CHAPTER VII

DODGING THE OLDEST INHABITANTS OF THE EVERGLADES

JUST in the instant that he halted young Halstead thrust out his left arm, sweeping Ida Silsbee behind him.

“Don’t treat me as though you believed me a coward,” she remonstrated, speaking in a low voice.

“You’ll make me less of a coward if you don’t expose yourself needlessly to danger,” Tom retorted, in an equally low voice.

Though the alligator is a cumbersome looking animal on land, both knew from their reading that this four-legged reptile will sometimes show unlooked-for speed on its short legs.

Both alligators were now fully on land, their scaled bodies glistening in the soft sunlight. One had opened its great jaws as though to yawn, and the other at once followed the example.

Both stood within half a dozen feet of the launch’s bow, which meant that a sudden dash for the boat was out of the question.

“With this stick in my hand I feel like an amateur fireman trying to put out the San Francisco fire with a watering-pot,” Halstead whispered, dryly.

Ida Silsbee laughed low and nervously.

“Do alligators climb trees?” she asked.

“I never heard of one that could do it.”

“Then, at the worst, we might climb a tree. I—I suppose you could help me.”

“I’d sooner be in that launch, with the engine started, than up any tree on the island,” the boy answered.

“What would you do, if you were alone?” the girl asked.

“I don’t know. I might take to the water, swim to the stern of the launch, climb in and try to shove off.”

“Then why don’t you do it?”

“And leave you alone, Miss Silsbee, even for a few moments?”

“I could run across the island if those ugly-looking beasts started in my direction. You could pick me up at some other point of the shore.”

“Have you forgotten the snakes?” demanded Tom.

“Ugh! Don’t make me more afraid.”

“I don’t want to, Miss Silsbee. But neither do I want to see you forget any of the risks of our position.”

One of the big alligators, after eyeing them for some moments, started up the rise of ground toward them. From the slowness of its movements it looked as though the huge thing was bent mainly on securing a good point at which to sun itself, but Halstead and the girl retreated slowly.

“See,” whispered Halstead, “the other ’gator is moving a bit east along the shore. Let’s run down to the west shore. There we may be in a position to reach the launch bye and bye.”

As they stole along cautiously, in the direction Tom had indicated, each had to be careful in picking footing on the soft, springy ground, else it was impossible to tell when they might step upon a hidden rattler. Yet they gained the shore, at last, Tom in the lead. Here they halted, a hundred feet from the launch. By this time the first alligator had halted near the crest of the rise. Turning slowly, the beast was eyeing the fugitives blinkingly. The second alligator was now some thirty feet from the further side of the launch, though still quite close to the water.

“I wonder——” began Tom, hesitatingly.

“What?”

“Whether I could sprint along the shore like a streak, push the launch off, jump in, and then have time to start the engine and get down here for you?”

“Would you do that if you were here all alone?”

“In a second!”

“Then do it anyway,” begged Ida Silsbee. “I’m not brave, but I can take a fighting chance and follow orders.”

“I’m thinking of the risk, if——” began Halstead again, musingly and in a low voice.

“If what?”

“Well, what if the ’gator, seeing me coming, should turn and charge me, just miss me, and keep coming right on for you?”

“I’d run into the water, Mr. Halstead, for you to pick me up.”

“Good heavens! In the water that ’gator could go a hundred feet, almost, to your one!”

“Then I’d dash along the shore as fast as I could, until you could run the boat down and pick me up.”

“I’m going to try it,” decided Halstead, coolly. “It seems to promise the greatest safety for you.”

“But yourself?”

“Oh, confound me! I’m a boy.”

“You’re a man, Tom Halstead, and a splendid one at that!”

“I shall get my head turned, at this rate,” replied Tom, smiling dryly. “I’d better run at once.”

Grasping Ida Silsbee’s right hand, he thrust the tiller stick into it.

“Hold onto this. Don’t drop the stick, no matter what happens,” he directed. “Use it against ’gators—or snakes.”

Then, without loss of an instant’s time, he turned and sprinted desperately. A hundred feet is a short distance when one is traveling as though on air.

Seeing the boy coming, the alligator wheeled clumsily about. By this time, however, Tom Halstead’s hands rested against the bow of the boat. At the start of the run he had opened his sailor’s clasp knife. At one stout slash the boy cut the line holding the boat. Then he shoved off with his hands, and made a flying vault into the boat. Nor did he lose a second, as the boat drifted out from the shore, in starting the motor.

After the first moment’s hesitation the big ’gator started for the boat, as if scenting an enemy that might be vanquished. Seeing the high bow of the launch slip away, the ’gator kept on, lumberingly, toward Miss Silsbee.

