“Well, this is luck!” said Kenneth. “There are the chaps we saw above
Philadelphia Point. Hail them, Frank.”

“Hulloo, twenty-six!” Frank’s shout rang out in the frosty air. “Is the
boss in?”

A head appeared at the door of the cabin. “The boss is in, who wants to
see him?” it said.

The “Gazelle” rounded to, and tied up to the bank a little below the
cabin boat. As soon as the sails were furled, and everything made
ship-shape, all four boys visited their friends, and for the greater
part of a week spent most of their time aboard the roomy, warm house
boat. Arthur improved wonderfully, and all hands began to gain weight
and grow fat on the game which they shot.

The crew of the “Gazelle” were almost won over from the more strenuous
life of sailing, to the free and easy cabin-boat life, which is the
nearest approach to tramping that a dweller on the water can come to.
All along the river the boys saw cabin boats drifting slowly along down
stream, or tied up in the shelter of little coves near some town. Boats
of varying degrees of respectability composed this fleet. Boats well
built, clean and always brightly painted, homes of fairly prosperous
families, whose head worked on shore while the home was afloat, in such
manner saving rent and taxes. Boats built of bits of timber, boards, and
rusty tin, shanties afloat, the temporary homes of the lowest order of
river people. Theatres, dance halls, dives of various sorts, churches,
stores—all had their representatives on the mighty stream. A great host
of nomadic people that followed the heat to lower river in winter, and
ran up stream from it in summer.

Many of the river people were like the dwellers of No. 26, merely
temporary members of the river community, who took this method of seeing
the river, and resting from the stress of business.

It was with a feeling of regret that the boys at last took leave of
their hosts and went aboard their thoroughly cleaned and freshened
yacht. All hoped that the “good-by” they shouted over the fast widening
strip of water would prove after all to be only “au revoir.”

“There’s no use talking, boys,” the skipper said gravely, “we’ve just
got to hump ourselves and get south, where it’s warm, so that we won’t
have to burn so much oil. It’s simply ruinous.”

“All right; if you keep healthy, Art, and we don’t run aground, and the
boat don’t get holes punched in her with the ice,” Clyde remarked, “we
may see New Orleans before the glorious Fourth.”

“It’s no joke, Clyde,” said Ransom. “I’m almost busted, and I won’t have
enough to carry me through the Gulf if we don’t hurry.”

“Like the old coon who hurried up to finish his job before his whitewash
gave out,” laughed Frank.

But in spite of good resolutions and ardent hopes, progress was slow.
Head winds sprang up, dense fog shut down, obscuring channel marks, even
snow fell—the weather was certainly against them.

  TAKING SOUNDINGS.
  “... FRANK SHOUTED, ‘THREE FATHOMS!’”
]

“The ‘Sunny South,’” Ransom quoted scornfully one morning when he put
his head out of the companionway and got a block of snow down his neck.
“They have a funny brand of sun down here.” Yet as he looked shoreward,
his eye rested on an old Southern mansion. Fluted columns supported its
double portico, wide-spreading trees from which hung in festoons the (to
Northern eyes) weird Spanish moss, clustered thickly around it; beyond
were cotton fields, the whiteness of the blossoms rivalling the freshly
fallen snow.

“Say, fellows, pinch me, will you?” Kenneth shouted down to his friends.
“I’ve got a bad dream, I guess. All hands on deck to shovel snow.”
Kenneth’s shout was very fierce. Frank appeared with a broom, Clyde with
a dust pan, and Arthur brought a scrubbing brush.

“Pipe sweepers, mate,” commanded the captain.

Arthur’s whistle was a failure, for the simple reason that one cannot
pucker the mouth to whistle and laugh at the same time, but the crew
understood, and all hands turned to and swept the decks free of snow.

“Pipe breakfast,” was the next order. This was not necessary, however;
all four boys tried to get through the two-foot wide companionway at
once, and all four stuck while the tantalizing odor of steaming coffee
filled their nostrils. Clyde fell out of the bunch to the cabin floor,
which relieved the jam, and gave the others a chance.

At Vicksburg the boys tied up for four days, and visited the bone of
contention between the North and the South so many years ago. They found
many reminders of the great siege—earthworks still plainly visible, the
old stone house where Grant and Pemberton met to arrange for the
surrender of the town. Most impressive of all was the great national
cemetery—a great city of the dead. Then the boys realized as they never
could by any other means the terrible struggle, the bravery shown on
both sides, and the despair of the besieged as they were hemmed in more
and more closely by the Union lines, while their ammunition gave out and
the food grew scarce. The travellers found that the war was still the
chief topic of conversation in the South, and they got a point of view
new to them. Events were still dated on the “time of the war,” so it
seemed as if the great conflict had taken place but a few years ago.
There was a new topic, however, that the Northern boys could talk about
without the least danger of giving offence. In the war with Spain, the
sons of the Union and the Confederate soldier fought side by side, and
the people on both sides of Mason and Dixon’s line were equally proud of
their achievements.

As the “Gazelle” got under way and sailed down stream, the boys looked
back at the heights, while their thoughts carried them back to the time
when Porter’s fleets lay at anchor in about the same position and waited
for the storm of iron from the guns mounted there to cease. But the wind
was blowing half a gale, and their attention was called back with a jar
from the past to the very practical present. The stream was now very
full, and there was little danger of running aground, so Kenneth
determined to sail in spite of the freshening wind and the steady
drizzle that froze as it fell. It was Arthur’s turn at the stick, but it
was just the kind of weather to hurt one weakened by illness, so Kenneth
took his place, and sailed the boat. The wind a little abaft the beam
(another of the best points of sailing, according to Ransom), the little
boat sped on, racing, seemingly, with the billows the gale kicked up.

The other three boys stayed below in comfort, while the captain, wrapped
in a big ulster and crowned with a yellow sou’wester, held the tiller,
and looked the part of the weatherbeaten mariner down to the ground.

The wind was steady and very strong, so that the yacht keeled over
before it, and almost buried her lee rail under; the sails rounded out
to the blast, and as the rain froze on them, the rigging, the spars and
the deck, she looked like a great candied boat, such as the
confectioners like to display in their store windows. It was
exhilarating, this flying along in the wintry air, but the frozen
rigging and stiffened sheets made sailing difficult and dangerous. It
would be impossible to reef, and difficult to lower the canvas under
these conditions.

With eyes alert, and ready hand on tiller, Kenneth watched for snags,
for reefs or for sand bars, while the cold rain dashed into his face in
spite of the close-drawn sou’wester. Mile after mile the good craft sped
on—swift, sure and steady. Past islands low lying and gray in the mist,
past forests of cypress, white and glistening with frost, the gray moss
hanging from the branches sleet covered and crackling in the wind. It
was a run to remember, a run that stimulated, yet at the same time left
the steersman surprisingly tired, as Ransom found when he tried to work
his stiffened limbs and help furl the canvas.

“I wish that this sail had a few hinges,” Frank complained, as he
thumped it in a vain endeavor to roll it up compactly. “Might as well
try to roll up a piece of plank.”

It took over an hour to get things stowed properly that under ordinary
circumstances could have been disposed of in fifteen minutes; and though
the captain firmly intended to write up his log that night, it was only
by the exercise of a good deal of will power that he kept awake till
supper was over.

The following day the “Gazelle” lay close to the levees of Natchez,
having covered the distance of ninety-three miles in less than a day and
a half.

This old town the boys thought the most beautiful that they had seen.
The stately old mansions were surrounded by gardens, and trees grew
everywhere.

The town crowned the last of the heights of the Mississippi, and the
view from the bluff is one of the finest anywhere along the river.
Before starting on the cruise the boys had read about the places they
were likely to visit, and they recalled that Natchez was one of the
earliest settlements on the river. They remembered, too, that the
Natchez Indians, perhaps the most intelligent of their race, were one of
the ten first tribes to run foul of the white man’s civilization. Swift
and sure pacification, by means of the sword, was their lot.

“Natchez under the hill,” as the cluster of houses occupying the narrow
strip of land between the river and the steep slope is called, was as
unattractive and foul as Natchez proper was beautiful and wholesome. Not
many years ago it bore the reputation of being one of the hardest places
on the Mississippi, and even when the boys anchored off its water front,
they found it far from desirable.

A run of a hundred and thirty-nine miles in three days brought the
“Gazelle” and her crew to Baton Rouge. Though the wind was blowing hard
when they reached the town, they had to be content with the meagre
shelter of a few scattered trees on a low point. It was practically an
open anchorage.

