Chapter 16

IN THE CROCODILE COUNTRY

One evening while Dick had one of his alligator pets sitting up on his tail, teaching him to sing, as he told his chum, Ned said:

"Crocodiles are a lot more interesting than alligators and the Florida crocodile is nearly extinct. All that are left are in a little strip of land near Madeira Hammock, which is only a mile or two wide and eight or ten long. Let's go down to Madeira Hammock and catch some to look at. We can turn them loose after we are through with them."

"Mr. Streeter says there is no way to get through to Florida Bay, where Madeira Hammock is, by water from Whitewater Bay."

"Your outlaw says there is, only you have to tote your canoe some."

"He isn't my outlaw. I don't sit up nights making maps with him, and anyhow we can't tote the canoe through a mangrove swamp, and that's what we're up against if we go that way."

"But our outlaw--the outlaw, if you like--says we can find little creeks up toward the Glades that will take us almost through."

"All right. We'll start in the morning. I wish we'd cured about a ton or two less of that meat. We'll have to make a lot of trips across the carries. You don't see any way to take my alligators along, do you?"

Two days were spent in following creeks that led to nothing and then one was found with a deeper channel which led them for miles, after which it broke up into several little waterways, which were almost without current and so shallow that the boys had to wade and drag their canoe. Their progress was slow, and they slept on a bed of brush which had lumps and knots to bruise every soft spot on their bodies. Their next trouble was a strip of mangrove swamp which a cat couldn't have crawled through. After following along the mangroves for an hour they found a creek which entered it. As they followed this creek it grew wider and deepened. There was a slight current that flowed with them; the water was brackish, and they knew it led to the Bay of Florida and that the Madeira Hammock was near.

The mangrove gave place to a better growth, the soil became richer and vegetation more luxuriant. Soon they had to cut away vines and branches to clear the way for the canoe, but they counted their troubles over. They were paddling gaily ahead when they saw in front of them a branch that stretched across the creek about a foot above the water. They had met plenty of similar obstructions, but this was different. There was a big wasps' nest on the branch and the air was filled with flying little pests. It was impossible to get around the nest and it was doubtful if there was another creek that would take them through.

"Let's get some dry palmetto fans and make torches. Then we can burn and smoke the wasps out," said Ned.

"Dunno as I want to wade up to that nest and set it afire. Ouch!" said Dick, who had sat down on what he thought was a stump, but had turned out to be an ants' nest. "Holy smoke! Don't these things bite? I don't believe wasps are in it with them. Anyhow, I'm going to find out."

Dick took the oar that was used to pole the canoe and wading straight toward the nest struck it a blow that most fortunately knocked it to the water, while a second blow sent it under the surface. A few of the outlying insects stung the boy and he had a dozen little lumps to show for a day or two, but he had captured the fort and drowned the garrison and the canoe passed in peace.

The creek emptied into a wide bay on the high bank of which the boys camped. It was part of the Madeira Hammock, the most beautiful native forest they had seen. At daylight a large crocodile was floating on the bay near the camp, but sank out of sight as the campers showed themselves. From the bay the canoeists entered a deep river with high banks on which were growing madeira, wild sapadillo, palms of several kinds and other varieties of trees. In the sides of the high banks at the water line the boys saw holes which they believed to be the caves of crocodiles. In the mouth of one the water was muddied and Dick cut a long pole which he poked into the hole. At first he felt something seize the pole, but could not afterward find the creature. He then took the pole on the bank and thrust it into the ground where he thought the reptile was most likely to be. When he had worked thirty feet back from the bank he felt something move and the next instant Ned, who had stayed in the canoe at the mouth of the cave, was nearly capsized by the rush of a great beast nearly the size of the canoe.

"Why didn't you grab it, Ned? What is the use of my driving game to you, if you let it slip through your fingers?"

"Perhaps you think that was one of the alligator babies you've been nursing. You didn't see the big head with the tusks running out of the top of it."

"No, but I mean to see the next one. It'll be your turn to do the punching while I rope the critter."

"If you had got your rope on that one and held on, you'd be in his cave now, inside the owner's tummy."

