Chapter 22

THE RESCUE

"Listen, Ned, listen! There is a motor-boat in the river. Don't you hear it?"

"I don't hear it, Dick."

"But you must hear it. It's growing plainer every minute. It's a four-cycle engine, and a fast boat, too. I can tell you that. Who can it be? Do you suppose it is your father looking for you?"

"I hear it now. No, it isn't Dad. My time isn't up for several days yet. After that anything might happen, but until then Dad won't lift a finger toward looking me up."

"Oh, Ned! It's coming nearer, nearer, nearer! There! It's 'round the bend. Of course, you see it now. How it is coming!"

"You bet it's coming. You ought to see the water pile up against the bow. It's a glass-cabin launch. There's a man standing on top of the cabin. I think he sees us, for he is pointing this way, and--the boat's headed straight for us--hear that whistle, and--Dick, Dick, boy!--there's a tall man and a girl standing in front of the pilot-house, and--oh, Dick! it's too good to be true, but it's Dad and Molly!"

"Molly?" said Dick.

"Yes, my sister, you know. Sometimes we call her Mary."

"I didn't know your sister's name was Molly. What does she look like?"

"Just watch that girl who is waving her hat as if she was crazy. That's Molly."

Ned was in the launch before it touched the bank, and Mr. Barstow was holding his son by the hand, although neither spoke, while Molly had her arms around Ned's neck and was laughing, crying and talking by turns.

"You blessed, blessed Neddy! What did happen to you? We were frightened, oh! so frightened."

"Ned," said Mr. Barstow, "your friend, young Williams, was with you. I never saw him, but I hope no harm came to him."

"No, daddy; Dick will be all right, now you are here, but he has been very, very sick, and I was dreadfully afraid he wouldn't get well, and all his trouble came because he saved my life without thinking of his own. Come right ashore and see him."

"Shall I come, too?" asked Molly.

"Sure," replied Ned. "He wants to see you especially."

A moment later Mr. Barstow had one of Dick's hands in both of his own.

"My boy, my boy, what made you run away? The hue and cry is out for you in Key West. Why did you never tell me that you were Ned's nearest friend? Why didn't you tell Molly who you were? Ned has talked to her for years about you. Come here, Molly, and tell your friend Dick Williams what you think of him for hiding his name from you."

But Molly didn't tell him just then. For Dick's strength had been overtaxed, and when his eyes met Molly's he promptly fainted.

When Dick had recovered, Ned invited his father and sister to dine before going aboard the motor-boat, and as he was busy preparing the meal and his father had much to hear from him, the care of the invalid fell upon Molly, a duty which she performed to the apparent satisfaction of her patient.

"Those oysters are lovely," said the girl as she speared with a chop-stick a small one which had been roasted in the shell.

"Yes. Ned waded through half a mile of mud to get them."

"I wondered how Neddy got so muddy. I was so glad to see him that I just hugged him, and now I ought to be in a wash-tub. Just look at me."

Dick obeyed her so literally that she added a moment later:

"I mean look at the mud on my dress."

The broiled snappers were pronounced the finest fish ever served, the palmetto cabbage better than cauliflower, and then the girl asked:

"This white meat is pretty good. What is it?"

"Alligator."

"Really?"

"Really and truly. You said you liked it."

"I didn't know it was a reptile. Why didn't you tell me? I wouldn't have eaten it if I had known."

"Ned wouldn't have liked it if I had told. He is my doctor, you know, and I have to mind him."

"You don't need a doctor any more. What you want is a nurse."

"That's so. I could mind her easy," said Dick.

"Oh, I meant a man nurse," said the girl.

Ned produced some joints of sugar-cane for dessert, and made a can of after-dinner sweet-bay tea, and then began to ask questions.

"Daddy, I want to find out whether you and Molly are crazy or whether I am. You never saw Dick before. You said so half an hour ago. Dick never saw you or Molly. He said so half an hour ago--"

"But Ned--" interrupted Dick.

"You keep still. I've got the floor. Now, Dad, you and Molly rush up to this chap, whom you never saw before, and fall into his arms--"

"Neddy Barstow, I didn't do anything of the kind. But I had seen him and I did know him," said the girl.

"Now, there you go. How ever did you know this chum of mine, who never saw you?"

"How did Dick save your life, Ned?" asked Mr. Barstow in a voice that wasn't quite as steady as usual.

"I can tell you," broke in Dick. "He didn't do it at all. That's how."

