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.

As the boat swept along under increased speed the four men regaled themselves on food that they drew from their various pockets. Halstead felt a ravenous gnawing under his belt, but none of his captors offered him anything to eat.

“There ain’t grub enough to throw any of it away, younker,” observed the leader, as he swept the last crumbs into his own mouth. “But I reckon maybe yo’ would like some use or yo’ mouth. Jabe, take that packing out from between the younker’s teeth.”

This service the negro performed, rather roughly, it is true. But at last Tom Halstead could take a really deep breath; he could talk, if he so desired; but he was in no mood to do that.

The young skipper knew that the boat was now traveling rapidly, though he could not see above the gunwale of the craft. From the actions of these Everglades ruffians, however, the boy knew that they did not sight any other boats. Thus the forenoon wore along until, at last, the leader, whom the others addressed as “Sim,” remarked:

“Jabe, yo’ may as well let the younker set up on a seat, now. He-un won’t try to jump ovahbo’d. If he-un does, so much the easier fo’ us.”

“Let him have his hands?” inquired the bulky negro.

“Yep; might jest as well.”

So the bonds were removed from the young skipper’s wrists. He accepted this favor in sullen silence, then raised himself to one of the seats.

“Thought yo’ might like to see the country yo’ are goin’ into,” vouchsafed Sim, with a grin.

As Tom Halstead glanced about him he saw that Lake Okeechobee was behind them. The boat was now running along, at a speed reduced to some six miles an hour, on a gloomy-looking lagoon not more than forty feet wide. Just ahead of them were great, gaunt cypress trees, laden with hanging moss, that almost met over the water.

“We don’ brag none erbout the scen’ry heah,” observed Sim, “but it’s a good, safe country in the Evahglades. Plenty o’ snakes an’ ’gators heah, but we-uns is used to ’em. Evah eat a ’gator steak?”

“No,” answered Halstead, shortly.

“Likely ernuff yo’ will, in the months to come,” asserted Sim. “An’ it’s a powahful good rifle yo’ brought to us. We-uns was out o’ cartridges but now we done got some ’at will fix ’gators all right.”

A mile further on they came to broader waters, a sort of swamp lake that was at least a quarter of a mile wide. Through the windings of this body they traversed for three or four miles, the water at last narrowing, until the waterway was barely more than wide enough or deep enough to allow the handling of the boat. Yet Sim managed it remarkably well.

“I reckon this yere boat is goin’ to be powahful handy to us, after this,” the leader laughed. “We-uns sho’ly can get away fast ef anyone tries to chase us ’cross Okeechobee.”

They came, now, to a larger space of water, at one side of which lay an island many acres in extent. It was well-covered with trees and dense jungle. Toward a little bay in this island Sim headed the launch, gradually slowing down the speed. Presently he stopped and gently beached the boat.

“Home!” he laughed, as he sprang out. “Come on, younker. I’m real anxious to know what yo’ think of ouah own little place in the heart o’ the Evahglades.”

“I’ve been in places I’d enjoy seeing more,” declared Halstead, as he stepped ashore, glad to stretch his legs. “You don’t seem to have even a house here.”

“Oh, but we have,” chuckled Sim. “Yet, as we-uns wouldn’t care to have ’gator hunters find it, the house is back in the jungle. Now, younker, make yo’se’f as much at home heah as yo’ can. Enjoy life all yo’ can, but don’t try any trick of getting out o’ sight o’ the gentleman that has yo’ in charge. Kink, I reckon yo’ can take the gun and watch ovah this young gentleman while we-uns goes up to the house and does some o’ the chores.”

“Kink,” one of the negroes, received the rifle and box of cartridges with a grin.

“Yo’ set right down there,” commanded Sim, pointing to a grassy hummock. “Don’t go to provoke Kink, ’cause he’s nervous when he-un done totes a gun!”

Tom seated himself as ordered, while Kink stationed himself watchfully twenty feet away.

“How long are you folks going to keep me here a prisoner?” demanded Halstead, as the other three turned to go into the interior of the island.

“How long?” repeated Sim, turning and looking back. “Why, suh, I don’ reckon yo’ ever goin’ to git away from heah. Not alive, anyway!”