“Looks squally,” Arthur remarked as he tied the last stop on the furled
mainsail. “How’s the glass?”

“Going down like thunder,” Ransom answered from below. “Thermometer
shows 15 degs. Gee, I hope this wind lets up.”

“Shall I put out the other anchor?” the mate inquired. It was a
precaution Kenneth thought wise to take.

“I’ll bet we have troubles to burn to-night,” the skipper said half to
himself, as he lashed down everything movable with light line and rope
yarn.

By the time supper was finished, the wind was howling through the
rigging like a thousand demons. The little ship tugged at her anchors,
and bobbed up and down over seas that grew more turbulent each moment.

The usual cheerful talk, jests and snatches of songs were much subdued,
or, indeed, entirely lacking this night. Instead, the four sat and
talked abstractedly with lowered voices, and from time to time, the
talker would interrupt himself to listen to some peculiarly vicious
blast.

The light of the pendent lamp, as it swung with the motion of the boat,
cast strange, distorted, dancing shadows, and the boys sat close
together as they listened to the howling of the wind. They were not
afraid, but the agitation of the elements, the wind, the cold, and the
continuous jumping and staggering motion of the yacht sent uncomfortable
chills down their spines.

“I’ll play you Pedro,” Kenneth’s voice sounded strangely loud in the
cabin. He felt that it was not good to sit still and listen to the
tempest.

The table was propped up, and the cards dealt, but it was playing under
difficulties—someone had to keep his hand on the cards played to make
them stay on the table. The boys’ hearts were not in it, and they made
absurd mistakes. Kenneth rallied them, and tried in every way to steer
their thoughts away from the danger, the tempest and the cold; but in
spite of all he could do, the boys stopped playing and listened with all
their ears. The hum of the rigging, the slap of the waves against the
sides, the quick snap-snap of the tight drawn halliards against the
masts—all contributed to the mighty chorus in honor of the gale.

Of a sudden there was a heavy thud and then a sliding sound—a sound
different from all the other voices of the storm.

“What was that?” It was hard to tell whether it was one voice or four
that uttered the words. The boys sprang to their feet, and stood for a
brief moment listening.

                              CHAPTER VIII

                  AN ICY STORM OFF “SUNNY” BATON ROUGE

On the alert but motionless, the four boys waited for a repetition of
the strange noise, wondering what it meant. The wind still shrieked; all
the pandemonium of sound continued, but the queer sound was not
repeated, neither was the unusual jar.

Kenneth was the first to move. He jumped to the companionway, and pushed
at the hinged doors leading on deck, but they did not move. Glued with
the frost, they refused to open. He put his shoulder against them, and
pushed with all his might. The expected happened—the doors opened
suddenly, and Kenneth found himself sprawling on the floor of the
cockpit. He skinned his shin on the brass-bound step of the companionway
ladder, and his funny bone tingled from a blow it got on the deck. The
boy tried to rise to his feet, but a sudden swing of the boat made him
slip on the icy boards and fall swiftly down again. From his prone
position, he looked around him. The light coming up through the open
companionway gleamed yellow on the ice-coated, glistening boom, and the
furled sail propped up in the crotch. As Ransom’s eyes became accustomed
to the darkness, he saw what it was that had startled them all. “His
Nibs,” hauled up on the narrow strip of deck aft of the rudder post, had
slipped when the “Gazelle” had made a sudden plunge, and sliding on the
icy rail had thumped into the cockpit. Perfectly safe, but ludicrously
out of place, the little boat looked like a big St. Bernard in a lady’s
lap.

“Look!” the prostrate captain called to his friends. “‘His Nibs’ was
getting lonesome and was coming down into the cabin for the sake of
sociability.”

The other three crawled on deck, having learned caution through the
skipper’s mishap, and crouched in the wet, slippery cockpit while they
looked around.

The gale, still increasing rather than abating, was raising tremendous
seas. The “Gazelle” rolled, her rails under at times, and her bowsprit
jabbed the white-capped waves.

“I am going forward to see if the anchors are O. K.” Kenneth spoke
loudly enough, but the wind snatched the words from his mouth and the
boys did not hear what he said.

Ransom managed to get on his feet, and, grasping the beading of the
cabin, he pulled himself erect. A quick lurch almost threw him
overboard, but he reached up and grabbed the boom overhead just in time.
Holding on to this with both arms, he slowly worked himself forward.

The other boys, crouching in the cockpit, wondered what he was up to.
They watched his dim figure crawling painfully along, and once their
hearts came into their throats as, his feet slipping from under him, he
hung for an instant from the icy boom almost directly over the raging
river. The light streaming from the cabin shone into their strained,
anxious faces and blinded them so that they could hardly see the figure
of “Ken,” on whom they had learned to rely. At last he disappeared
altogether behind the mast and was swallowed up in the blackness.

“Ken! Come back! Come back!” Arthur, who was still weak, could not stand
the strain; he could not bear to think of what might happen to his
friend.

The wind shrieked in derision—so, at least, it seemed to the anxious
boy—the elements combined to drown his voice. The gale howled on; the
rain froze as it fell, and the waves dashed at the boys like fierce dogs
foaming at the mouth.

Frank, at last feeling that he must know what had become of Ransom,
sprang up, and grasping the icy spar, crept forward. Many times he lost
his foothold, but always managed somehow to catch himself in time.
Slipping and sliding, fighting the gale, he reached the mast. The
journey was one of only twenty feet, but the gale was so fierce and the
exertion of keeping his footing so great that he arrived at the end of
it out of breath and almost exhausted. It was inky black, and only with
difficulty could he distinguish the familiar objects on the
forecastle—the bitts, and the two rigid anchor cables leading from it.
Lying across them was Kenneth, gripping one, while the yacht’s bow rose
and fell, dashing the spray clear over his prostrate figure.

“What’s the matter, Ken?” Frank shouted, so as to be heard above the
wind. “Are you hurt? Brace up, old man!”

The other did not speak for a minute; then he answered in a strained
voice: “Give me a hand, old chap, will you? I’ve hurt my foot—wrenched
it, I guess; pains like blazes.”

That he was pretty badly hurt, Frank guessed by the way in which he drew
in his breath as he shifted his position.

“Got a good hold there, Frank? Grab those halliards. It’s terrible
slippery—Ouch! Easy, now.”

It was a difficult job that Frank had in hand. The ice-covered decks
could not be depended on at all; if the boys began to slide, they would
slip right off the sloping cabin roof into the water; the boat was
jumping on the choppy seas like a bucking horse, and the wind blew with
hurricane force. Kenneth could help himself hardly at all, and Frank
struggled with him till the sweat stood out on his brow in great beads.
At last both got over the entangling anchor cables, and breathing hard,
hugged the stick as if their lives depended on it, which came very near
being the case.

“You—had—better—leave—me—here—old—chap,” panted Kenneth.
“My—ankle—hurts—like—the—old—Harry. Can’t—travel—much.”

“What did you do to it?”

“Got—caught—under—cleat—on—the butt—of—the—bowsprit.”

“Gee! that’s tough!” sympathized Frank.

“Gave it a terrible wrench. Regular monkey wrench.” It was a grim
situation to joke about.

“Leave you here?” said Frank, coming back to Ken’s suggestion. “I guess
not! What do you take me for, anyway? I know how to work it, all right.
You hang on to the mast a minute.”

Releasing his grip on Ransom, Chauvet picked up the end of the peak
halliard coiled at his feet, and with great difficulty straightened out
its frozen turns, for he had but one free hand—he could not release his
hold on the sailhoop that he grasped for an instant. Taking the stiff
line, he passed it around his body and then around the boom. Holding on
by his legs to the mast, he worked away at the frozen line until he had
knotted the end to the main part—made a bowline. The loop was around his
waist and the boom.

“Now, Ken, we’re all right—I have lashed myself to this spar, and my
hands are free. I’ll yell to Clyde,” and suiting the action to the word
he shouted aft.

Ransom hung on to the line about Frank’s waist, while Frank half held,
half supported him. Slowly they moved along, stumbling, often swinging
with the boat, till the rope cut into Chauvet’s body cruelly. It was
exhausting work.

Soon Clyde came stumbling, slipping and fighting forward against the
gale, and in a minute was helping Frank to support the gritty captain.

It was a thankful group that dropped into the warm, bright
cabin—dripping wet and numbed with cold, out of breath, well-nigh
exhausted, but thankful to the heart’s core.

