AN ISLAND MYSTERY.
It was an exhilarating sensation, this of being afloat on their own
keels and gliding easily among sights so strange and new. On every
yellow sand-spit alligators lay sunning themselves and slid into the
water with lazy splashes as the expedition shot round points onto them.
Sometimes they didn't even trouble to do this but lay blinking at the
canoes as much as to say:
"Hurry up by, and let us get to sleep again."
"What if they should take it into their heads to attack us?" asked
Lathrop of Pork Chops. The boy's face paled as sometimes the old black,
with deliberate defiance as it seemed, steered so close to the alligator
bars that the boy could have put out a hand and touched the backs of the
monsters.
"Don' you give ye'self no fuss 'bout dem 'gators 'tacking us, Marse
Lathrop," the old man reassured him, "why, ef I het one ob dem varmints
a slap wid dis yar paddle he'd skedaddle so quick yo couldn' see his
trail for hurry--yes, sah."
The first night's halt was made at a beautiful little island overgrown
thickly with palmetto, bay, water-oak, wild-fig, mastic and other
timber. Through the amber water that surrounded it fish of a dozen
varieties glided through the brilliantly colored water-grasses, that
waved in as great luxuriance as the land-growth. While Pork Chops built
a fire and busied himself with getting supper Frank and Harry sat apart
and discussed their plans. They intended to select the first available
place for the setting up of the _Golden Eagle II_, and then do a little
scouting by aeroplane. Frank knew from report that scattered through the
wilderness of the Everglades there are numerous hammocks or small hills,
in some cases quite considerable mounds, that would make ideal sites for
a central camp. It was not much use speculating on any further method of
procedure, however, till they were actually in the Everglades.
While the boys had been busying themselves in this way Ben Stubbs had
taken a rifle and strolled off into the jungle in search of one of the
wild turkeys whose loud "Keouk-keouks" had apprised him that the bronze
beauties were plentiful in the brush. Lathrop and Billy Barnes went
fishing with improvised hooks and lines made of stout thread from their
toilet-bags.
The two anglers were shouting with delight over a huge reddish colored
fish that Lathrop had hooked and drawn to shore, after a struggle in
which it seemed that his line must part or he go overboard, when Ben
Stubbs returned from his hunting expedition. He carried with him a fine
big gobbler that must have weighed fully twenty pounds. While they were
all gathered about the beautiful bird admiring the rich, coppery gloss
of its feathers, Lathrop, who had been busy disentangling his line from
a low-growing bush, gave a sudden yell.
"What's the matter?" shouted Frank.
The boy came running toward him. His face was white and he held out his
right hand for their inspection. On the thumb were two tiny bluish
punctures.
There was no need to ask questions. The boy had got a snake bite. The
question was,--had a poisonous reptile bitten him?
Lathrop, what with terror and pain from the fever that was coursing
through his veins like molten lead, was too terror-stricken to answer
Frank's questions intelligibly. He finally described, however, a snake
which they did not doubt was a rattler,--a diamond back,--one of the
most deadly pests of the Everglades.
"The medicine chest quick, Harry," ordered Frank.
The younger boy darted to the canoes and soon returned with the outfit
labelled "For Snake Bites." With quick dexterity Frank had rolled up
Lathrop's sleeve while Harry was getting the remedies, and with a short
stick had twisted a handkerchief above the bite so tightly that it was
almost buried in the skin. This was to prevent the poison spreading up
the arm.
Then, while Lathrop winced with the pain but endured it bravely, Frank
slashed two deep cuts in his forearm which bled freely. From the
snake-bite outfit Frank rapidly selected some dark-red tablets of
permanganate of potassium and rapidly dissolved them in water. By this
time Lathrop was in agony. His heart felt as if it was being gripped in
a red-hot vise and he had great difficulty in breathing. A strange
drowsiness crept over him. Nothing seemed to matter if he could only
sleep and forget the pain.
"Leave me alone," he panted to Frank. "I guess I'd rather die."
The young leader recognized the seriousness of these symptoms and worked
with feverish haste. He fitted a needle onto a hypodermic syringe and
seizing a fold of the stricken boy's skin between his thumb and
forefinger he ran the needle almost up to its end in Lathrop's
arm--after having filled the squirt with the permanganate solution.
Then, wrapped in blankets, the boy was laid down, while Frank and Harry
watched anxiously at his side. After an hour they breathed more freely
as Lathrop opened a pair of languid eyes and announced that the pain
about his heart had moderated. The next morning he was still so weak,
however, that to move him was manifestly impossible.
