CHAPTER XII
WHAT BEFELL THE YOUNG SKIPPER
MINDFUL of the danger from rattlers, which makes the section near theEverglades a dangerous one to travel by night, Tom Halstead proceededinto the forest with great caution.
Every here and there, too, were boggy bits of land in which the feetwould sink.
So much care did his choice of path need that the motor boat skipperdid 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 engagedten 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 dreadedrattlesnakes.
“Oh, pshaw!” he muttered to himself, after a moment. “Rattlers don’thiss; 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 lessstartled, though he became, if possible, more alert.
“That isn’t a ghostly noise, either, even if there were such a thing asa ghost,” the boy muttered inwardly. “I must be getting close to themakers of the noises. Confound this darkness!”
Tom stood quite still, peering in the direction from which he fanciedthe slight noise had come.
Suddenly Tom Halstead felt himself seized from behind. There was notime to cry out ere he pitched violently forward on his face, whichwas instantly buried in the soft grass of a bog. At least two men werea-top of him. Barely had he struck the ground when the young skipperfelt the hunting rifle torn from his grasp.
Powerful hands gripped at his throat, the while his hands were yankedbehind him and bound. Then he was rolled over onto his back. Thegrip about his throat was continued until his mouth had been forcedopen and filled with a big handful of the hanging moss that grows sopicturesquely on Florida trees. This was swiftly and deftly made fastin 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 alow, cool voice from one of the assailants.
Tom Halstead was brought up onto his feet with a jerk. At last, hewas able to see all his captors as well as the almost total darknesspermitted.
Two of them were white men, in ragged jeans and wearing coarse woolenjackets and nondescript caps. The other two men were negroes; ifpossible they looked more ragged than their white companions. Allseemed 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 AlligatorSwamp? Humph! I’ve found the ghost, but I wish it were under bettercircumstances!”
“This yere,” whispered one of the white pair, to his companions, “isthe one we want—the fellow that’s captain of the yacht down in OysterBay.”
“Now, why on earth do they want _me_, especially, and _how_ on earth dothey recognize me so easily?” wondered Tom Halstead, with a new start.
“We’se right glad t’ see yo’, suh!” remarked the other white man, withan evil grin. “So glad we won’t even trouble yo’ to walk. Jabe, Ireckon yo’ can carry the young gentleman. Pick him up.”
Humming softly, the more stalwart negro of the pair clasped Halsteadaround the waist, easily raising the helpless boy to one of his broadshoulders.
“Don’ make no trail, now,” warned one of the whites who appeared to bethe leader, as he led the way carrying Halstead’s captured rifle.
Their path took them down straight to the water’s edge. From there theyworked around to the pier, which, in the darkness, was not visible fromthe front of the bungalow.
“Thanks to the pair o’ oahs in this yere boat I reckon we can borrowit,” observed the leader, in a low tone. “Jabe, put ouah passenger inthe bow o’ the boat an’ set close by him. We can’t have him lettin’ outno yells.”
After Tom had been disposed of in the bottom of the boat—Jabeunconcernedly resting one foot on the body of the prostrateprisoner—the others got in cautiously.
Casting off, one of the white men and one of the negroes possessedthemselves of an oar each. With these they noiselessly shoved off intodeeper water, after which they took to sculling softly. Thus they wentalong until they had placed the first of the little islands betweenthemselves and the bungalow. Now, the other pair took oars and began torow in earnest. The oars were always kept in the boat for use in casethe motor should break down. The boat was a heavy, cumbersome thing torow, but these men seemed possessed of enormous strength. By the timethat daylight began to creep into the eastern sky, some three milesdown the lake had been covered.
“Now, I reckon we can staht the motor a little bit, anyway,” observedthe leader of these rascals. “Ef we run easy fo’ a few miles, thenwe’ll be fah enough away so that ouah noise won’t be heard from MarseTremaine’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 theboat along at more than four miles an hour. One of the negroes hadtaken the wheel.
“An houah of this,” chuckled the leader, “and I reckon we can go at thefullest kind o’ speed—straight for the Evahglades.”
As he could not speak, Tom Halstead had been putting in his time withthe 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 withnegroes, in Florida, they’re a pretty poor sort of white men. Thiswhole gang must belong to the class of fugitives from the law that fleeto the Everglades when they can get ahead of the police officers.They’re a desperate gang, out for any kind of plunder, stopping at fewcrimes.”
Not a little had young Halstead read of these outlaws of theEverglades. Since reaching Florida he had heard much more of them. Inthese vast, desolate stretches of swamp land there are a multitude oftrackless ways. Once a criminal, fleeing from justice, gets two orthree miles into the Everglades, he is almost certain to remain a freeman as long as he stays there. In all these vast reaches of swamp anddark waters, with every advantage in favor of the hiding criminal, theofficer of the law, if he pursues, has a very little chance of everfinding his quarry.