Arthur cut the shoe from Ransom’s swelling ankle, and then bound it
tightly with a cloth saturated with witch hazel.

“Chasing anchors on stormy nights seems to be fatal for me,” Kenneth
remarked, as he lay on his bunk regarding his bandaged foot. “I’ll give
you fellows a chance next time—I don’t want to be piggish about it.”

Presently the cabin light was turned down and all hands got into their
berths. Not a tongue moved, but brains were active; not an eyelid felt
heavy, but the boys resolutely kept them closed. The storm raged on;
gust succeeded gust, the rain beat down on the thin cabin roof with
increasing fierceness. It was a trying night, and each of the four boys
was glad enough to see the gray light come stealing in through the
frosted port lights. They had all thought that they would never see
daylight again, though each had kept his fears to himself.

The wind still roared and the rain poured down, but the yacht tossed and
rolled less violently; her movements were slower and sluggish, quite
unlike those of the usually sprightly, light “Gazelle.”

“Sea must have gone down,” commented Clyde, in a casual way, as he noted
that the others were awake. “Queer, wind’s blowing great guns, too.”

Kenneth sat up suddenly and bumped his head on the deck beam above. This
made him wince, and he drew his game foot suddenly against the boat’s
side. Kenneth made so wry a face that his friends could not help
laughing outright—an honest laugh, in spite of the sympathy they felt.

“Both ends at once.” The captain tried to rub his head and his ankle at
the same moment, and found it a good deal of a stretch.

“There is a new bar to be charted here.” His finger went gingerly round
the bump on his forehead.

“Frank, go on deck, will you, and see if things are moderating. I’d like
to get into some cove or another.”

Chauvet made his way to the ladder and shoved the doors with all his
might; but it was only after repeated blows with a heavy rope fender
that they opened.

“Great Scott!” he shouted. “Look here. Ice! Why, there’s no boat
left—it’s all ice! Well, I’ll be switched—why, we’ll have to chop her
out, or she’ll sink with the weight of it—she’s down by the head now.”

Fresh exclamations of amazement followed as each head appeared in turn
from below. It was true. The yacht was literally covered with ice, from
one to six inches thick at the bow, where the spray combined with the
rain to add to the layers of white coating. The sluggish movement of the
vessel was explained—the weight of the ice burdened her. Here was a
pleasing condition of things.

The boys snatched a hasty breakfast, and taking hatchets,
hammers—anything with a sharp edge—they attacked the ice. Even Ransom
insisted upon taking a hand. The boat was very beautiful in her glassy
coating. The rigging, fringed with icicles, and the cold, gray light
shining on the polished surface, made it look like a dull jewel. The
boys, however, saw nothing of the beautiful side of it. There was a
mighty job before them; a cold, hard, dangerous job, and they went at it
as they had done with all the previous difficulties which they had
encountered—with courage and energy.

Colder and colder it grew, until the thermometer registered five degrees
below zero. The yacht still rolled and pitched so that the boys found it
necessary to lash themselves to mast, spars and rigging while they
chopped. The spray flew up and dashed into their faces and almost
instantly froze; the sleeves of their coats became as hard and as stiff
as iron pipes, and their hands stiffened so that the fingers could not
hold the axe helves. Every few minutes one or the other would have to
stop, go below and thaw out. They worked desperately, but new layers of
frost formed almost as fast as the boys could hack it off. But chop and
shovel they must or sink in plain sight of the town, inaccessible as
though the boat were miles from shore.

How they ever lived through the three days during which the storm
continued, God, who saved them, alone knows. It seemed almost a miracle
that so small a craft should have lived through what it did.

When at the end of the weary time the wind subsided, the yacht rode over
the choppy waves in much the same buoyant way as before—she was weather
proof; but her crew was utterly exhausted; hands and faces were cut and
bleeding from the fierce onslaught of the sleet-laden wind; fingers,
toes and ears were frost-bitten, innumerable bruises—true badges of
honor—covered their bodies, and the captain suffered intolerably from
his injured ankle.

“Hours chopping ice off the ‘Gazelle’ to keep her from sinking under the
weight of it,” quoted Kenneth from the entry in his log. “And this in
the heart of the ‘Sunny South.’”

“I don’t believe there is any ‘Sunny South.’” Clyde was tired out, and
his sentiments expressed his condition.

“Remember the old coon at Natchez?” said Frank. “He must have been a
twin of Methuselah; he said he had never seen ice on the river so far
south before, and he had lived on the Mississippi all his life.”

It was many, many hours before the “Gazelle” was free enough of her
burden to allow the crew to rest; and not until three days of gale had
spent its spite upon them could she be got under way and anchored in a
sheltered spot.

After sending reassuring letters to anxious ones at home, the “Gazelle”
sped southward, seeking for a sheltered spot to lie by and allow the ice
which was sure to follow to pass by.

At the little town of St. Gabriels the “Gazelle” found a snug nest,
where, for a time, the ice ceased from troubling, and she floated
secure.

It was with a grateful heart that Kenneth rose on Sunday morning,
February 19th, and from the safe anchorage saw the great cakes of ice go
racing by on the swift current.

“We can’t hold a service aboard,” he said to Arthur, who appeared on
deck about the same time. “But let’s dress ship for a thanksgiving
offering.”

All four agreed with alacrity, and for the next hour scarcely a word was
spoken except as one fellow sung out, “Where is that swab?” or another,
“Who’s got the bath-brick?” Hardly a day passed (except when the boat
was in actual danger) that the “Gazelle” did not get a thorough
cleaning—brasses shined, decks scrubbed, cabin scoured, bedding aired,
dishes well washed and even the dishcloth cleaned and spread to dry. But
this was a special day, and the yacht was as sweet within as soap and
water, elbow grease and determined wills could make her. The crowning of
the work came when the “Gazelle” was decked in her colors; the flags
spelling her name in the international code fluttering in the breeze,
and above all Old Glory—surely a splendid emblem of what these
youngsters gallantly typified, American perseverance, pluck and
enterprise. It was a proud crew that lined up on the bank to admire
their achievement, and their hearts were filled with gratitude to
Providence that they had been brought through so many dangers safely.

“Kin I hab one of dese yer flags?” Some one pulled at Kenneth’s sleeve,
and he looked down into a small, black, kinky-hair framed face. It was a
little pickaninny, scantily clad and shivering in the keen air.

“What do you want it for?”

Embarrassment showed on every shining feature of the little face.

“Foh—foh a crazy quilt,” she managed to say at last.

Ransom could not spare one of his flags, but he dug into a locker and
pulled out a piece of red flannel (a token of his mother’s
thoughtfulness) which pleased the black youngster almost as much. The
visits of the darky population were frequent that day, and the many
requests for “one of doze flags” suggested the thought that the first
black youngster had spread the news that the ship’s company could be
worked.

Two days later the ice had almost disappeared and the “Gazelle” left her
snug berth for the last stretch of her journey to the Crescent City. The
delay seemed to add to the yacht’s eagerness to be gone, for she sped on
her way like a horse on its first gallop after a winter in the stable.

On, on she flew, drawing nearer to her goal, scarred from contact with
ice, snags and sandbars, but still unhurt, triumphant. Surely the sun
was rewarding their persistence; for he no longer hid his face from
them, but shone out in all mellowness and geniality. Their worries fled
at his warm touch, and their hearts sang his praises.

The “Gazelle” seemed glad as she forged ahead, as if to say, “Hurrah! I
have conquered, I have stood old Mississippi’s bumps and jars! All these
are of the past, and now for Old Ocean!”

Light after light was passed and marked off on the list, and soon the
last one shone out. It had no name, so as they lustily gave three cheers
for the last of the little beacons which had so long been their guides
and dubbed it “Omega,” the “Gazelle” sped on with only the smoke of the
great cotton market as a guide. New Orleans was in sight.

The pillars of smoke—the smoke of the city of their dreams—led them on.
They could hardly realize that that dim cloud, that dark streak in the
distance was really the city which they had striven so hard to reach.

A feeling of great satisfaction came over them as the “Gazelle”
responded to the tiller, which was thrown hard down, and headed into the
wind. A few flaps of the sails in the evening breeze, the sudden splash
of the anchor forward, followed by the swir of the cable as it ran
through the chocks, and the creaking pulleys as the sails were lowered,
was the music in honor of the “Gazelle’s” successful voyage from far
away Michigan to New Orleans.