Chug! chug! chug! sounded the motor’s exhaust, firing like pistol shots. The clumsy beast stopped an instant, as though wondering what new style of attack this could be on man’s part. Then, finding that no harm came, the big saurian reptile eyed Ida Silsbee’s fluttering skirts, and kept on lumbering toward her.

“Stay where you are!” called Tom Halstead, in a cool, low voice. It was typical of him that, the greater the danger, the more intense his coolness. His right hand on the wheel, the other ready to shift the motor control, he darted in to where Miss Silsbee stood bravely eyeing the oncoming alligator.

As the bow grated, Tom Halstead sprang up.

“Your hand!” he cried. “Like lightning!”

As she sprang, then half-stumbled, the alligator’s head was hardly more than twenty feet away. With a quick out-shoot of its breath the big creature hastened forward.

Tom half lifted, half dragged Ida into the boat, at the same time taking the tiller stick from her. Almost at the instant when her heels cleared the gunwale a huge pair of jaws loomed up close beside the bow.

Not really pausing to think what he did, Halstead let out a yell that would have done credit to one of the Seminole aborigines of the Everglades. In the same flashing instant he rammed the tiller stick far down into the mouth of the alligator.

His left hand caught the reverse gear. The propeller churned and the launch glided out, stern foremost, into deeper water, while the alligator, bringing its jaws down with a crunching snap on the bar of wood, went through some absurd antics in trying to expel the tiller stick from its mouth. Then Tom Halstead laughed.

“Not such bad sport, eh, Miss Silsbee?”

He had backed far enough out, now, to turn on the speed ahead and swing around, heading north.

Though she trembled a bit from excitement, Ida Silsbee leaned forward, catching the boy’s disengaged right hand and holding it in friendly pressure for a moment.

“Tom Halstead, it’s more than a pleasure to know one like you!”

The young captain laughed quietly as he thanked her.

“I reckon we’ll have some appetite for lunch, now, Miss Silsbee. Yet I almost feel that I owe you an apology.”

“For what, pray?”

“For not having been clever enough to find some way of killing that lumbering beast and presenting you with its hide. What a novel suitcase it would have made for you.”

Ida Silsbee laughed merrily. There was so much clear grit in her make-up that she had now recovered her composure fully.

“You’re not easily pleased, are you?” she challenged, whimsically.

“Well, we’ll have to admit we made a bungle of the affair all around,” teased Tom. “For you see, after all we left the moss behind on the island.”

“Oh, that moss!” cried the girl, pouting. “I’m glad I did drop it, for I shall always hate that particular species of moss whenever I think of the fate it so nearly brought upon us.”

The launch was now slipping over the water at its full speed, so it was not long ere these young travelers came in sight of the Tremaine winter bungalow once more.

Henry Tremaine and his wife were alone on the porch as the boat’s whistle sounded just before the landing was made.

Oliver Dixon had stolen away by himself, consuming himself with rage over the fact that Ida should have chosen to slip away without inviting him. Dixon came outside, however, as the young people came up the boardwalk together.

“Oh, Mrs. Tremaine, you have missed such a stirring time,” hailed Miss Silsbee, gayly.

Tom Halstead laughed, quietly. Hearing their arrival, Joe also came out. Miss Silsbee, of course, had to describe their adventure, in which Tom Halstead’s share lost nothing by her telling.

“I hope you’ll take a sufficient warning from this, child,” said Mr. Tremaine, presently. “Never venture onto any of the islands, or in any of these woods hereabouts, unless beaters go ahead of you to rouse up and despatch whatever snakes there may be lurking under the bushes.”

“Beaters?” inquired the girl.

“Yes; any of the negroes, like Ham, for instance. They don’t mind snakes. They hunt them for sport.”

Ham Mockus made his presence in the background noted.

“Men of your color don’t mind hunting snakes, do you, Ham?” asked the host.

“No, sah. Ah reckons not much, sah.”

“In fact, none of the natives here stand much in dread of reptiles,” continued Tremaine. “They’re used to hunting them, and seem to develop a special instinct for knowing where the snakes are. Young Randolph and Ham, I venture to believe, would go through a twenty-acre field, finding and killing all the snakes there happened to be there.”

“This talk is becoming rather annoying, my dear,” shivered Mrs. Tremaine.

“I beg your pardon, then,” responded her husband, quickly. “We’ll consider something more cheerful.”

“Dat’s w’ut Ah gwine come to tell yo’ ’bout,” declared Ham, gravely. “Ladies an’ gemmen, luncheon’s done served. Yassuh!”