Chapter 25

IN FLORIDA BAY

After the _Irene_ had sailed twenty miles down the coast and was about opposite East Cape (Sable) Captain Hull asked for his orders.

"Isn't Madeira Hammock on the coast, about thirty miles from here?" inquired Ned.

"Yes, but you will have to go seventy to get there. You've got to go way round by the keys."

"Isn't there water enough for the _Irene_ along the coast?"

"Isn't enough to float the skiff. You can go about ten miles. After that there's an inch of water and I reckon a mile of blue, soft, sticky mud. I've been a few feet down in it and the farther I went the softer and stickier it got."

"Suppose we go the ten miles you talk about what will we find?"

"Tarpon, sharks, porpoises, lots of fish, birds and enough sawfish to make a picket fence of their saws all around the coast."

"That's us, Captain," said Ned.

And the _Irene's_ mud hook went to the bottom that night in eight feet of water off Joe Kemp's Key.

In the shoal water over the broad banks which lay to the south and east of the _Irene_ the bayonet fins of many tarpon rose high above the surface as the fish beneath them pursued their prey. Often the two fins shown by a wandering shark swept swiftly across a bank, or three big reddish fins moving in a straight line slowly behind a great, swaying, four-foot weapon marked the course of a fifteen-foot sawfish. There was water to float the power boat in the channels between the banks, and families of porpoises or dolphins were always ready to serve as pilots and point the path through these labyrinthine waterways. A school of porpoises, rolling in the water and leaping in the air, passed the motor boat as if they had been telephoned for in the greatest haste. Two minutes later, a quarter of a mile away, a great splashing could be seen and huge bodies hurled in the air, which seemed to be filled with flying fragments.

The power boat, with Molly at the wheel, started for the fray at its best speed and when it reached the battlefield its occupants saw a little band of porpoises in the midst of a great school of silver mullet. Each blow of a porpoise tail sent several mullet flying in the air, each blow that was struck was followed by a quick turn or leap of the agile animal for the victim which it caught before it fell. Ned and Dick were in the skiff which had been towed by the power boat, hoping to harpoon a sawfish or a shark. They had not before thought of the swift and wary porpoise. They called to the captain to cast them loose, and soon Ned was poling the skiff toward the busy porpoises while Dick stood in the bow of the skiff with his harpoon handy. Quick as a flash the porpoises separated and scattered in every direction and the boys followed several in vain. Then Molly took a hand in the game and sent the power boat at one after another of them until the captain called to her:

"If you'll stick to one you'll run him down."

Then Molly kept steadily after a single porpoise, until the animal came to understand that it was the chosen victim, and quickly put half a mile between it and its pursuer. In a few minutes the half mile between them had vanished and the creature made another frantic dash. After that it swam back and forth as if confused, and traveled in narrowing circles, wasting its strength, while the wheel of the pursuing boat rolled back and forth without ceasing as it followed the course of the animal or took short cuts to head it off. The boys came near with the skiff, but the worried quarry paid so little heed to them that soon Dick sunk his harpoon in the tail of the porpoise. All the life and strength of the creature seemed to come back and it threw a column of water in the air which nearly swamped the skiff, while Dick's hands were torn and blistered by the outgoing harpoon line, before way could be had on the skiff. The frantic creature tore back and forth, sometimes striking the skiff a powerful blow with its tremendous tail as it passed, sometimes towing it at high speed until Dick, who was not yet strong, was more tired than the porpoise. He changed places with Ned and the two were nearly worn out when the porpoise surrendered.