"Dad, when our canoe was wrecked, we lost the beautifullest skin of the biggest kind of a panther--eight feet from tip to tip. Dick saw the panther first, when he was ten feet from us, ready to jump. I fired at the beast, and he sprang for me, but Dick jumped at the same time and got between us, so the panther landed on him and I was saved. That's why he is sick now. I s'pose that is what knocked his memory endwise, so he don't remember anything about it."

"Mr. Barstow," said Dick, "I wish you would ask Ned who it was that swam ashore with me when the big tarpon smashed the canoe and knocked me out. Yes, and he almost lost his own life in saving mine. Please ask him. I want to see if he has lost his memory."

Ned tried to speak, but Molly had her arms around his neck, saying nice things to him.

"See here, sis, doesn't part of this belong to Dick?" said Ned, and got his ears boxed very promptly.

"Did not Dick tell you, Ned, that he came from New York to Key West on the steamer with us, and that Molly and I got acquainted with him, and that he then slipped away at Key West so that we could not find him?" asked Mr. Barstow.

"Never told me a word. Dick, you gay deceiver, you pretended to tell me everything, and you left out the most interesting part. You probably thought I wasn't interested in Dad or Molly."

"But, Ned, I never knew they were your father and sister until just now. I told you everything that seemed worth speaking of."

"Hear that, Molly? This young man says you didn't seem worth speaking of. Can't you get even with him for that? Now, tell me how you happen to be here, you and Dad. I told Dick that he wouldn't move a finger for us till the time of my vacation was up."

"You were all right about that, Neddy. He wouldn't budge an inch, for I tried to make him start out and hunt you up, and he refused until--Well, one day the boat that carries the mail between Key West and Chokoloskee picked up, out in the Gulf of Mexico, a broken canoe that everybody seemed to know was the one you and Mr. Williams were out in. Then Mr. Streeter made a night run to Myers, got Dad out of bed, and things began to happen. Of course, I was coming, so I got into a few clothes, skipped my breakfast and was aboard this boat barely in time not to be left, for Dad was just plain crazy. But before he came away he chartered everything in sight and told the men not to leave an unexplored channel in the whole Ten Thousand Islands."

Ned held out his hand to his father without speaking, but Dick looked at the girl with more gratitude in his eyes than she could possibly have deserved, although she seemed willing to accept a good deal of it.

"Well, boys," said Mr. Barstow, "if you are ready we will go aboard. I don't see much that you will care to take with you."

"Nothing but Tom," said Dick. "Can't he go? He'll be good."

"Of course he can. But who is Tom?"

"Oh, he's nothing but a savage old wildcat," replied Ned. "He'll probably eat us all up but Dick. He has eaten some of him already."

"Oh, what a beauty!" cried Molly, when Tom, who had been sitting in a tree over their heads, was pointed out to her. Dick soon coaxed the lynx, which sat there looking suspiciously at the strangers, down to his shoulder.

"Can't I pet him?" asked Molly.

"No!" said Ned.

"Yes," said Dick, and Molly stepped forward and laid her hand fearlessly on the soft fur of the beautiful creature. Tom began a low growl, but Dick talked soothingly to him, and in a few minutes he became quite friendly with the girl.

"There!" said Molly. "Now we're friends, and I can play with him all I want to."

"Oh, no, not yet. You must promise that you won't touch him unless I am with you," said Dick.

"Of course, I won't promise. I'll pet him when I please."

"Then poor Tom will have to stay here."

"Do you mean to say that if I don't make that ridiculous promise I can't have Tom?"

"Tom belongs to you the minute you make that promise, but not before."

"Well, Mr. Williams, I make the promise rather than lose Tom, but as for you--" And the blank which Molly left was filled with feminine possibilities.

A bunk was fixed up in the cabin of the launch for Dick, and the throb of the heavy engines became a steady hum as the boat turned down the stream, with water and spray curling up from its bow and heavy waves from its propeller breaking with a sullen roar on the banks of the river. Dick's bunk must have been uncomfortable, for very soon he crawled up on deck and, going forward to where he could lean back against the cabin, sat down, looking pale, but not unhappy. Molly, who happened to be on the bow of the boat, was so indignant with him that she told him he ought to have a guardian, and then went below and brought back an armful of pillows and cushions, with which she proceeded to make life a burden to Dick. Then, as she seemed about to go away, Dick began to talk to her about the old plantations on the river and tell her the ghost stories that belonged to them, until she sat down near him. "I hope you don't think I was rude about Tom? I was only--" But Molly interrupted him.

"You need to be good and strong before I tell you what I think of that." And the girl walked away from him so indignant that she didn't return for nearly two minutes.

