CHAPTER XI.

DOWN THE COAST.

For the next few minutes the _Arrow_ ran so much risk of having the sails blown off or the mast broken, that all rejoicing over the capture of the two big tarpon was banished by the imminence of the danger. Flaw after flaw darkened the water, flattening the long swells; but at length the squall passed, and once out of a broad inlet, the sloop headed straight down the coast under a good breeze.

“What for so much hurry?” grumbled Dave, emerging from the cabin, and looking around quizzically. “Huh! Plenty time.”

“Oh, we’re in no hurry, Dave,” answered Hugh with a laugh. “This is just sailing for sport. You’ll like it after a while when you get more used to it. Go and sit up fore, to windward.”

Dave meekly obeyed.

“A whiff of this salt air will do him good,” said Norton to the captain, who, ignoring Dave entirely, vouchsafed no reply.

He appeared to be pondering some contingency of which his crew were unaware. He spat profusely, cast his eyes aloft at the topsails that had not been lowered despite the squall, then looked measuringly at his sloop.

“Wind’s slackening,” he observed.

Hitherto heading southward, the _Arrow_ now began to edge toward the long line of keys. By this time the wind had gradually dwindled almost to a breath, and the sun hung far down the Western sky, glowing like a disc of molten copper.

“Bad weather comin’,” croaked Dave, noting these signs. “One day, two day off, p’raps.”

This gloomy prophecy was received in silence. No one thought it safe or worth while to deny the assertion.

Presently they came abreast of a fringe of larger keys fronting an important harbor. Beyond the broad inlet that led in toward the bay and mainland, a stretch of smooth, clean, white sand, bordered by clumps of waving cabbage palms, indicated to Captain Vinton that he was near one of his old camping places.

“I’m goin’ to stop over thar for supper,” he called to the boys. “We might better spend the night on shore, for there’ll be wind ag’in and rough water later on.”

So the _Arrow_ made in shoreward. The four boys reefed her jib and her topsail and stood ready to reef the main sheet. When everything had been attended to on board the sloop and the anchor had been cast, all piled into a big dory trailing astern.

“‘Pull for the shore, boys, pull for the shore!’” sang Norton in a rollicking voice. And they did. Soon they were preparing supper on the beach.

“There’s squalls breedin’ out yonder,” remarked the captain after supper while lighting his corncob pipe. “After dark I’d ruther have these keys atween ’em and us. But perhaps they’ll blow over. Yon can’t never tell for sure, at this time o’ year.”

Unpromising as the weather seemed, the evening passed without anything happening to cause discomfort. The storm clouds drifted past, giving way to a host of brilliant stars that took possession of the heavens, and to a steady westerly breeze that bid fair to continue all night. The captain and the Seminole guide, wrapping themselves in blankets which had been brought ashore in the dory, dozed beside the driftwood fire. The four boys and Roy Norton, however, enjoyed a swim in the lagoon before they sought their own blankets and “turned in” for a good night’s rest. Their bunks were snug hollows scooped out of the sand, warm and dry, a few feet away from the glowing embers.

At sunrise the breeze freshened a little, but the weather was balmy. The first rays of the rising sun woke the voyagers, and the boys would have been sorry had they missed seeing the gorgeous semi-tropical dawn burst upon the world. The sky was one vast, rosy glow, and the ocean glittered with opalescent hues. Low islands, overgrown with close, green, stunted vegetation, were on every side. They stretched like golden bars across the lagoons, showing the broad sound on one side and on the other the dark blue of the Gulf Stream, far out where the Florida Straits widened toward the distant Bahamas.

When the sun was an hour high, they breakfasted on fruit, fish, toast, and coffee. That simple repast over, they gathered up their belongings and prepared to return to the sloop. Quite unexpectedly, an idea crept into Dave’s sluggish mind:

“Good moon last night, much white beach, turtle come out and lay eggs,” he remarked slowly. “P’raps we find eggs. Might try.”

He rose and strolled lazily along the beach, accompanied by the four young scouts.

“Maybe bear will walk beach after eggs,” he added presently. “Young master run back, get rifle.”

“Wait for me, then,” said Alec, and he ran back to the camping place. Returning in a few minutes, he handed the rifle to Dave. “If we meet a bear, you can shoot him,” he said. “I don’t want to, even if I could.”

Dave gave a low chuckle. “Oh, guess we won’t find bear till night,” he said. “We just go look for signs now.”

Signs proved to be fairly plentiful; so it was decided, to the unseaworthy Indian’s great satisfaction, to remain there that day, hunt at night and set sail early on the morrow. The day passed pleasantly, though uneventfully, and, after supper, Captain Vinton went aboard the _Arrow_. Dave sat up while the others took “forty winks” before being roused for the night hunt. At the rising of the moon, they all set forth in single file, and crossed the little island by an old trail through the chaparral to the ocean side. There they found a firm, wide, sandy strip of shore on which a low surf was murmuring its continuous song. The moon sailed higher and higher, the night was delightfully warm and calm, and there was an excellent prospect of finding game.

Telling Norton, Chester and Hugh to hide in the scrubby growth that fringed a sand dune, Dave took Alec and Billy along the beach for about fifty yards. In the full moonlight they could see quite plainly the curious wobbly trail, rough and broad, of a large turtle, leading to and from the water. Dave followed it for a few paces, then stopped abruptly and began to prod the sand with a stick which he had picked up for that purpose.

“Got ’em! Got eggs!” he announced presently. “Big nest heap full.”

“All right,” said Alec. “Now we’d better go back to where the others are, and wait for the hungry old——”

“By and by moon go down,” interposed the guide, with an unusual degree of interest. “Then bear may come out for walk,—get his supper, huh? Come.”

They went back to the place of ambush, and waited quietly. How long they waited not one of them could tell exactly. It seemed hours. At last their patience was rewarded. A clumsy black form emerged from the thick vegetation on the dunes, stood motionless for several minutes sniffing the air, and then ambled slowly and cautiously toward the water, pausing now and then to nose the warm sand.

“It’s a bear, and he smells our tracks,” whispered Hugh.

“Will he find the nest?” Billy asked, nudging Dave with his elbow.

“Sure, he find it all right,” was the whispered reply of the Indian. “When turtle make nest, lay eggs, scent is stronger than what we leave. Watch him. You can—huh, look!”

The small black bear had stopped near the turtle’s nest, and now it uttered a soft grunting squeal of delight. It half raised itself on its hind quarters, looking around warily to make sure it would not have to share the feast with any other of its tribe. Then, quite suddenly, it dropped down on all fours, and lunging forward, began to scoop up the eggs with its paws, smacking its lips greedily.

Dave raised the rifle, took deliberate aim, and—— Just then Hugh pushed the weapon aside with a quick movement of his arm.

“Don’t shoot, don’t shoot it!” gasped the lad, excitedly. “See,—over there in that clump of bushes!”

With a muttered exclamation, Dave glanced in the direction that Hugh was pointing. The others did likewise. They then beheld a sight which was far more interesting and more worth while than that of a harmless animal lying dead upon the sand, victim of Dave’s marksmanship.

Two little black cubs, scarcely larger than terriers, but much rounder, chubbier and more furry, trotted out from the shadow of the dune and waddled toward their feasting mother. As fast as their short legs would carry them, they ran to her side and fell to gobbling up the remaining eggs. When the nest had been emptied, Ursula and her cubs romped together on the moonlit beach, and, finally, walked away, unharmed.

Well pleased with the amusing scene they had witnessed, the hunters returned to their camp site, went to sleep presently, and on the morrow rejoined Captain Vinton on the sloop.