DOWN THE INDIAN RIVER.
"Now, what d'ye know about that?" exclaimed Nick, scrambling to his feet
after his usual clumsy way; for when the fat boy happened to become
excited he generally "fell all over himself," as Josh put it.
"What ails you, Josh?" demanded Herb.
No sooner had the lengthy one reached a spot near the fire than he threw
himself down, and commenced frantically to pull up the left leg of his
trousers.
"Gosh! looky there, will you, fellers?" he bellowed, as if in a panic.
"He sure got me that time; I guess I'm a goner. Won't one of you get
down and suck the poison out for me? You know, I'd do it in your case.
Oh! please hurry up. My leg's beginning to swell right now, and in a few
minutes it'll be too late!"
"Poison!" echoed Herb, who seemed to be in utter ignorance of the entire
matter, and could only stare at the little speck of blood showing on the
white skin as if horribly fascinated.
"Yes, oh! didn't you hear the terrible buzz he gave when he stuck his
fangs in me?" groaned poor Josh.
Jack had thrown himself down alongside the wounded one, and was
minutely examining the hurt. He looked up at this juncture, and to
the astonishment of Herb and George, was apparently grinning.
"Brace up, Josh," he said, cheerfully; "you're not going to kick the
bucket yet awhile, I reckon."
"Oh! how kind of you to tell me so, Jack; but how do you know? Please
tell me why you say that," pleaded the cook, beginning to look relieved;
for he had fallen long ago into placing the utmost confidence in
whatever Jack believed.
"Well, in the first place, there's only one tiny puncture, you see; and
if this was a snake bite there'd be the plain marks of _two_ fangs,"
Jack announced.
"Sounds all right, Jack; but perhaps this critter only had one fang.
Didn't you hear the angry shake of his old rattle-box when he struck?
It gave me a cold chill, because, right at the same second, I felt
something stick me. I'll never forget the awful sensation, even if I do
live through it," and Josh rubbed his leg vigorously, as though hoping
that by inducing a circulation he might avert the threatened dire
catastrophe.
"Well, if you only look around right now, perhaps you'll discover the
source of that same buzz," Jack went on, soberly.
"Why, whatever can you mean?" Josh stammered, staring his amazement.
"Notice how Nick, for instance, is trying the best he knows how to keep
his face straight, even while he's just shaking all over with the laugh
that's in him. Stand up, Nick; and hold out that hand you've got behind
your back."
Jack pointed rather sternly at the culprit while speaking.
"Oh, well, I s'pose I'll have to 'fess," mumbled the fat boy, as he
whipped the hand in question around, so that all could see what he was
holding.
"Why, it's that boozy little rattle he picked up in Jacksonville, and
broke on the first trial!" exclaimed George. "He's been dabbling at it
ever since, trying to mend the old thing."
"Yes," said Jack, "and just succeeded in getting it to working. Here,
give it to me, Nick, and I'll show them how it whirrs when you turn it
around rapidly."
Taking the little wooden contrivance, Jack gave it a series of quick
turns, with the result that a loud angry buzzing was produced, not
unlike the warning rattle of an enraged snake.
"Oh! that was it, Jack!" cried the relieved Josh. "Thank you for showing
me, too. It sure takes a big load off my mind, because you'll never know
what a nasty feeling I had at the time. It was a mean dodge, Nick, and
I can't forget it in a hurry, either. But Jack, that don't explain
everything."
"Now you're thinking of that sudden little pain you had in the leg?"
suggested the other, nodding his head understandingly.
"You bet I am!" Josh declared. "It took me at the identical second I
heard that whirr. If it wasn't a snake bit me, what did, Jack?"
"Let's find out right away, so's to relieve your mind," Jack went on.
"Lead the way to the very spot where you were when you heard the sound,
and felt that sudden pain."
"That's dead easy," remarked the tall boy; and as he said this he
scrambled to his feet, his trousers still rolled up to his knee, and
limped across the camp.
Jack noticed, however, that he approached the place cautiously, as
though not yet wholly convinced that there might not be a dreadful
diamond-back rattler lying in ambush, waiting for another chance to
puncture him.
"There it is, right in front of you, Jack!" Josh cried, pointing; "I
happened to want a handful of dry timber to hurry up the fire, and
stepped over here, because I'd noticed just the thing under this lone
palmetto. Just as I banged into that little bunch of brush it happened."
Jack laughed.
"Look here, fellows, and you'll see what he ran against!" he announced,
taking hold of the long, narrow, dark green leaf of a plant that was
growing there.
"What is it?" asked George.
"A plant they call Spanish Bayonet," replied Jack, seriously now. "You
see, like lots of semi-tropical plants, such as the yucca, century plant
or Mexican aloe, and others, it's got a sharp point, almost like a
needle. Well, just as luck would have it, Josh banged into one of these
leaves at the very second Nick began to rattle his alarm box. No wonder
he got a shock! It was enough to stagger the bravest."
"Then it was what you might call a coincidence?" suggested Herb.
"Huh! a mighty tough one, too," grunted Josh, as he rubbed his injured
limb ere turning down his trouser leg.
"But see here, fellows, are we going to let our funny man try that stunt
every little while?" demanded George, frowning at his shipmate.
"I vote for one against such a thing," declared Herb. "That nasty little
box has too suggestive a rattle to please me. If I was going through the
saw palmetto scrub, and he happened to amuse himself with it, I just
know I'd jump ten feet. It would make life miserable for me right
along."
"Jimmy, what do you say?" demanded Jack.
"Me too!" piped up the Irish lad. "Sure it do be giving me the crapes
just to listen to that thing go whirring around."