As the launch neared the mouth of the river a yawl-rigged craft with an auxiliary engine had just entered it. Her captain was sitting on deck with his right hand grasping the wheel, his body leaning forward, rigid as bronze, while his roving eye scanned water and sky, reefs, banks and keys. A roll of the wheel, and the launch darted toward him. When within a hundred yards the whir of the big engine and the chugging of the two-cycle motor of the yawl stopped, and as the boats were passing each other, Mr. Barstow hailed the skipper of the yawl.

"Oh, Captain Hull! All's well. The boys have been found. Spread the news. Hunt up the other boats and all hands report to me at Myers."

"Aye, aye, sir!" came from the bronze statue, and the chugging and the whirring began again as the yawl resumed its course, while the launch wove in and out among the oyster reefs, that guard the mouth of the river, at a speed that would have torn the propeller out of her had she struck one of them.

Dick's eyes sparkled as the Gulf opened out, and the launch turned down the coast to clear the bar before making her course. Before him were the waters where the waterspout destroyed the _Etta_; the Shark River bight was near, and in the distance the cocoa-palms of the Northwest Cape could be made out. He turned eagerly to the girl beside him, and was telling her the story of the waterspout when Mr. Barstow came to them and said:

"Run away, little girl, I want to talk to Dick."

"So do I," said Molly as she made a little face at her father, who laughed at her.

"You mustn't think you own Dick. Go play with Tom, there. He looks pretty amiable just now."

"But he won't let me play with Tom. He's mean about that."

Dick began to explain, but the girl had gone.

"What are your plans for your future, Dick?" asked Mr. Barstow.

"I am going home and going to work at anything I can find to do."

"How would you like to work for me?"

"I don't know of anything else in the world I would like so well." And Dick fairly beamed.

"Then, if the work suits you, your engagement will date from to-day."

"What will be my duties, sir?"

"First a vacation to get well in and visit your mother. Then you and Ned will go to my timber property in Canada, familiarize yourselves with the present methods of working it, and suggest any improvements that occur to you, and make the best estimate you can of the amount and kind of lumber I have. I don't care for present returns, but I wish the property administered in accordance with the most advanced knowledge of the science of forestry."

"Mr. Barstow, you are good to me, too good, and I am as grateful as I can be, but I can't take money for amusing myself. You would be paying me for taking the most delightful excursion in the world, and there wouldn't be any other side to it. I couldn't make good to you in any way. I don't know anything about lumbering, forestry or practical surveying."

"Don't begin by criticizing your employer, Dick. Just make believe that he knows what he is about. I am not paying you for what you know now, but for what you will know in a few months. I am expecting great things of you. The science of forestry and economic methods of lumbering are fairly well understood in Canada. You will find yourselves with young men of education and enterprise, enthusiasts who think nothing of starting out alone on snowshoes for a week or a month in the woods, where the mercury in the thermometer often freezes. You will find your work cut out for you if you only keep up with them, and I am hoping that you will get near the head of your class. I want you to learn the business from the beginning to the end from the planting to the cutting of the tree, and from forest to freight car. So don't fear that you will not have a chance to earn your salary. Your pay and Ned's will be the same. It will take good care of you, but you will not find much over to waste. Here, Molly, come back and hear the rest of that romance that I interrupted. And don't look so cross at me next time I speak to Dick."

"Isn't he the nice old daddy?" said the girl to Dick, as she sat down near him. Dick looked as if he thought so too, but was troubled to find words to express all he felt. The launch, which was now flying up the coast, was just opposite the shack of the fisherman whom the boys had hired to help with the manatee which couldn't be found. Dick was telling the girl the story of the manatee when Ned put in an appearance.

"Run away, Molly. I want to talk to Dick."

"Neddy Barstow, when daddy says 'Run away, Molly,' I have to go, but when you say it, I stay right where I am. See?"

"But this is important, Molly. It's business."

"So am I important, even if I'm not business. If business is in a hurry, it can go ahead; if it isn't it can wait."

"Dick," said Ned, "Dad thinks we need a little vacation before going to work, and he offers to take us on a cruise in the _Gypsey_ to the Bahamas and to Cuba, or to charter a light-draft boat that could go through the Bay of Florida and let us finish our cruise in the crocodile country, beginning where we turned back when the fresh water gave out. Maybe he will let Molly go."

"Let Molly go!" repeated the girl mockingly. "Only question is whether she will let you go. But I thought you said it was business. That isn't business; it's fun. We choose the small boat and the crocodiles. That will be new. I know all about the _Gypsey_ now."

"Shall we let it go at that, Dick?"

"Sure. Wonder if we can find my crocodile again."