The trip of one thousand eight hundred miles had been full of incident
and some satisfaction, purchased, however, at the price of severe toil
and many hardships, with a decided preponderance of troubles over
pleasures. Sickness had visited the crew at a time when their location
made medical aid impossible; the most severe winter recorded,
accompanied with the ice packs and low stages of water, made it seem
many times as if all hands were indeed candidates for admission into the
realms of “Davy Jones’s locker.” But all this was now of the past; for
here was the “Gazelle” anchored in a snug cove in the outskirts of the
Southern metropolis safe and sound, the captain and crew strong, well,
happy, and in all ways improved by their struggles.

The sun was still two hours high when Kenneth and Frank rowed ashore in
“His Nibs” and scrambled up the steep side of the high levee which
protects the city from inundation.

As they looked back on the “Gazelle” so peacefully riding at her
anchorage, they felt like giving three lusty cheers for their floating
home. Beyond the yacht and moored at the docks were two immense
ocean-going steamships, while a short distance up the river was a
full-rigged ship with loosened canvas falling in graceful folds from the
yards. The scene was a pleasing one, and the two boys drank it in with
all their eyes; they loved the sea, and these monster boats had a
peculiar charm for them. But the “clang, clang” of a bell suddenly
awakened them from their reverie, and they started in all haste to get
down town for the mail they knew must be waiting.

The anchorage was at Carrollton, one of the suburbs of New Orleans, so
the boys had a splendid opportunity of seeing the city on their long
trolley-car journey to the main Post Office. The batch of mail that was
handed out to them gladdened their hearts, and it took considerable
resolution to refrain from camping right out on the Post Office steps
and reading their letters. They remembered, however, their promise to
Arthur and Clyde to bring back with them the wherewithal to make a feast
in honor of their safe arrival in the Crescent City.

“Gee! I’d like to know what’s in those letters.” Frank gazed at them
longingly as they walked along. “Look at the fatness of that, will you?”

“I’ve got a fatness myself,” retorted Kenneth, holding a thick letter
bearing several stamps. “We have just about time enough to buy some
truck and get back. What do you say to some oysters?”

“That goes,” was Frank’s hearty endorsement.

Oysters were cheap, they found, so they bought a goodly supply, and for
want of a better carrier put them in a stout paper bag.

The two boys started out bravely, with the bag of oysters between them,
each carrying a bundle of papers and mail under their arms. They saw
many things that interested them—quaint old buildings with balconies and
twisted ironwork, and numbers of picturesque, dark-skinned people
wearing bright colors wherever it was possible.

Frank and Kenneth were so interested in watching what was going on about
them—the people, the buildings, and all the hundred and one things that
would interest a Northern boy in a Southern city—that they forgot all
about the load of oysters till they noticed that the people who met and
passed them were smiling broadly.

“Have I got a smudge on my nose, Frank?” asked Kenneth, trying vainly to
squint down that member.

“No. Have I?” Frank’s answer and question came in the same breath.

“Well, what in thunder are these people grin——”

There was a soft tearing sound, and then a hollow rattle. The boys
looked down quickly and saw that the damp oysters had softened the paper
so that the bag no longer held them, and they were falling, leaving a
generous trail behind them.

Frank and Kenneth scratched their heads; there were no shops near at
hand, the bag was no earthly use, they were a long way from the
anchorage, and the oysters were much too precious to be abandoned.

“What’s the matter with tying up the sleeves of this old coat and making
a bag of it?” Frank’s inventive brain was beginning to work.

“That’s all right, if you don’t object,” was the reply.

An hour later two boys, one of them in his shirt sleeves, came stumbling
along in the dusk toward the levee near which the “Gazelle” was
anchored.

“‘Gazelle’ ahoy!” they hailed. “Have you got room for a bunch of oysters
and a couple of appetites?”

Evidently there was plenty of room, for “His Nibs” came rushing across
to take all three over, the “bunch of oysters” and the “two appetites”
to the yacht, where they found two more appetites eagerly waiting their
coming.

Ransom and his friends had planned to stay but ten days in New Orleans;
just time enough to put in a new mast and refit generally for the long
sea voyage before them. Their good intentions, however, were balked at
every turn. The parents of all the boys, except Ransom’s, besought them
to return; made all sorts of inducements to persuade them to give up the
trip; did everything, in fact, except actually command them. A death in
Clyde’s family made it imperative that he should go back, and it grieved
the boys to have him leave. Clyde was as disappointed as any; and as he
boarded the train to go North he said: “I’d give a farm to be coming
instead of going.”

The crew was now reduced to three, and Ransom feared that Clyde’s return
would influence the others and break up the cruise.

The letters to Frank and Arthur grew more and more insistent, until one
day Chauvet came to Ransom. “Ken,” said he, “this is getting pretty
serious. My people come as near saying that they’ll disown me if I don’t
come back as they can without actually writing the words. I want to go
the rest of the way and play the whole game, and it would be a low down
trick to leave you stranded here without a crew.”

“Well,” said Kenneth, as he sat down by Frank’s side on the levee in the
warm sunshine, “you’ll have to do as you think best, but—I never told
you that my father and mother offered me their house if I would give up
the trip, did I?”

Frank opened his eyes at this.

“No, I didn’t, but it’s a fact; and when I told them that I didn’t have
to be paid to stay and would not go if they felt so strongly about it,
they came right around and said, ‘Go, and God bless you.’”

Kenneth’s eyes moistened a little as he harked back to the time, and a
vivid picture of his far away Northern home arose before him. “Well, old
chap,” he continued, laying his hand on Frank’s knee, “they have been
with me heartily ever since, and I believe that your people would feel
the same about you and be proud of your pluck, too.”

The two looked each other in the eyes a minute—one fair, the other
dark—utterly dissimilar in appearance, but both possessed of indomitable
will and courage—then Frank’s hand slowly sought that of his friend and
gripped it hard.

“Ken, I’m with you.”

“Good,” was the other’s only answer.

Arthur’s decision was soon made when he found that Kenneth and Frank had
determined to put it through. The three were knit together in a bond of
fellowship hard to break.

The equinoctial storms were raging through the Gulf at this period, and
the boys made good use of the time to buy, shape, and put in place a new
mainmast; to tighten up the rigging and repaint the boat’s sides,
covering up the scars made by the inhospitable river. “His Nibs” was
also refitted, so that the staunch little craft looked like new, and was
much admired. The boys rambled all over the old city, from the
above-surface, tomb-like cemetery, to the lively creole quarter. Ransom
visited many ships in port and studied the lines and construction of
ocean-going vessels, river craft and lugger fishing boats. All sorts of
craft congregated at this harbor for all kinds of purposes—for cotton,
for sugar, for every sort of commodity, in fact, even down to mules.
Ransom watched them all, went aboard some and talked with the mates and
engineers. His intelligent questions won him courteous, thoughtful
answers. He took notes, made sketches, and in every way possible took
advantage of this opportunity to fit himself for his life’s work.

At last, on the first of May, 1899, the storms having passed, the
“Gazelle” being as fit and trim as a boat could be, the crew bade
good-by to the many friends they had made, cast off from their moorings
and started for the salt sea.

For two days they sailed through the delta of the Mississippi, and then
entered that dangerous short cut to the Gulf, Cubit’s Gap—a passage
flanked on either side by shoals which even the “Gazelle” could not sail
over. It was lined by the skeletons of wrecked vessels, and made the
boys hesitate a little before taking the risk. But “nothing venture
nothing gained,” they thought, and a successful venture meant almost a
hundred miles gained.

The weather conditions were good and the vote was unanimous in favor of
trying; so, on reaching the cut, the “Gazelle” turned to port and
entered the dangerous channel.

“Good-by, old Mississippi!” Kenneth said, half aloud. “We are ocean
bound at last.”

It was all done very quickly, and never a feeling of reluctance came
over them as they carefully picked their way among the shoals of the
pass.

The run through the sand point, which the current of the river has
forced out into the Gulf, was some six miles long. By careful sailing
the “Gazelle” ran this distance without mishap; and then spread out
before her was the great Gulf of Mexico! Ahead for several miles was the
shallow shoal. Débris of every kind surrounded them. Everything was so
lonesome. Not a sail in sight or anything to make them feel that the
world was peopled.

A flock of sea birds rose from the water, and, with a peculiar cry, flew
far away as if frightened by a sight seldom seen, and for a moment made
it seem as if they were “alone on a wide, wide sea.”