Florida police officers are not cowards. The men of Florida are brave.Yet officers have been known to pursue fugitive criminals into theEverglades and never come out again. Those who do get out alive oftenhave a tale to tell of days or weeks of patient search through thegloomy, swampy fastnesses without ever once having caught sight of themen they sought.
When a criminal in southern Florida escapes with his booty, and is seenno 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 befound or tracked, and that he is safe from the law unless he shouldtake it into his head to come out once more into the communities. Noris it necessary for these men to return to the haunts of civilization,unless they wish to do so. Crops may be raised in these hiddenfastnesses, and wild animals may be shot for meat and clothing. Yet itis the nature of mankind to yearn for a return to old haunts. So everynow and then a fugitive from the Everglades is caught, though rarely ornever in the Everglades themselves.
“A nice crowd I’m with, and a fine chance I’ve got ever to get back tomy friends!” was the thought that rushed, with swift alarm, throughTom Halstead’s brain. “And it was plain they _did_ want me. They werelooking for me, more than for anyone else. _But why?_”
The more Halstead racked his brain for the answer the more puzzled hebecame.
“Of course, Oliver Dixon might want me out of the way; undoubtedly hedoes. Yet he had no acquaintance with these ruffians. Dixon is as muchof a stranger to this se
ction 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 soconvincingly that he brought some of these scoundrels to him? Did hepay them to take me away? Were his story and his wild shots, his scaredlooks and his wild talk all parts of a monstrous lie?”
Tom Halstead throbbed with agony as he became more and more sure inhis own mind that he had solved the mystery of his abduction by thesewretches of the Everglades.
If he had not solved the puzzle correctly, then he could think of noother explanation that seemed at all plausible.
“And I determined to investigate Dixon’s story for myself, and wentright 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 willshake with inward laughter at finding me just the idiot he expected meto be!”
So utterly angry was he with himself that Halstead did himselfinjustice. It is doubtful if Dixon was clever enough to have plannedit all just as it had happened. It had been a chance—a lucky one forDixon—that had placed Tom Halstead in this terrible situation.
As the boat swept along under increased speed the four men regaledthemselves on food that they drew from their various pockets. Halsteadfelt a ravenous gnawing under his belt, but none of his captors offeredhim anything to eat.
“There ain’t grub enough to throw any of it away, younker,” observedthe leader, as he swept the last crumbs into his own mouth. “But Ireckon maybe yo’ would like some use or yo’ mouth. Jabe, take thatpacking out from between the younker’s teeth.”
This service the negro performed, rather roughly, it is true. But atlast Tom Halstead could take a really deep breath; he could talk, if heso desired; but he was in no mood to do that.
The young skipper knew that the boat was now traveling rapidly, thoughhe could not see above the gunwale of the craft. From the actions ofthese Everglades ruffians, however, the boy knew that they did notsight any other boats. Thus the forenoon wore along until, at last, theleader, whom the others addressed as “Sim,” remarked:
“Jabe, yo’ may as well let the younker set up on a seat, now. He-unwon’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 acceptedthis 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 wasbehind them. The boat was now running along, at a speed reduced to somesix miles an hour, on a gloomy-looking lagoon not more than forty feetwide. Just ahead of them were great, gaunt cypress trees, laden withhanging moss, that almost met over the water.
“We don’ brag none erbout the scen’ry heah,” observed Sim, “but it’sa good, safe country in the Evahglades. Plenty o’ snakes an’ ’gatorsheah, 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 lakethat was at least a quarter of a mile wide. Through the windings ofthis body they traversed for three or four miles, the water at lastnarrowing, until the waterway was barely more than wide enough ordeep enough to allow the handling of the boat. Yet Sim managed itremarkably well.
“I reckon this yere boat is goin’ to be powahful handy to us, afterthis,” the leader laughed. “We-uns sho’ly can get away fast ef anyonetries to chase us ’cross Okeechobee.”
They came, now, to a larger space of water, at one side of which layan island many acres in extent. It was well-covered with trees anddense jungle. Toward a little bay in this island Sim headed the launch,gradually slowing down the speed. Presently he stopped and gentlybeached the boat.
“Home!” he laughed, as he sprang out. “Come on, younker. I’m realanxious 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 hestepped ashore, glad to stretch his legs. “You don’t seem to have evena 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 thathas yo’ in charge. Kink, I reckon yo’ can take the gun and watch ovahthis young gentleman while we-uns goes up to the house and does someo’ the chores.”
“Kink,” one of the negroes, received the rifle and box of cartridgeswith a grin.
“Yo’ set right down there,” commanded Sim, pointing to a grassyhummock. “Don’t go to provoke Kink, ’cause he’s nervous when he-un donetotes a gun!”
Tom seated himself as ordered, while Kink stationed himself watchfullytwenty feet away.
“How long are you folks going to keep me here a prisoner?” demandedHalstead, as the other three turned to go into the interior of theisland.
“How long?” repeated Sim, turning and looking back. “Why, suh, I don’reckon yo’ ever goin’ to git away from heah. Not alive, anyway!”