himself, “then I must conceal my feelings well enough to keep on seemingly good terms with this young Halstead cub. I’ve got to treat the boy pleasantly, and make him like me. Otherwise, a girl who places her friendships as impulsively as Ida Silsbee does is likely to conceive an actual dislike for me. That would be a fearful obstacle to my plans!”

So, as all rose from the table at Mrs. Tremaine’s signal, Dixon inquired, pleasantly:

“Going back down the lake for a chance at that pair of ’gators this afternoon, Halstead?”

“I don’t know,” Tom answered. “I’m wholly at Mr. Tremaine’s disposal.”

“Jove! I don’t know that it would be such a bad plan,” mused Henry Tremaine. “What do you say, my dear?”

“Would it be necessary for any of us to leave the boat?” asked Mrs. Tremaine, cautiously.

“Not at all necessary.”

“Is there any danger of the horrid things trying to climb into the boat?”

“I never heard of a ’gator trying to do such a thing.”

“Or would an alligator be at all likely to swim under the boat, then rise, overturning us?”

“I think I can promise you that no self-respecting alligator would think of doing such a thing,” laughed Mr. Tremaine.

“Then I’m ready enough to vote for going,” agreed Mrs. Tremaine.

“Halstead—Dawson—you know what that means,” warned the owner of the place.

“How soon will you start, sir?” inquired Tom.

“We ought to be ready within twenty minutes.”

“Then Joe and I will have the boat ready, sir. Anything we can carry down to the launch?”

“No; we’ll take only rifles and ammunition, which will be all we’ll want. Ham, you’ll watch the house while we’re gone.”

“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:

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.

“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.