The next crocodile was not far away and the hunters saw it crawl into its cave. Dick stood on the bank over the cave and arranged the noose on the end of the harpoon line around the mouth of the cave, while Ned paddled the canoe a few rods down the stream. Dick had the line fast to his wrist, but Ned wouldn't punch it until it had been made fast to a chunk of wood instead.

"What difference does it make?" grumbled Dick. "If the chunk goes overboard I follow it. See?"

Ned hit the crocodile on his first poke and Dick had his hands full from the start. He would have been dragged into the river within a dozen seconds, but for Ned's coming to his aid. The crocodile was as quick as the alligators had been slow.

"If he digs round as fast on land as he does in the water there's goin' to be a circus when we get him out on the bank," said the panting Dick.

"And you wanted to be tied to his mammy by the wrist. This is only an infant. It isn't nine feet long."

But it was, and a foot over that, yet when they got the reptile on the bank and drew its head close to a sapling, they tied a piece of the line around its knobby head without any trouble. From that moment the crocodile was tame, and soon Dick was handling him fearlessly, although Ned warned him that if he didn't keep out of the way of that tail he'd be knocked endways. But Dick sat on his back, pulled his tail and tried to lift him on his own back without the crocodile showing displeasure in any way.

"Ned, this thing is a peach. Why not send him to your father? He could be taken to New York in a baby carriage or led like a puppy dog. There would be no such trouble as there would be with a manatee. He's a curiosity, too."

"If it was the big one I believe it would be worth trying. That fellow must be as big as they come. I wish we had fixed for him."

"It isn't too late. Let's lay for him to-morrow."

The crocodile hunters camped beside their captive and Dick spent the afternoon trying to educate it. He talked of taking the string off of its jaws, but Ned stopped that.

"I'm afraid he might eat the wrong thing, by mistake, and then I'd have to go home alone. I suppose I could take the crocodile along in your place. Your mother might like him as a kind of souvenir."

"But see how gentle he is and how mild his eye. He doesn't whack around with his tail like an alligator and I think he likes to have me sit on his back."

"That's only his slyness. Look at him now." For the crocodile, thinking itself unobserved, was crawling slowly toward the bank of the river. When it reached the end of its tether and could go no farther, it lay down and, lifting its head, looked all around as innocently as if it never dreamed of escaping, but had just moved a little way to get a better view of the scenery.

Every hour or two of the next day the boys called at the cave of the big crocodile, but never found him in.

"Well, we'll go at it again to-morrow," said Dick.

"We will be doing something else to-morrow. We've got to hike out of here, and keep moving, too. Last drop of water has just gone into the coffee pot," and Ned turned the empty water can upside down.

"Hope you can find the creek that leads to the fresh-water country. I don't believe I could. We came through too many twisty, narrow places. We sure don't want to be three or four days finding it. I'm awful thirsty now."

"You must stop thinking about it. I believe I won't try for that creek. It's a regular Chinese puzzle up among the mangroves, and I'm not a bit sure I could follow our trail back to fresh water. I'd rather take chances of that river that leads more to the east. I know it can't go through to our bay, but it must lead up to the Everglade country where the mangroves won't be so bad. We may have to do some toting, but we will be sure to find water by to-morrow night or the next day at the worst. But I won't go that way unless you think best. It's too serious a thing for me to decide alone."

"Oh, I'm with you Ned. I might live till day after to-morrow without water, but I wouldn't have a ghost of a chance beyond that, and we might be three days in your Chinese puzzle country. Wow! but I'm thirsty."

"Say that again, Dick, and I'll confiscate your coffee. I'm going to save half of it for breakfast, anyhow. So go slow. You're on allowance now. We will have breakfast before daylight. I want to start as soon as we can see. It's a lot cooler before sun-up."

"I'll wake easy. I'll be so thirsty--Oh! excuse me, I forgot. But Ned, would you mind if I took my crocodile along in the canoe? He wouldn't take up much room and I could sit on his back. I could lead him across any carry and I've grown quite fond of him."

"You had better stop talking nonsense and get some sleep. You may need it."

"Yes, I know. 'Most anything may happen. You'd feel bad to think you had refused a poor boy's dying request--and he your chum, too. Can't I have my little pet crocodile?"