The sea was calm, so, taking a sounding pole aboard “His Nibs,” Frank,
with chart before him, measured the depth. The “Gazelle,” under
shortened sail, followed slowly in his wake, often luffing quickly to
avoid a bar, and surely, though slowly, winding her way. So intricate
did the path become at times that it was necessary for them to cast
anchor and explore ahead for depths sufficient to float the yacht, but
at last, just as the sun was sinking in the distant west, their labors
were rewarded by success, for careful sailing and constant sounding were
necessary, but at last the cheery cry of “No bottom,” came from their
pilot ahead, and in a few minutes the staunch “Gazelle” was gliding
along on the long, rolling surface of the open Gulf, afloat at last on
the great salt sea.

                               CHAPTER IX

                         ON SALT WATER AT LAST

“Hurrah for the sea; the blue, salt sea; the sea that we strove to
reach!” shouted Kenneth at the top of his voice.

“Hurrah!” shouted the other two boys, and all three clasped hands and
danced about in glee.

“Isn’t this worth working for?” inquired the captain, as he swept his
hand round, tracing the horizon line.

Off in the distance lay the Bird Islands, and still further the Breton
Islands showed faint and hazy in the fast deepening dusk. The wind was a
mere caressing zephyr, and the sea rolled in good-naturedly, soothingly,
even.

“What’s the matter with this, boys? Let’s anchor here. Heave the lead,
Frank, and see if it’s all right.”

Frank reached under the cockpit seat and took from its rack the lead and
line. “Aye, aye, sir,” he answered, in mock servility. Hooking his left
arm round the port stays, he stood on the rail, the long strip of lead
dangling from his right hand; the left hand held the coil of line. For a
minute he stood poised there while the “Gazelle” curtseyed her
acknowledgments to the long swells, a picturesque figure silhouetted
against the warm glow of the setting sun. Then he began to swing his
right arm slowly and steadily, the lead just clearing the water. When it
was swinging well forward he let it go, and as the line slipped through
his fingers he watched for the bits of colored cloth that indicated the
depth. Down, down it went, until all but the leather strips had
disappeared in the water. Then the line slackened, and the leadsman knew
that bottom had been reached. Beginning to pull in the line Frank
shouted, “Three fathoms!”

“Stand by! Let go your anchor!” ordered Kenneth, as soon as Frank had
reeled in the lead-line.

“Let her go!”

There was a splash, then a hum and swish of heavy rope as the anchor
cable whipped through the chocks.

“Let go your mizzen halliards!” The creak of the blocks told that the
order had been obeyed. Arthur let the jigger go at the same time. For a
few minutes not a word was spoken—all the mouths were full of cotton
rope—“stops”—while the hands were busy tightly rolling the sails. The
jib was furled up at last, and not till the anchor light was set
glowing, hung from the triced-up jib four or five feet above the deck,
did the four boys have time to lay off and enjoy the situation. They
were surprised to see how dark it was. Only a minute ago it seemed that
the sky was alight and full of color; but now only a faint soft glow
remained as a reminder that they were near the tropics where the sun
drops out of sight while still glowing.

Arthur and Kenneth lay on their backs on the cabin roof, while Frank
went below to get supper. Both boys murmured their content. They were a
little tired, for the navigation of Cubit’s Gap had been a strain on the
nerves and had necessitated more or less violent exertion. The air was
warm and restful; the motion of the boat was like the easy rocking of a
cradle, the most delightful motion on earth; the stars were just
beginning to show themselves, and the mast of the boat seemed to point
them out one by one as she swung to and fro. Suddenly there was a slight
splash alongside and a long-drawn, vociferous sigh.

“What was that?” Arthur said, sitting up quickly, with a startled look
on his face.

“I don’t know,” Ransom confessed, rubbing his eyes; “queer, wasn’t it?”

Frank’s clatter as he made ready the supper were the only sounds.

“Listen!”

Again the long sigh. It seemed to come from the very heart of some one
in intense pain.

Both boys jumped up, and Arthur called softly to Frank to come on deck.
Then all three leaned over the side, looking eagerly for the soul in
torment. They half expected to see a white upturned face showing against
the dark water. Again the sound of escaping breath. The boys looked in
the direction from whence it came and saw, not the white face of a
drowning woman, nor anything else of a like romantic nature, but the
black, glistening hide of a huge porpoise, as it leisurely humped its
back and disappeared below the surface.

“Phew! but that scared me,” remarked Arthur. “Thought somebody was in
trouble, sure.”

“The laugh is on us, all right,” Kenneth said; but he shivered slightly
in remembrance of the strange sound. “How’s supper, Frank? I’m hungry
enough to eat half that porpoise.”

It was a merry party that sat down to the meal of oysters, which had
been given to them by their fishermen friends; spuds, as the boys called
the potatoes; coffee, bread, without butter, and a treasured pie, rather
the worse for wear, but keenly relished for all that. What was left of
the meal would not have satisfied a bird, and the dishwashing that night
was an easy job.

All three of the boys felt that their fun was really only just
beginning. The cruise down the Mississippi seemed like a nightmare as
they looked back upon it. Cold, unending exertion, sickness and imminent
danger, coupled with a necessity for great economy, had taken all the
zest out of the enjoyment they might have had.

Something has been said about Ransom’s financial condition; the same
thing was true of the other boys. Clyde and Arthur hoped and expected to
make some money along the way to help pay expenses, as did Kenneth and
Frank; but fortune was against them and they had to get along as best
they could on the small sums they possessed. From St. Louis to New
Orleans, taking in all expenses, including extra oil needed to keep from
freezing, medicines and extra nourishing food for the invalid Arthur,
the total cost per week per boy was a dollar and a half.

[Illustration: FISH THEY CAUGHT IN THE GULF OF MEXICO.]

It was no wonder, then, that the three thought that a happier time was
coming. Smiling, sunny skies above them, clear, buoyant, salt water
under them, a tried and true ship their home, and a ship’s company that
could be absolutely relied upon. What more was to be desired?

The night was divided into four watches of four hours each, and Kenneth
went on deck to take the first trick from eight to twelve.

And so the young fresh-water sailors passed the first night on the briny
deep. A peaceful, restful, invigorating night, that marked the beginning
of a new series of experiences.

Arthur went on at midnight (eight bells), and Frank, in turn, relieved
Arthur at four o’clock (eight bells of the morning watch). It was Frank,
then, who put his head into the after hatch and roused “all hands” at
six o’clock, which Arthur and Kenneth called an unholy hour.

“I wonder if there are any sharks around?” said Arthur, as he stood on
the dew-wet deck looking overboard. “Gee! that water looks tempting.
Here goes!” Almost with a single sweep of his hands he had pulled off
his duck jumper and trousers, and the last words ended in a gurgle as he
hit the water.

“Beat you in,” was Frank’s only comment to Kenneth, who came on deck
that minute. It was a dead heat. As for sharks, the thought of them did
not enter the heads of the three boys, as they ducked and dove, splashed
and swam, shouted and squealed, with pure delight. It would have upset
the equilibrium of any self-respecting shark; at any rate, none made
their appearance that day.

It was a very airy costume that the crew wore that morning while they
scrubbed down decks, coiled down tackle, cleaned out “His Nibs,” and put
the little ship to rights generally.

Kenneth and Arthur got the “Gazelle” under way, while Frank went below
to get breakfast. The course was shaped for Biloxi, Mississippi, and the
yacht settled down to the two days’ run. The wind was fair and true, and
the yacht, spreading out her wings, sped between the many islands that
dotted the waters, and picked her way through the intricate channels
daintily. They anchored off Barrell Key that night, and made the
acquaintance of two fishermen—Austrians—whose lugger was anchored close
by. The boys accepted their invitation to fish with them next morning,
and while they did little more than contribute considerable looking on,
they got a good mess of fish. These Frank speedily turned into an
appetizing breakfast, the incense from which was still rising when the
boys bid their fishermen friends good-by. In a very short time the mast
of the lugger had dwindled to a matchstick, and the swift, rakish little
hull disappeared below the horizon.

It was just dark enough to make it difficult to distinguish the channel
marks when they reached Biloxi Harbor, but the “mud hook” was dropped in
a safe place, and Frank and Kenneth went ashore to look for mail and to
telegraph home the news of their safe arrival. They had been unable to
send word for the better part of a week, and the loss last year, about
the same time, of the “Paul Jones,” a large launch, in the waters
through which the “Gazelle” had navigated so serenely, would, the boys
knew, make their parents dread this part of the cruise. It was partly a
feeling of triumph, partly a desire to relieve anxiety, that Kenneth
experienced when he hurried to wire home.