"You hear the verdict, Nick?" said Jack, pretending to assume the air of
a judge addressing the prisoner in the dock.
"Oh! I ain't saying a word," Nick replied, with a shrug of his fat
shoulders. "I c'n see myself that it would be a mean trick to play.
Never thought much about it that way. Give her a toss, Jack. And Josh, I
hope you won't hold it against me too hard. You know, you're top-notch
yet in that bully contest of ours."
In this way did the contrite joker attempt to buy peace in the camp; and
that he was fairly successful might be judged from the grin that slowly
began to spread over the thin face of the cook.
"That's all right, Nick; so long as it don't happen again I ain't goin'
to think too much about it. Fact is, it's goin' to give me a cold shiver
every time I hear anything like that rattle. And now I'll be getting
back to my work."
"Then you don't want anybody to suck the poison out?" asked Nick.
"Let up on that, now, will you? I guess I'm able to hobble around yet,"
and bending down, Josh gathered some of the dry trash that he wanted, to
hurry the fire on with.
Jack had tossed the little rattle-box contrivance into the fire, where
it was soon entirely consumed.
Although they ate supper ashore, it was considered wise to sleep aboard.
The only one who grumbled at this decision was poor Nick. He had a hard
lot to follow, for the narrow speed boat offered but poor sleeping
accommodations for two, and many a time the stout youth was wont to
bemoan his sad fate as he rubbed his aching sides in the morning.
They left the camp at Mosquito Inlet an hour after sunrise on the
following morning, and started down past New Smyrna, heading for the
Haulover Canal that connects Mosquito Lagoon with the famous Indian
River.
Under Jack's wise guidance they found little trouble in navigating the
broad or narrow waters of the various channels. As steamboats passed
through daily in the season, there were plenty of "targets" pointing out
the deeper waters; and where the lagoon happened to be very shallow,
canals had been dredged.
Taking it leisurely, they arrived at Titusville about two in the
afternoon. Here one of the boys went for the mail, and also to pick up
the few things they had on the list of "necessities wanted."
As the western shore of the river is pretty thickly settled now, it was
decided to cross over, and skirt along Merritt's Island until near its
foot, where they could probably find a spot free from civilization's
touch; and this was what appealed to the motor boat boys at all
times--wild solitude.
Long before evening overtook them they had come to a halt, and anchored
the boats close to the eastern shore, just beyond a point that would
protect them from any wild norther that might chance to spring up. All
of them had heard so much about these dreaded storms that swoop down
upon the pilgrims in small boats when navigating Florida waters that
they were always on the watch for their coming.
"I say, Jack!" exclaimed George, as they landed in their small dinkies,
intending to again have a fire, and be congenial; "look out yonder on
the river, and tell me if that ain't the same strange launch we saw
twice before above."
"You're right, George, that's what," replied the other, as he whirled
around, to shade his eyes with one hand in order to see the better; for
the sun was just going down beyond the wide river, Rockledge way, and
shone fiercely.
"If I had the glasses now, I'd like to see who they are," George went
on. "Seems to me the parties on that boat act queer. They dodge out of
sight whenever they think we're watching. I don't just like the way they
act, Jack, do you?"
"Oh! I don't know," replied the other. "That may be only imagination
with you, George. The only thing that strikes me as queer is that the
boat seems to be as near a ringer for the _Tramp_ as anything I ever
struck."
"Wow! you're on the job now, when you say that, and funny I hadn't
noticed it before, Jack," George declared. "Now that you mention it, I
declare if it isn't just remarkable. I suppose all of our boats have
doubles, somewhere in the country; for the makers have a model they
follow out heaps of times in a season; but all the same, it strikes a
fellow as queer to run across a duplicate of the boat he's kind of
looked on as his own especial property."
"Well," grunted Nick, who had been near enough to overhear this talk,
"I'm right sorry for somebody then, if there's a ringer for the
_Wireless_. They have my sympathy, I tell you that right now."
But George only sniffed, and disdained to notice the slur cast upon his
pet. It seemed that the more the others found fault with the actions of
the _Wireless_, the greater became his attachment for the erratic boat.
"Well, they're ahead of us again, for one thing," he remarked. "It looks
like a game of tag, right along; now we're leading, and then they forge
ahead. I'm just going to keep tabs on that boat, for fun; and some fine
day perhaps I'll have my curiosity satisfied. I'd give something to know
who they are, and why they act like they do."
"Oh! they won't keep me awake much, I tell you that," said Nick,
loftily. "When I bother my head it's going to be about something worth
while--understand?"
"Sure," remarked George, quickly. "Something that threatens a calamity
in the feeding line, for instance; a running short of supplies. That's
the subject Nick worries about most."
"Well, is there any more important business known than supplying the
human engine with plenty of fuel?" demanded the other, sturdily.
"Perhaps the engineer may be the more important fellow of the two; but
the stoker is just as necessary, if the machine is to be kept going. But
there's Josh calling me to help him. I'm always Johnny-on-the-spot when
it comes to helping Josh get grub ready"--and he waddled off serenely;
for Nick was so happily constituted that no matter what jabs he received
from his chums, they seemed to roll from him like water from a duck's
back.
"Hear the mullet jump?" remarked Jack, as they ate supper after night
had set in. "D'ye know, fellows, this ought to be a good time to try
that fish spear?--for we'll have an hour of dark before the old moon
peeps up, and there isn't a breath of wind to ruffle the water. Jimmy, I
appoint you to push me around a bit, and see what we can do, though I
wouldn't count too much on any big score."
"I'm on, Jack, darlint," Jimmy immediately responded; "and it's ready I
am now."