The boys were in a quandary. They could not leave him and yet time was
precious. They must press on. An unexpected solution to the problem was
found when Frank and Harry, after spending half a day exploring the
little key, announced that they had found a deserted plantation house on
the northerly end of it, and that better than that even, there was a
quite considerable clearing about the abandoned house that would make an
excellent "take off" for the _Golden Eagle II_. It was decided that
night to go to work at once to put the aeroplane together right there
and abandon the canoe expedition.
The house that Frank and Harry had found had evidently been long
deserted. It was built of clay daubed over plaited branches of the
mastic tree and roofed with palmetto leaves. Its door, a queer
contrivance of twisted branches and palmetto leaves hung from broken
hinges formed by loops of pliable twigs, bent round large crooked sticks
set into the frame. All about it stretched a clearing in which
apparently the former proprietor had carried on some sort of farming
operations. But its condition showed that like the house it had been
unused for many years.
"Who do you suppose could have built it?" asked Harry as the boys gazed
about them at the dismal scene of desolation and abandonment.
"Some fellow anxious to keep out of the way I should imagine," put in
Ben Stubbs, who was already busy with a mattock clearing up a space of
ground on which to begin operations,--for this conversation took place
the morning following the boys' discovery of the hut and the clearing.
"Or maybe a sailor who was marooned here," put in Billy Barnes.
"Ah, that's more like it," commented Ben. "Now I come to think of it,
pirates used to be thick in among these yere islands and depend upon it
that this place was put up by one of them poor fellows as they had put
ashore for some fancied offence or other."
As if to confirm this theory it was not much later that Billy, poking
about the clearing, found way off in one corner, under a huge
cabbage-palm, a board stuck at one end of a low mound, evidently a
grave.
Billy's shout at once brought the others clustering about him, and after
Ben's knife had scraped away the mould and dirt with which the years had
coated the head-board they read:
"Jem Bristol,--a sailor of the Walrus. Died May 21, 1775.
Berried Here by His Ship matz."
Underneath in smaller letters was cut the inscription:
"He was maruned here for five years been found by us as he was
diing. The krew of the Murmade."
"Poor fellow," exclaimed Billy, "marooned here for five years, what a
fate!"
"I suppose that the Walrus was some sort of a pirate ship?" asked Harry.
"Yes, I think I remember reading somewhere that Captain Flint, a famous
sea-rover, called his ship by that name," chimed in Frank.
"Wall, them fellers from the Mermaid, however they got here, done what
they could for the fellow," commented Ben Stubbs.
"Just the same they only found him when it was too late to do anything
for him but bury him," commented Frank.
It was a good morning's work transporting the packing cases containing
the sections of the air-ship across the island and when it was completed
all hands were glad to sit down and partake of a lunch of reef oysters,
pilot bread, fried bacon washed down with tablet lemonade prepared by
Pork Chops. Lathrop was so far recovered as to be able to drink some
oyster broth and after he had taken the nourishment he declared that he
felt strong enough to be moved.
The boys had reached the decision that it would be a good plan to
transport the entire camp to the clearing and occupy the dead sailor's
house as a more comfortable permanent camp than they could erect
themselves. The rest of the day was devoted to putting this idea into
execution and carrying Lathrop, in a sort of stretcher made out of one
of the canoe-tents and two long branches across the island. The canoes
were then poled round the island to a little bay with a shelving beach
that cut into the land opposite the new camp which by unanimous consent
had been christened Walrus Camp. The little craft were dragged up to a
point above tide-water, for the waters about the island were still
tidal. That evening, when the lamp was lit and the mouldering house of
the maroon neatly swept out and the boys' possessions all put in place,
the young adventurers declared it was as comfortable a dwelling as one
could find.
As for Pork Chops, he was fairly delighted with the place.
"Dis am as framjous as any palace I ever did done see," he exclaimed,
rubbing his hands in satisfaction.
"What palaces have you ever seen?" asked Frank quizzingly of the old
man.
Pork Chops, with a look of great superiority, replied:
"Ah's seen palaces an' palaces. Moren' you could shak' a stick at," he
replied indignantly.
The exact location of Pork Chops' palaces and the eagerly demanded
definition of the mysterious word "framjous" was indefinitely postponed
by a startling occurrence at this juncture.
Ben Stubbs, who had been sitting by the door almost keeled over. Lathrop
in his enfeebled condition set up a startled cry. Even Frank and Harry
turned a shade paler. As for Billy his eyes almost popped out of his
head. With a loud cry of "Fo' de Lawd's sake, spookses!" Pork Chops
leaped from beside his stove, upsetting his pots with a loud crash. What
had occurred was in fact sufficiently startling considering their lonely
surroundings.
Somebody had knocked at the door.
Frank was the first to recover his senses. Revolver in hand he dashed
across the floor and flung the door wide open. Eagerly his eyes searched
the night but without result.
There was nobody to be seen!