The teredo, that terrible little insect that turns the bottoms of
vessels into sieves, and undermines the woodwork of wharves in Southern
waters, was very much on the mind (metaphorically, of course) of the
young captain. He had no desire to feed the staunch “Gazelle” to the
voracious little borer. Many times he had been warned to copper paint
the bottom of the yacht, and, though he dreaded the job, the sooner it
was done the better. A sloping sand beach lay to one side of Biloxi, and
onto this the “Gazelle” was hauled at high tide, her ballast unloaded,
and as the water fell she careened to one side. The starboard side was
exposed first, and to the delight and satisfaction of Kenneth and his
friends, there was hardly a scratch in the clear, hard wood. All hands
immediately fell to work scraping off the marine growth that had formed.
It was a three hours’ job, but when it was finished the boys felt so
virtuous that satisfaction stuck out like the paint on their faces.
“Pride cometh before a fall,” but the oyster shell cut which Kenneth’s
foot received, seemed to him a fall entirely out of proportion to the
pride.

Invincible to the terrible teredo, the “Gazelle” sailed out of Biloxi
Harbor bound for Mobile. She reached her destination the same day, just
as the sunset gun of Fort Morgan boomed out, and the Stars and Stripes
came fluttering down its staff.

The “Gazelle’s” ensign came down at the same instant. “You see, we are
recognized,” Kenneth remarked airily, as he waved his hand in the
direction of the cloud of gunpowder smoke that still hovered over the
muzzle of the old smooth-bore.

There was some discussion as to who should go ashore and inspect the
fort—the grassy slope that led up to the massive, red-gray pile was very
inviting—but eventually the strands of rope yarn decided for them that
Kenneth should not go. Whereupon he declared that he ought not to walk
on his injured foot, any way. After rowing close in to the grassy
ramparts of the fortress, Frank and Arthur decided that they did not
care to visit it either. Whether Uncle Sam’s soldier, who paced along
close to the water and carried a gun, had anything to do with their
sudden change of plan, is not for the writer to say, but Ransom noticed
that the two would-be visitors seemed to be disinclined to talk about
the matter.

The fishing was so good in Mobile Bay that the boys could literally
stand at their hearthstone (if a boat can be said to have a
hearthstone—galley hatch would be more correct), and catch their
breakfast. If they could have been satisfied to live on fish alone, life
would have been too easy.

“We will grow scales if we eat much more fish,” said Kenneth, the last
day of their stay in Mobile Bay.

“That’s a good scheme,” enthused Arthur (he of the fertile imagination).
“Then we could make no end of money exhibiting ourselves as the only
original mermen.”

Notwithstanding the possibilities of this enterprise, the three boys
laid in a goodly supply of plain shore bread, potatoes, even a pickle or
two, and filled the water breakers with fresh water—it would be two days
before the next town could be reached.

Bright and early, Arthur, who had the morning watch, called all hands,
and weighing anchor the “Gazelle’s” bowsprit was turned seaward. The
long sand bar leading out from Mobile harbor was marked at its outer end
by a whistling buoy, that sped the parting guest most mournfully and
welcomed the coming one with a dirge. The wave-driven billows produced a
most melancholy whistle, and the boys were glad when they had turned to
port and were beyond the sound of it.

Fickle fortune smiled on these hard-used voyagers at last. Blue skies
overhead, the clear waters below, a delicate light green that reflected
into the white sails, or a deep verdant color that was restful to the
eye, and showed off to advantage the tints of the jewel-like fish that
swam in its depths. The warm sun—too warm at times—was a joy after the
long sunless days on the Mississippi, though it tanned their skins the
color of the cherry-finished cabin.

Two days out from Mobile they were sailing along in a light breeze,
almost dead aft. Frank held the tiller and was having little to do;
Kenneth lay on his stomach in the cockpit, studying the chart, with its
multiplicity of figures showing depths of water; Arthur was below
putting a very conspicuous background into a pair of his duck trousers.

“How’s the weather up there, old man?” Arthur shouted to Frank.

“All right, all right!” came the answer, drowsily. “Not much wind, but
hotter than blazes.”

“But there’s going to be trouble, all the same—‘glass’ shows it.”

Kenneth came tumbling down to see, and, sure enough, the barometer was
falling fast. It did not seem possible that a storm could be coming. The
air was bright and clear, the long, easy swells suggested nothing but
good treatment, and the breeze was almost caressing in its softness. But
it was the calm before the storm. Presently the warmth began to go out
of the air, and a chilliness that made the boys shiver crept into it. A
darkening came up in the southwest which gradually deepened and spread
until the whole heavens were deep blue-black, against which the scudding
clouds showed white and ominous. From time to time the boys heard a
distant rumbling, and streaks of zigzag lightning flashed across the
gloom. It was the first time the “Gazelle” and her crew had encountered
a blow on the salt water, and they looked to the shore for a shelter.
Vicious little blasts—advance pickets of the squall—blew sharply across
the sea, and picked up little puffs of spray which instantly disappeared
in vapor; the “Gazelle” trembled under these slaps of wind like a
spirited horse under the touch of a nervous driver.

The shore was without a vestige of shelter, and there was nothing to do
but to ride it out.

Kenneth took the tiller, while Arthur and Frank made haste to reef down.
The mainsail was lowered altogether and furled, the jib was reefed
twice, and the jigger hauled inboard and reefed also. “His Nibs” was
hauled aboard and lashed down tight. Oilskin coats and sou’westers were
“broken out” of the lockers, and the hatches were shut tight and
battened down. The boat would have to do the rest to bring them through
safely, and all had confidence that she would be perfectly able to do
so.

These preparations were made none too soon. In an instant the sharp
little puffs of wind gave way to a whooping gale that picked up the sea
and the yacht alike, and swept them like chaff before it along shore.
Then came the rain—a deluge, a cataract, that shut down on everything
like night. The sea rose up about them like moving hills, the wind
buffeted them so that the yacht jarred with the blows, and the rain
closed in on them, a watery stockade. It drenched the crew crouched in
the cockpit through and through, and dashed into their faces a thousand
stinging darts.

The squall lasted for an hour without a let up. The “Gazelle” rode the
waves beautifully, and took the buffetings of wind and rain like the
sturdy craft she was, without a murmur. The sharp flashes of lightning
gave Kenneth momentary glimpses of the shore, by which he managed to
steer. Otherwise they were going it blind.

At length they noticed that the volleys of thunder seemed less near and
the lightning less frequent and the onslaught of the rain darts not so
sharp. The squall began to die down as quickly as it rose; astern, a
faint light showed, while ahead the gloom was as deep as before. The
rain grew less and less, and then passed entirely, the sun cleared his
brow and shone down amiably through a blue sky, the wind calmed to a
steady breeze, rain-washed and cool. Only the troubled sea remained as a
reminder of the tempest.

Frank got up and shook himself. “I wish we had a wringer aboard,” he
said. “I’d like to put myself through it. Ugh! I’m wet.”

As the sun dropped into the sea the “Gazelle” ran over the bar and
anchored just inside of Pensacola Harbor. The ebb tide prevented them
from going up to the town.

The shelter was slight, and the sharp squall of the afternoon raised the
sea to an uncomfortable degree of motion. The “Gazelle” tossed and
rolled, not having the steadying advantage of spread canvas. The boys
were glad enough when the sun rose and the tide allowed them to sail up
to a sheltered anchorage off the city itself.

The thing about the city of Pensacola that seemed principally to attract
the boys’ interest was a large ice-manufacturing plant, the manager of
which presented them with a sizable cake. This to boys who had been
drinking luke-warm, rather brackish water, was a real boon.

After leaving Pensacola Harbor they turned to port, and found anchored
just round the bar a fleet of vessels flying the yellow quarantine flag;
but the “Gazelle,” having a clean bill of health, gave them a wide berth
and sped on.

The rather intricate passage into Santa Rosa Sound was run without
mishap, and then began one of the most delightful day’s sail of the
cruise.

They passed a strip of sand hills twenty miles long, for the most part
covered with tall, waving grass, live oaks and palms, but showing
glimpses here and there of the white gleaming sand. The main land along
the Sound is a government reservation, and is thickly planted with live
oaks, forming a solid wall of green almost twenty miles long—a hedge, as
it were, with irregular top, showing where some ambitious tree has grown
above its fellows. Between is a strip of water five miles wide, smooth
and clear, light green in its shallows, shading into the deep blue that
marked the channel.