When the sun rose the young explorers had already paddled several miles and were in a labyrinth of little bays from which they followed channel after channel until each one shoaled down to a few inches in depth. Finally they found one that deepened as they advanced, although its banks came nearer together and the branches of big trees closed over it.

"This is all right. Fresh water soon," said Dick joyfully.

But he was soon to be disappointed. For the little creek ended in a round shallow pond, a hundred yards across and entirely shut in by thick bushes. Dick became very blue and even Ned was discouraged.

"I hate to go back for miles and begin all over again, just when we are so far along in the right direction. We can get through these bushes and walk a mile or two, and perhaps climb a tree and see what the country looks like," said Ned.

"I'd rather do anything than go back," replied Dick. "Let's paddle round the edge of this pond and see where the bushes are thinnest."

They paddled along the shore of the little lake, finding the water so shallow that it barely floated the canoe, until just where the bushes seemed thickest it deepened to several feet, and parting the bushes disclosed a deep but very narrow creek through which the water slowly flowed. There was no room to paddle and for more than a mile the boys dragged the canoe by taking hold of overhanging branches. Sometimes they could lift branches that crossed the creek over the canoe as they passed. Sometimes they had to lie down in the canoe to get under the obstructions and often they had to stop to cut away limbs of small trees. They were finally stopped by the trunk of a large tree which had fallen across and completely blocked up the creek. Just beyond it two palmettos had fallen in the stream, one of which lay lengthwise in the channel. It would have taken days to remove the obstructions and the young explorers explored the swamp near them to find a possible carry. They found that a hundred feet behind them the woods were thinner and they could cut a path through which they could carry the canoe and stores.

"This is going to take all the rest of the day," said Ned, "and it will be a dry camp after a heap of hot work. What do you say to leaving this till to-morrow, and putting in this afternoon hunting for the best route and looking for fresh water?"

"That's me," replied Dick. "Let's hike in a hurry. Only don't you lose your way. We have got to get back to the canoe and you're the guide."

"Don't you worry about that. You may have to go slow, but I won't lose myself and I will bring you back to the canoe," said Ned.

Instead of following the creek, Ned bore off to the north where the woods seemed more open and soon reached a stretch of dry, open prairie. On the border of it stood a tall mastic tree with a lightning-blasted top and many branches which made it easy to climb. Ned was soon in the top of the tree making a mental map of the country round about.

"It is all right now," said he as he climbed down. "I can see the open Everglades within four or five miles, and there is something that looks like a slough that is only half as far away. We'll leave the creek in the morning and cut our path this way, instead of around those trees. It won't be as much work, either. We can do some of that work to-night and camp right here. Then in the morning, at daylight, we will start out with the canoe on our shoulders and tramp till we find water to float it."

"But how about water to drink? I need it worse than the canoe."

"Where there's water for the canoe, there will be water for you. It's Everglade water from now on."

"I wish it would begin this minute. There's a little mud-hole that looks pretty wet. Do you think that might be fresh?"

"Only way to find out is to try it." A minute later Dick called out.

"Come here, Ned, it's muddy, but it's fresh. Oh, isn't it good!"

As Ned approached the pool Dick, who was lying on the prairie beside it, lifted his face from the water of which he had been drinking, and was turning to speak to his companion when the head of a great alligator, with wide open jaws, was thrust violently out of the pool, just touching the boy's face. Dick fell back on the prairie and scrambled away from the pool. It was a minute before he spoke and then he said to Ned:

"Let's get back to work. I don't want another drink for a month. It makes me sick to think of it."

The slough was farther away than Ned thought and the road to it lay through a marsh. Often they sank to the waist and wallowed for rods, carrying the canoe which seemed to weigh a ton, or dragging it beside them. Moccasins were plentiful, but the boys were too tired to be worried by them. They had to make two more trips to carry their cargo, and on the last one, as Dick was staggering under a load of smoked meat and a heavy, salted skin, he was heard to say:

"I wonder why I killed that bear. I will never kill another one."

There was dry ground beside the slough, under some willow trees, and the explorers were glad to rest there for the night. A duck flew down by the willows as if seeking to camp with them and he succeeded, for they had him for supper.