They took the harpoon from the animal's tail and tried to drag the creature over the gunwale of the skiff, but found it too heavy for them. At length they lifted and dragged the porpoise up on the gunwale of the skiff which they pressed down until the water was beginning to flow over it. Half of the animal was now over the side of the skiff and the boys threw their weight backward expecting to roll the porpoise into the bottom of the craft. This would have happened if the porpoise had kept still, which it neglected to do. With a blow of its tail on the water the animal threw its own body forward and Ned and Dick found assistance instead of resistance as they pulled, and promptly went over backward into the water with the porpoise and the capsized skiff on top of them. When they got to the surface their captive had escaped, but the power boat was beside them with three highly edified occupants. After the skiff had been righted and bailed out and the floating poles, oar, hats, and line tub gathered in, Ned saw the fin and swaying tail of a shark cutting the surface of the water near them, and calling on Dick to take the harpoon, began to pole the skiff toward the tiger of the sea.

"Look out," shouted the captain. "That's a shark. You'll lose your iron if you strike him."

Th captain spoke too late, for the shark was struck and the skiff was towed at speed for a hundred feet by the angry fish, which then turned and rolled up on the taut line till it caught the rope in its mouth and bit it in two as easily as scissors snip thread.

"Told you so," said the captain. "A shark always bites the line and often rolls up in it. An alligator always rolls up in it, but can't bite it. I've had an alligator roll up against a skiff and pretty near come aboard after I'd harpooned it. There's another harpoon on the _Irene_, and I'll fix it to-night with a few feet of wire for the next shark to bite on. I reckon it'll give him a surprise."

Molly was in full command of the power boat for the day, and as harpooning was over, she ran it at her own sweet will. Sometimes the captain helped her with a hint when he saw her heading for water that was too shoal. The course she took was southerly and brought her near Man-o'-war Bush, from which rose hundreds of man-o'-war hawks, or frigate pelicans, the most graceful bird on the continent, excepting the fork-tailed kite. These birds soared high overhead, circling, rising and falling with scarcely a perceptible motion of their wings. From another key a flock of roseate spoon-bill, or pink curlew, flew at the approach of the boat, while young herons sat fearlessly on branches of trees or spread wings and stretched long legs as they fled in affright.

That night Mr. Barstow called a council on the cabin top.

"Boys, I would like to have you make Miami in four days from now, if you can manage it."

"That's easy," said Ned. "We can make the trip in a day. That leaves us one day here and two at Madeira Hammock to find Dick's pet crocodile."

"If you're going to Miami by way of Madeira Hammock," said the captain, "you'd better allow two days for the trip. You're likely to get some tangled up in that country."

"Then we'll cut out our day here. We have had our share of fun out of this place. What is there in that bay to the east of us, Captain?"

"There's a creek that leads to the Cuthbert Rookery, but it isn't the season for that. It's a hard trip anyway, through small salt-water lakes and little overgrown creeks where you have to drag your skiff most of the way. And you've got to carry all the water you drink and you won't find that a joke."

"We have had all we want of that kind of country, Captain, so we'll hike out of here at daylight and get to Madeira Hammock quick as you can find the way."

"I can find the way now, anyhow as far as Lignum Vitae Key, and if the tide doesn't bother me too much in the cut, maybe to Hammer Point. Beyond that I want daylight and then I ain't sure. Do you want to make a night run?"

"Sure," said both the boys together.

"If you will excuse me from any share in this night navigation," said Mr. Barstow, "I think I will turn in. How is it with you, Molly?"

"Oh, I'll stay up a while and help Captain Hull navigate the ship."

The moon rose soon after the anchor was broken out, and its light reflected from the white canvas of the bellying sails and the tops of the white-capped waves, gave a dream-like beauty to the night. Captain Molly called to Engineer Dick:

"Stop that noise in the engine room!" and Dick promptly shut off the gasoline from the motor. Captain Hull made no complaint of this mutinous interference with his authority, but said:

"That's right, we don't need the engine now and I reckon we ain't going to need it to-night."

The wind was fair and strong from the north, and every minute its sweep grew wider and the waves bigger as the _Irene_ drew from under the shelter of the cape. The captain and Ned stood by the wheel, while the girl and Dick sat on the front of the cabin in the moonlight, watching the white water that rose from under the bow of the clumsy craft, with each heavy blow that it struck upon the waves.

