A SCREECHER FROM THE NORTH.
All of them awaited the verdict with bated breath. Jack was down on his
back under the boat, and carefully examining the fracture made by the
snag.
"We can mend it, all right," he announced, as he finally snaked his way
out.
A chorus of approval greeted the announcement.
"How long will it take us, do you think?" asked Herb, who looked
relieved to know that, after all, his boat would not be lost.
"Oh! that depends. Perhaps by tonight it may be in apple-pie shape, good
enough to hold out till we get to Tampa," Jack replied.
"Say, looks like we might have the whole bally armada in the hands of
the ship joiners at the same time," chuckled Nick. "Because, you know,
George and me want to get a new engine installed the worst kind, don't
we, George?"
The skipper of the _Wireless_ grunted in reply; Nick was evidently
running things now with regard to that change in motive power, and did
not mean to let his mate draw back from his word.
"But first of all, we've got to drag the boat up further," continued
Jack. "You see, if I've got to work at that broken place for hours, I'm
bound to have it more comfortable than now. Lying on my back would knock
me out."
Accordingly they all took hold again, after the tackle had been shifted.
It was not so difficult a thing to do, with six sturdy fellows to pull a
rope; and presently the _Comfort_ was elevated at a point that would
allow one to kneel under her keel.
Jack made his preparations, and set to work. With the willing Herb to
assist in any way necessary, the others of course were not needed.
Josh amused himself after his favorite manner, studying up some new
dishes with which he figured surprising his chums some fine day. George
could always find plenty to do pottering with his engine, and trying to
cure its faults; for hope dies hard in the young and sanguine heart.
Jimmy and Nick took to fishing, because that employment seemed to
engross their every waking thought. When Jimmy started out, the fat boy
grew uneasy; and before long he, too, paddled away in one of the small
tenders.
"Be sure and don't go out of sight of the smoke from the fire," Jack had
cautioned them both; and Josh agreed to make use of some pine wood he
had picked up, in order to create a black smoke; for Florida pine is
full of the resinous sap that burns fiercely, and makes a dense smudge.
Jimmy did not remain long in one place. He seemed very restless, as
though he wanted to move about, in order to be on the lookout for a
chance to make a grand haul. Nick followed from time to time, meaning to
be an eyewitness to any remarkable event that took place.
"He's hoping to get fast to one of them tarpon, that's what," was the
conviction of the fat youth, who had discovered that the king fish of
the coast was in evidence in those warm waters. "I just wish he would
right now," he went on, chuckling; "I'd give a whole heap to see Jimmy
pulled around by one of them high skippers of tarpon. It'd curb that
ambition of his, some, I guess now."
And, singular to say, Nick's wish was fated to be realized. Jimmy's
mullet bait was gorged by a tarpon about the middle of the morning.
At the time the Irish boy chanced to be either half asleep or else
thinking of something else. At any rate, the first thing he knew of the
circumstance, and that he was fast to a streak of polished silver, was
when the rod he was holding was almost jerked from his hands.
"Whoa, there, ye omadhaun!" shouted Jimmy, immediately bracing his feet
so that he might not be pulled from the dinky outright.
Then something sprang from the water not fifty feet away. It was a
lordly tarpon, shaking its head, as if hoping to get rid of the barbed
hook.
A shriek from Jimmy, echoed by one from Nick, drew the attention of all
the others. Even Jack came crawling out from under the motor boat to
watch the sport.
It was certainly a great time Jimmy had. That little dinky was dragged
around at a furious pace, now darting to the right, and presently
whirled about to head toward the left, as some new whim seized upon the
captive fish.
Pretty soon Jimmy seemed to be getting dizzy from the rapid evolutions.
"He'll never tire that monster out!" cried Herb.
"And perhaps it might carry him out to sea, and lose him there!"
suggested the cautious Josh.
"Well, even if he tired the fish out, it wouldn't weigh more than a
hundred pounds; so I think he'd better cut loose," was Jack's dictum.
Accordingly he made a megaphone out of his hands, and shouted:
"Better let him go free, Jimmy; he'll upset you, and perhaps bite you
after he gets you in the water!"
