IN CAMP ON ANCLOTE KEY
To the surprise of the other boys, Mac’s frightened demur lasted only
a few seconds. Then, as if steeling himself to mount the gallows, the
barefooted, bewildered boy exclaimed:
“I call you――you’re on. I’m game.”
As a matter of fact, Tom was perhaps more apprehensive than Mac. But,
one thing reassured him. The start would be over shoal water, in which,
if they got a ducking, they would not dash out their brains. The spot
where the aeroplane landed was comparatively soft. After a little
search around the point, the beach was found to be harder, more like
a cement floor, and considerably wider. To this point, the three boys
trundled the airship like pushing a Gargantuan baby cab.
As Mac climbed aboard, he handed eight dollars to Bob.
“It’s all I have,” he said, without smiling――although, to tell the
truth, neither was he nervous――“give it to my father if we don’t get
back.”
“Not on your life,” exclaimed Tom. “That’s a Jonah sign――bad luck. Put
that money back in your pocket.”
Bob was a little concerned over Tom’s initiation. But the moment, he
saw the southern boy prime the cylinder cocks and grasp the levers, he
knew that Tom had let nothing go unobserved. Again the engine started,
the propeller began to hum and Tom sat with the wheels braked, waiting
for sufficient momentum. Then the car wobbled, and Bob saw it was time
to free the starting wheels.
“Let ’em go,” he yelled. And, as Tom released the brake, Bob, grasping
the rear vertical rudder, gave the _Anclote_ a “boost” that sent her
skimming along the beach. With the first bound into the air, Mac
twisted his body about. He was actually grinning.
“Purty soft,” he shouted, “if I don’t git sky sick.”
St. Joseph Bay, seven miles wide, stretched between the Keys and the
mainland. On its far side, rising from the white strip of narrow beach,
a green band of scrub pines and palmettoes was broken in one place by a
gap through which the Anclote River entered the sound.
Up this winding watercourse, small boats made their way to Tarpon
Springs, three miles inland. Over this stretch of water and land, Tom
and Mac were now shooting at top speed on their most important errand,
the securing of a box of matches.
Bob rushed back to the camp, mounted to the backbone of the Key for
one last look at the diminishing aeroplane and a glimpse at the deep
blue gulf beyond, and then made ready to prepare the long delayed meal.
There was a temptation to extend his inspection of the little island,
for he had already noticed a most unusual feature of the sand covered
Key. At the far northern end of the narrow strip, stood two large
trees――oaks he afterwards found――unique both in size and location. He
wondered why Captain Joe had not made camp there, but that was soon
explained――there was no landing.
With the determination to make Oak Tree Point the object of his first
excursion, the boy clambered down to Joe’s inlet, and the camp, and
fell to work. Perhaps it wasn’t a joy to overhaul and begin the
arrangement of their stores. Tom had already located a place for a camp
fire, and collected a pile of palmetto roots.
In a quarter of an hour, Bob had emptied most of the boxes and
improvised a pantry. On two of the cases, moved out under a palmetto
tree, he laid a cloth and distributed plates, cups, knives, forks and
spoons. Then followed bread, preserved butter, marmalade, condensed
cream, a can of baked beans and another of tomato soup ready for
heating, a few potatoes for frying and the skillets and pots for the
cooking.
As Mac’s fish were to be the feature of the “spread,” Bob now began
looking for a suitable knife with which to clean them. He knew he had
one in his fish box. As he prepared to unlock the latter, his face
flushed. Then he broke into a laugh. Snapping open the lid, he reached
into the lower compartment and withdrew, not only his fish knife, but
two boxes of wind-proof matches.
“Never mind,” he chuckled, “it’s all for the best. Ain’t no use havin’
an airship standin’ ’round eatin’ its head off an’ doin’ nothin’.
Besides, Mac had to begin sometime.”
Starting a fire of dead roots, Bob, still shaking with amusement, put
on a pot of water to heat the beans and soup, and filling the coffee
pot from the fresh water keg, he took Mac’s bucket of fish down to
the shore of the inlet to dress them. He was about half done when,
straightening up to ease his aching back, he found Mac and Tom silently
watching him.