As they sailed the wind grew stronger and at Horse-neck Shoals the crest of breaking waves covered the deck of the _Irene_ with foam. Following the swish of each heaving wave as it lifted and swept past the boat came a heavy jar as the craft struck in the soft mud beneath her and her headway was checked.

"It's all right," said the captain, in answer to Ned's look of anxiety. "I expected her to touch, but she'll pull through."

No one else was alarmed, for Mr. Barstow was asleep in his bunk below, while Molly and Dick were too busy watching the effect of the moonlight on the breaking waves and the distant keys to notice that anything unusual was happening. Soon the water became deeper, the waves ceased breaking and subsided, and the _Irene_ sailed smoothly on till she was hauled up in the wind to enter the cut in the bank near Lignum Vitae Key, through which an adverse tide was pouring. Dick was called from his post near the bow to start the motor, which was kept running until the boat had made her way through the channel between the white banks that showed clear under the moon as daylight could have made them. Then the motor was shut off and Dick returned to his post and resumed his study of moonlight effects as its rays fell on the palms of Lignum Vitae, the line of outer keys, the Matecumbies, and the jewel of an Indian Key, of which he told Molly the legend. At this Molly jumped up and said:

"It's all too lovely for anything and Daddy has got to come on deck and see it."

She went below and when she returned had Mr. Barstow in tow, to whom she pointed out the beauties of sea and sky, of clouds and light just as Dick had been doing to her. Then she went for Captain Hull, who turned the wheel over to Ned and came forward, where he answered the rapid fire of the girl's questions, about Shell, McGinty and other keys as they passed them and about the channel and cuts through which their course lay, until he assured her he had told all he knew and if she remembered it she was as good a pilot as he. But questions continued until, having passed Tavernier Creek and neared Hammer Point, the _Irene_ was anchored for the night.

All hands were on deck when the rays of the next morning's sun first fell on the mirror-like water about them, but Ned spoke sadly as he said:

"I've shipped as cook and I s'pose I've got to get breakfast, but I wish my assistant didn't waste so much of her time."

"If you'd let me keep the cook I hired we'd have crawfish for breakfast," said Captain Hull.

"Where would we get them?" inquired Ned.

"Every one of these coral keys is built on crawfish and Snake Creek here is full of 'em."

"Then after you've shown us a lot of crawfish and we've caught them we'll have breakfast."

Captain Hull lashed two tarpon hooks to broomsticks, and getting in the skiff with Molly and the two boys, poled to the nearest key. Beneath the water the steep coral banks of the key were filled with deep holes from out of many of which long feelers projected. Pushing a hook into one of these holes the captain gave it a quick turn and brought out a squirming, squeaking imitation of a young lobster. Then he handed the hooks to the boys. Ned got overboard and began to haul out crawfish at the rate of two a minute. Dick was less successful, for Molly had promptly commandeered his hook and left him nothing to do but watch her when she tried to hook the shell-fish. They didn't get many fish and when Ned came along with a bunch of crawfish which he dropped in the skiff, he said:

"Here, you kids, you aren't earning your salt. Just take my hook, Dick, and catch some crawfish. I'll help Molly do whatever she's doing."

On the way to the _Irene_ Molly called out:

"Oh, the beautiful, beautiful, bubble!"

"Don't touch it," shouted Dick.

But he was too late, for Molly had picked up a Portuguese man-o'-war and sat wringing her hands with the pain of its poison. For, while nothing in nature is more exquisite, few things are more virulent than this animated, opalescent, iridescent bubble with its long, delicate, purplish tentacles.

Molly's hand pained her all that day and the next, while Dick's commiseration was boundless, but was kept in restraint by Ned, who frequently assured both of them that, although a surgical case, it was probably not quite hopeless. A run of two hours in directions that varied, but averaged northwest, brought the _Irene_ to Madeira Hammock, where the anchor was dropped.