"Faith, what shall I be afther doing, then?" came back faintly.
"Cut loose! you've got a knife, haven't you?" called George.
"But I'll lose me line that way, and the hook in the bargain!"
remonstrated the reluctant Irish boy.
"Well, better that than your life, or my boat," George told him.
So poor Jimmy found himself compelled to creep forward, when the chance
offered, and push the blade of the knife against the taut line. Of
course it parted instantly; and he came near capsizing when the little
dinky sprang up again, freed from the drag of the big fish.
The tarpon went speeding away toward the gulf, leaping madly out of the
water now and then, as though still trying to shake that jewelry from
its jaw, or else making sport of disconsolate Jimmy, who sat there
casting yearning looks after his escaped prize.
He always maintained that it was a two hundred-and-thirty-five-pound
fish, though just why he hit upon that odd figure Nick alone could
guess. The jewfish he remembered had been calculated to tip the scales
at two hundred and thirty pounds. And it is always the largest fish that
gets away.
Well, after that disappointment Jimmy might have been pardoned had he
given up for the day; but that was not his way. He kept at it all the
blessed afternoon. Several bites rewarded his diligence, but he did not
succeed in getting fast to another of the silver kings.
And, greatly to his disappointment, the evening came on with the
grinning Nick still holding high record in the contest.
Jack had been quite as successful as he had ventured to hope. George and
Herb both declared that he had patched the fracture in the ribs and
planks of the _Comfort_ in a truly shipshape manner; and that there
could be no question about the repair holding, up to the time they
expected reaching Tampa.
"Then we go on tomorrow, do we?" asked Nick, anxious to get Jimmy away
from the tarpon temptation; for he feared the lucky Irish lad might
sooner or later get hold of some monster, which would put his prize out
of the running.
Jack said there was nothing to hinder; and with all of them, save
perhaps Jimmy, feeling quite happy and contented, the night came on.
In the morning they were off again, and that day they saw the last of
that weird region charted as the Ten Thousand Islands. None of them were
sorry; indeed, the very monotony of those mangrove covered mud flats had
begun to pall upon every member of the expedition.
When they began to see plumed palmetto trees along the shore, the sight
brought forth cheers from several of the more joyous among the voyagers.
And it certainly looked more like life to note the buzzards floating
overhead again, with pelicans skimming the waves out on the gulf, in
search of their fish dinner. There were also many water turkeys, with
their snake-like necks, and black cormorants swimming in the lagoons
behind the keys.
Jack, who had read up on the subject, related how the Chinese fishermen
make use of such birds as these latter, trained for the purpose, to do
their fishing for them: a band being fastened around each creature's
neck, so that it can never swallow its capture, which is, of course
taken possession of by the master.
"We want to make sure to get a good anchorage tonight," Jack remarked to
Herb; for the two boats were moving along close together, late that
afternoon.
"Why so particular tonight; is it going to be any different from
others?" asked the skipper of the _Comfort_.
"Well, I don't just like the looks of that sky over yonder"--and Jack
pointed to the southwest as he spoke. "We've been told that in nearly
every case these Northers swoop down after the clouds roll up there, the
wind changing to nor'west, and the cold increasing. There's something in
the air that makes me think we're due right now for our first Norther."
"But to Northern fellows that oughtn't strike a wave of dread," declared
Herb. "We're used to winter ice and snow. The thermometer down below
zero never bothered me. Why should it down here, when it don't even
touch freezing?"
"Let's wait and see," laughed Jack. "After it comes, we'll know more
than we do now. But a harbor we must have. Keep your eye peeled for what
looks like a good landing place, Herb."
They found this presently, though the key was not so heavily wooded as
Jack had hoped to find; and he did not think it would wholly break the
force of the wind, should a gale come roaring down upon them during the
night.
When they crawled under their blankets about ten, the sky was clouded
over, but nothing else had come to pass. This condition of affairs
puzzled Jack, who did not know what to think of it.
But when he was awakened later on by a dull roaring sound, not unlike
the noise of a heavy freight train passing over a long trestle, he
sprang up, understanding full well what it meant.
"Wake up, everybody; here comes your first Norther!" he shouted at the
top of his young and healthy voice.