Along this path of beauty flew the “Gazelle,” her white sides and sails
gleaming against the tinted water.

A fleet of fishing boats were sailing ahead when the “Gazelle” entered
the Sound, their graceful shapes skimming over the water.

Kenneth stood up in his place at the helm and looked at them. “The
‘Gazelle’ has proved herself seaworthy,” he said, rather proudly. “I bet
she can beat that bunch of boats ahead.”

There were no takers, but all hands watched the gap of water between the
yacht and hindmost craft eagerly. The wind was astern, and with her
sheets well out, the yawl flew after the fishing fleet. For an hour
there was little change in the relative positions of the pursuer and the
pursued; then the boys noticed that the distance was lessening. On they
flew up the broad, ribbon-like channel, until they were almost able to
read the names on the sterns of the working boats.

“We’re not so slow,” Kenneth cried, as the “Gazelle” drew alongside, his
eyes shining with pleasure.

“Adios,” shouted a swarthy man standing in the stern sheets of a lugger.
“Fine boat, yours; you want swap?” A set of white teeth shone as he
smiled sunnily.

The three boys took off their caps and waved a salute. “No, thank you;
we’re bound up the Atlantic coast, need deep draft boat,” Kenneth
answered.

“Atlantic, that boat? no!” the other said, half to himself; and the last
the boys saw of him he was still shaking his head emphatically.

“Doesn’t know the boat, does he, boys?” Kenneth laughed.

The fishing fleet was soon left behind, and the “Gazelle” was once more
sailing alone. The sun began to sink lower and lower, gaining depth of
color as it dropped, until the whole narrow path of water blazed and
sparkled with opalescent tints. The boys were almost intoxicated with
the delight of it, and did not notice how abruptly the sound was
narrowing down. The sunset’s glory was short-lived, and the crew found
themselves in an intricate, crooked channel, utterly strange to them.
They had almost decided to anchor, when they noticed a large schooner, a
mere shadow, gliding ahead of them.

“We’ll follow her wake,” declared Kenneth. “She knows the channel if we
don’t.”

Like hounds on the trail they followed the schooner through the
deepening dusk, until the flapping of canvas told them that she had come
into the wind, and the clank of chain cable through the hawse pipes
betrayed the fact that she had anchored.

Bright and early the next morning the rollicking three were overboard
taking an awakening bath. After bidding their guides of the night before
good-by, they began to pick their way among the bars and coral rocks to
the open Gulf. It was trying, careful work, requiring constant
watchfulness, frequent sounding and much tacking to and fro; but the
“Gazelle” was riding the long swells of the open sea by eight o’clock. A
long sail was ahead of them, and they hoped to make the distance to St.
Joseph’s Bay by nightfall, a run of about eighty miles. But alas! the
wind forsook them, and hour after hour they rolled on the long, oily
swells under the brazen sun.

“I am tired of loafing around. I am going to do something.” Arthur got
up from his place on the deck aft and looked round for a suggestion.

Frank and Kenneth started at this sudden display of energy.

“What are you going to do?” Kenneth asked.

“Fish,” was Arthur’s laconic answer, as he caught sight of a stout line
with a big hook bent on it.

“Going to catch minnows?” Frank suggested facetiously.

“No, whales.”

Arthur went below and dug out of the locker the end of a piece of pork,
then dropping the tackle and bait into “His Nibs,” he pushed off.

Kenneth roused himself. “Say, Arthur,” he called, “better fish from the
yacht; we might catch a breeze and leave you.”

“Oh, go away,” the mate answered. “There isn’t a breeze within two
hundred miles of here.”

Arthur rowed off a hundred yards or so, baited his hook and dropped it
overboard.

“Well, if he isn’t the greatest freak,” Frank remarked lazily.

For some time the two boys on the yacht watched him, then, as nothing
happened, they moved their gaze and half dozed in the warm, salt air.

Of a sudden there was a cry and a thump as of wood against wood. They
looked quickly, and saw Arthur hanging on to the line, which stretched
out before him tight as a harp string. The boat was rocking dangerously,
and the oars banged together.

“What’s the matter?” both boys shouted.

“I have caught something,” was the answer.

He certainly had caught something; and the “something” was carrying him
rapidly away from the “Gazelle” out to sea.

                               CHAPTER X

                        RIDING A MONSTER TURTLE

Arthur, after rowing away from the yacht, dropped his baited hook
overboard, and for a time waited eagerly for something to happen; but as
the water remained as before, the sun shone down with unabated ardor,
and the heat waves danced over the shining sea, he soon lost interest,
and sat drowsily holding the line loosely in his hand, his white canvas
hat drawn over his eyes.

Suddenly there was a jerk, and the line began to burn through his
fingers; he gripped it hard, and was nearly pulled overboard. The thing
at the other end, surprised at resistance, stopped an instant and gave
Arthur time to recover himself.

“Gee! I’ve got something,” he shouted. He certainly had, or something
had got him; it was some time before he could make up his mind which it
was.

The fish began to move. Arthur determined he should not, and the
consequence was that they all moved, the fish, “His nibs” and Arthur,
straight for the open Gulf.

“Here, where are you going?” Kenneth’s voice came faintly over the water
to him.

“I don’t know,” Arthur shouted back, his eyes on the taut line.

“Cut loose!” The voice from the yacht was fainter. Arthur thought that
he must be moving away fast, but he determined that he would not give
up. He watched the line closely, and presently noticed that it was
taking a longer and longer slant; evidently the fish was coming to the
surface. “His Nibs” rushed along at a great rate, its bow low down with
Arthur’s weight and the stress of the towing; its stern was almost out
of water. The line rose slowly until it was almost parallel with the
surface. Arthur watched it excitedly as it cut the water like a knife
and the drops were thrown aside by its vibrations. At length a sharp fin
rose out of the water, and cut a rippling V in the blue sea.

“By Jove! it’s a shark,” said Arthur between his teeth.

The boys on the yacht evidently saw, too, for a faint cry reached the
ears of the boy in the boat. “Let him go!” they shouted. “Let him go!”

“I’ll be hanged if I do.” Arthur did not waste his breath by speaking
the words aloud; he needed all his strength to hold on to the small
line. The cord cut his fingers, and the pull made his arms ache, but he
would not give in. “That beast must get tired some time,” he thought.
Suddenly the fin turned, there was a miniature whirlpool behind it, and
Arthur’s arms were nearly wrenched out as the shark put helm to port and
struck out in a new direction. Arthur looked up, saw that they were
heading straight for the “Gazelle,” and he took courage.

“If he’ll only go near enough,” thought the boy; but the capture was not
to be counted on, as it dashed from side to side and made rushes this
way and that, in a vain endeavor to get away from the maddening hook.
Its general direction, however, was toward the yacht. Arthur shouted:
“Soak him, if you get a chance. I’m nearly done.”

In one of its mad rushes the shark came within ten yards of the yacht,
when Frank, making a lucky cast with the heavy sounding lead, landed it
on the beast’s most vulnerable spot, the nose, and stunned him. Arthur
got out an oar and paddled over to the yawl, handed the line over to
Frank and got aboard. Frank made the line fast to the bitts forward,
then cried exultingly: “Go ahead, old tow-horse, and tow away. Pleased
to have you, I’m sure.” The shark’s gameness was broken, however, and
after a few heroic struggles to get free, came within easy sight of
Frank, who speedily put a bullet into him and ended the tragedy. They
pulled the great fish alongside and measured him.

“A good twelve-footer, I bet,” Frank asserted, after measuring the big
tiger of the sea with an oar. “And look at that jaw! Jonah could only
have got past those teeth in sections.”

“Well, you did do something,” Kenneth remarked, as he glanced at the
long, lithe creature floating alongside. “But I did not expect you to
catch a towboat.”

“Suppose—say, I’ve got a bright idea”—Frank looked up from his
inspection of Arthur’s catch—“suppose we drop a couple of baited lines
forward, made fast to the bitts, catch a team of sharks and get towed to
our next port, or why not the whole distance?”

“It might be all right to start, but how the mischief would we stop?”
Arthur rubbed his muscles, strained in the efforts which he had already
made in that direction.

“Oh, just anchor, hobble our team by the tails and go on about our
business. It’s as simple as can be. They could soon be taught port and
starboard.”

“Coming down to plain facts, I wish we had a breeze; even a foot-pump
would help us.” Kenneth shielded his eyes from the glare and looked over
the glittering blue waters for a wind ripple.