“If that’s a joke,” exclaimed Mac, pointing to the roaring fire, “do
it again. I’m satisfied. We was in town twelve minutes, and it was
forty-two minutes from the time we left till we got back. An’ I’ll bet
you she kin――”
Bob held up his hands in protest, while he broke in with an explanation
of how and where he had found his matches, at the end of which he told
Mac they would talk “aeroplane” later. Tom exhibited three boxes of
matches rather contemptuously, and then, Mac being a more experienced
cook, Bob and Tom turned over the culinary affairs to him, while they
visited the aeroplane to prepare it for the night.
The rubber-silk plane coverings were so attached that they could be
rolled up and buttoned like a buggy curtain, thus decreasing the wind
surface and liability of damage from the elements. Both top and bottom
silk coverings (except in the engine section below) were kept taut
and in place on their rear by wire edgings drawn over each slightly
projecting rib end.
When these wires were removed, the silk surfaces were easily rolled
up and reefed along the forward edge of the car to which they were
permanently attached. This done, the delicate starting wheel frame was
quickly unbolted and removed, the bare framework set flat on the ground
and anchored with four shoulder pins. Then, covering the engine with a
waterproof jacket, the aeroplane was safe enough from ordinary storm or
wind.
When Tom and Bob rejoined the perspiring Mac, they encountered a smell
from the fish skillet that set Bob to rubbing his stomach.
“Wait till I get a mess of pompano,” remarked Mac squatted over the
fire. “Red fish are good――mighty good――but pompano――!” Words failed
him. About half past four, the meal was ready. At five o’clock, it was
at an end, and three rotund youngsters were lying on the warm sand,
content with themselves and the world.
“I could lie here forever,” mumbled happy Bob.
“Which means about five minutes,” drawled Tom.
“That reminds me,” exclaimed Bob, springing up, “I’m goin’ to explore
the island.”
“I reckoned as much,” continued Tom. “I nevah knew you all to keep
still moah than ten minutes if theah was anything you could do. Come
on.”
“Here,” protested Mac. “I don’t mind cookin’; but that don’t mean dish
washin’. Get busy.”
It wasn’t much dishwashing that was done, but Bob did recall that
the dish rag had to be washed and hung out to dry. When that had
been stretched over a palmetto the three members of the club set out
on their tour. Mac was leader. His main discovery had been a little
projecting arm of the island on the gulf side on which the wash of
the sea fell. It was literally a mine of small shells. They were not
mixed with sand or gravel, but lay, many feet deep, a solid bank of sea
shells.
Bob was anxious to reach Oak Tree Point, and, at first, he was somewhat
indifferent to sea beans, shark’s tears, conchs, wave-worn sponges,
sugary-like corals of endless forms and the broken fragments of yellow
and blue and purple fans from the distant Indies. But, once started
on the quest, in a few moments, he and his companions forgot their
excursion and the fleeting hours.
After seven o’clock, the three boys, with cramped backs, ceased their
search.
“Ain’t you goin’ to the end of the island?” exclaimed Bob, as Tom and
Mac started toward camp again. Mac shook his head and Tom sighed.
“All right,” laughed Bob, “I’ll see you later.” And while his
companions made their weary way back to Joe’s Inlet, the indefatigable
Bob set out in search of still further adventures.
It was the hour of twilight――later there would be a moon, but, instead
of dimming the view, the fading day only seemed to lend sharper details
to the lonesome Key. As Bob followed the beach toward the far end of
the island, stopping now and then to impale on a long stick the body of
a dead jelly fish and hurl it splashing back into the sea, the boy at
last came to the point of the trees.
That such ancient and sturdy woodland monarchs should be growing on
the stony island was inexplicable. Some act of nature had parted the
coral foundation of the Key and made a little inlet――in form something
like the one terminating the bay where the camp was located. Into this
fissure, the light waves rushed, welling up at the apex of the cleft
like a fountain and then rushing out again like the exhaust of a pump.
At the very mouth of this, stood a smaller tree, its gnarled roots
reaching down through fissures and entwining great blocks of the broken
coral stone. At the far end of the fissure――as if stopping further
inroads of the rupture――rose the larger tree.
As Bob, after a circuit of the trees, threw himself on the soft sand
and settled himself to enjoy the darkening blue of land and sky, far to
the east over the black of the mainland pines rose the silver rim of
the full moon.
It was the time for dreaming. His head on his hand, Bob drifted far
from the reality of day. Anclote Key drifted with him into the shadowy
world of romance. The Spaniards of old were again sailing the seas
before him and where he now lay, the red men, who had been dazed by the
sheen of knightly De Soto’s armor, might have met to stay the approach
of the invaders of the new world.
Then later days came――days of West Indian marauding at sea, wherein
turbanned cut-throats ravaged the Spanish Main for slaves and colonial
merchandize and killed men too for the pleasure of killing. In such
times, Jerry Blossom’s mythical outlaw might have lived, some West
Indian of color――even with Jerry’s big sword. Such had sailed and slain
and robbed in plenty, but they had passed like many of Bob’s loved
romances, leaving behind them only tales of blood letting and buried
treasure.
“Buried treasure!” As Bob’s wandering thoughts came upon those magic
words, he thought of Jerry. In such a spot as this, the fabricating
Jerry might well have located his invented tale of the Black Pirate and
his treasure. Bob arose, and, in the new moonlight, again examined the
shadowed trees, the rocky inlet at their feet and the drifting sand
behind them.
If there was ever a spot made to lure on the treasure seeking negroes
of the gulf coast, this was one. “Perhaps,” thought Bob. Then he
stopped and scratched his head. A swell of the sea rushed into the
inlet and broke with a swish, like harsh whispers. Bob’s face lit up
with a sudden idea. Despite the lonesome surroundings, he even smiled.
For a few moments, he paced the ground between the trees and round
about and then, as if moved by an eager impulse, he set off on a run
for the camp.
Tom and Mac were debating whether they should prepare another meal
when Bob, full of his new idea, burst upon them. So keen was Bob’s
interest in his project that eating talk was put aside. Then, to the
great amusement of the other boys, Bob related how Jerry had paid for
his passage to the island with a fabricated story of hidden treasure.
Also, he told how Jerry had weakened in his story, and sought to escape
his recent compact with Bob by explaining that he had lost the record
written on the orders of the “Ole Black Pirate wif de big sword.”
Bob’s project was to turn the tables on Jerry, have some innocent fun
at the colored boy’s expense, and, in a measure at least, lessen his
proclivity for telling falsehoods. As he explained his plans, Tom and
Mac chuckled with laughter. Mac in turn added some ideas that pleased
the other boys. Withdrawing into the tent, with the aid of a candle,
the first step in the conspiracy was taken.
When the plan had been well worked out, the boys took a long stroll on
the moonlit shore, had a lively contest as to who could find and dump
into the sea the most jelly fish, and finally, the air growing a little
cool, they found it ten o’clock and that each was hungry.
“It’s no use to wait for Captain Joe,” explained Mac. “They may be here
at one o’clock and they may not get in before daylight. Besides, they
have plenty to eat and a brazier to cook it on. We’ll eat something and
turn in.”
Hauling the prearranged signal lights up on the palmetto that Mac had
stripped, the cook fire was replenished and Mac tried his skill on some
refreshments. To the surprise of the other boys, Mac climbed down the
little ravine slope and returned, dragging a coffee sack that had been
buried in the sand. Bob and Tom saw a heap of fine fat oysters gathered
by Mac in his idle hours from a bank just off Great Oak Point.
When Mac announced supper, the main dish was the bivalves. He roasted
them in the coals, then cracking open three dozen of them, dropped a
bit of butter and a little lemon juice in each.
“Oysters à la Anclote,” laughed Mac, “but wait till we get that
pompano, broiled――”
Then, dishwashing postponed till morning, the boys rolled themselves
in their blankets to dream of the next night, Jerry, and “the hidden
treasure of the Black Pirate.”