“Yes, like that fellow back in Michigan, who proposed to put a motor in
his boat with an air blower, so that when the wind gave out he could
blow himself along.”

Only enough breeze ruffled the smooth waters of the Gulf to allow them
to creep back into harbor and wait for a new day.

The shark was cast loose, in spite of Arthur’s impractical protest that
he wanted to keep it as a souvenir.

The next morning all hands were up early and were greeted as they came
on deck by a spanking southwest wind. It was more than a breeze; it
might be ranked as a reefing wind, but the “Gazelle” was under-canvassed
and so hoisted full sail safely. The whole aspect of the sea had
changed. Deep, blue and rippling under the steady wind, it had lost the
brazen glare of the day before. The palms along shore waved their
graceful fronds in gentle salutation, and the white-crested breakers
made obeisance at their feet.

“Up anchor, and away, boys!” Kenneth shouted, exhilarated by the ozone
in the air. Frank and Arthur started to work the small hand windlass.
“Put your backs to it, boys; we’ll be off the sooner.”

In a minute the anchor broke ground, the yacht began to pay off, and was
under way in earnest.

“Gee! this is better than your old shark-towing scheme,” Arthur said, as
he and Frank coiled down the gear and made all snug for the long day’s
run. “There’s nothing like a wind-jammer, say I.”

“Right you are, Art,” Frank acknowledged. “My! I am hungry, though; my
breastbone is flat against my spine.”

“Well, it’s up to you, old man,” Kenneth sang out from his place in the
cockpit. “Chase it along; I feel as if I could eat Arthur’s shark.”

As the day wore on, the waves grew larger, long, rounded rollers, that
at times crested and were blown into spray by the wind. Huge, tumbling,
rolling hills they were, like great playfellows, mighty but amiable. The
boys felt a kind of fellowship for them, and enjoyed watching the
blue-green slopes that rose and fell, now hiding the land from them, now
lifting boat and all to a watery height, widening the horizon and giving
the boys little thrills of delight as they coasted down into the hollows
again.

Hour after hour they sailed on, the wind steady and true from the
southwest, so that only the slightest shift of the helm was necessary,
and ’tending sheet became a sinecure. The “Gazelle” even acted as if she
were enjoying herself. She ran up the hill of one wave and down the
slope of another, like a frolicsome dolphin with a superabundance of
animal spirits. Indeed, the porpoises seemed to recognize in her a
playfellow, for they somersaulted along in company with her for hours,
mocked at her grace, raced with her and dove under her, for all the
world like children at play.

“Jiminy! let’s have a swim with ’em,” said Arthur, who, fascinated by
their easy antics, was positively envious. “If I could swim like that, I
wouldn’t mind turning my feet into fins one bit.”

The delights of that day’s sail would fill a book. The strange fish
which they caught glimpses of as the yawl flew along, brilliantly
colored and flashing like jewels in the clear depths; schools of
flying-fish, strange, spectre-like creatures, sprang out of the blue and
scudded a hundred feet or so clear of the waves, then dropped as
suddenly as they had risen, into their native element again.

Still the good yacht sped on swiftly, steadily, like a great tireless
bird. To starboard the boys could see nothing but the same old sea; the
same, but always changing, always new. To port, the land was fringed
with white tossing breakers, and beyond that forests of trees, graceful
palms, and sturdy live oaks, with their branches draped in swaying moss,
made a background of exquisite beauty.

Here and there a veritable giant that had lost in its battle with the
elements, rose up above the rest, bare, denuded and black, but a sturdy
relic still.

After a four-hours’ trick at the stick, Kenneth gave up the helm to
Arthur and went below to write up his log. For a time the other two boys
could see him laboring with a pen at the big, ledger-like book, intent
on doing what he considered his duty; but his hand travelled slowly,
then more slowly still. He looked up to get ideas, glanced through the
oval port lights, now shut in by a green wall of sunlit water, or giving
a sudden glimpse of blue cloud-flecked sky and palm-clad land over the
heaving waters. For a time he gazed, then, frowning, grasped his pen
determinedly, and set to work again. A dozen lines, perhaps, were
written, then his eyes were irresistibly drawn again to the
ever-changing pictures of sea and sky in the oval frames.

“Better give it up, old man,” Frank shouted down the hatch, laughing.
“Save your log till you can’t do anything else, or until it’s too dark
to see. This is better than a hundred logs. Come on deck and see it all.
You can tell about it later.”

“I can’t resist; that’s a fact,” Kenneth answered, coming on deck. “This
beats anything I ever even heard of. Don’t the old boat sail through,
though? Steady as a church—skates up and down the waves as if she
enjoyed it.”

The boys went below only to eat. Frank and Kenneth washed dishes,
because Arthur was sailing—this was according to the unwritten law, that
the one who sailed was excused from house work, light or otherwise. The
cook did not have to wash dishes, though he was perfectly welcome to do
so if he desired.

The boys saw the sun _rise_ that morning, and it was shedding its last
glowing rays over the restless waters when they made the harbor of St.
Joseph’s Bay. “Eighty miles in one day is not bad going for a
thirty-foot boat,” said Ransom, exultingly, after measuring the charts.

  ON THE GULF COAST.
  “GRACEFUL PALMS AND STURDY LIVE OAKS.”
]

“Sure not,” chimed in Arthur. “If we could do that every day, the rest
of the cruise would be an easy thing.”

“Let’s see,” said Frank, counting on his fingers; “eighty miles a day
for thirty days would be 2,400 miles; at that rate we have only got
about two months’ more cruising, including stops.”

“I hate to obstruct this beautiful two months’ trip, but think of
yesterday and add a couple of months.” Kenneth, in his usual
matter-of-fact manner, was throwing cold water upon these extravagant
dreamers.

St. Joseph’s Bay, a deep indentation in the coast, afforded the young
sailors a splendid anchorage, sheltered and easy of access. The rollers
beat steadily on the beach outside, the roaring proclaiming the majesty
of the sea; but within all was calm and still—gentle rollers rocked the
yacht just enough to soothe—and the three youngsters slept like
hibernating bears.

The soft breeze hummed gently through the rigging, the little waves
lapped caressingly against the boat’s sides, fishes bumped their noses
inquiringly against her bottom. “His Nibs,” made fast by a long painter,
went on little excursions of its own as far as the line would reach,
like an inquisitive dog; but the boys slept through it, perfectly
unconscious of all the interesting nocturnal goings on. It was not until
the warm sun came shining through the port lights, and upon the open
hatch, that they finally waked up.

“Six bells, boys; up, all hands—rise and shine—shake a leg!” Kenneth
shouted, rubbing his own eyes to pry them open. It was seven o’clock,
and a long day’s sail to Appalachicola was before them. Each boy, as he
rolled out of his bunk, shook off the few clothes he had on and flopped
overboard. In a minute, the sleepy dust was washed out of their eyes,
and the boys sported about like seals in the clear, warm salt water.

Frank climbed on deck and dove off, making a clear arching leap like a
hunted fish; but his feet had hardly disappeared before his head showed
above the surface again.

“Why, you couldn’t sink in this water if a mill-stone were hung round
your neck,” he spluttered, shaking the water out of his eyes.

Through St. George’s Sound—a piece of water something like the Santa
Rosa, separated as it is from the Gulf by a narrow strip of sand—they
sailed to Appalachicola, then on along the harborless coast to Cedar
Keys. It was a piece of sailing that Kenneth dreaded. That long, curving
strip of coast without one adequate shelter along its entire length, was
not pleasant to think of in connection with an on-shore gale. Kenneth
examined the charts as the yawl sailed along, and noticed that the water
was very shoal far from shore.

“How deep do you suppose it is off here?” he called up to Frank, who was
steering.

“I don’t know; it must be pretty deep, for we are five or six miles from
shore,” Frank answered. “But I can see bottom just the same; look at
that seaweed waving as if the breeze was blowing on it. How deep is it,
any way?”

“Well, you may not believe it”—Kenneth rolled up the chart and started
aft to show the helmsman—“but it’s only seven or eight feet. Pretty near
as flat as a floor; about a foot a mile drop, I estimate.”

“Why didn’t we walk?” suggested Arthur, “as the Irishman said, when he
saw the diver coming up out of the water at Ellis Island.”

They anchored that night about five miles from shore, in seven feet of
water, and the treacherous old Gulf was as calm as a park lake under a
summer zephyr.

All the next day, a roaring wind from the northwest wafted the three
along; and night saw them safely anchored off the mouth of the Suwanee
River.

A star-studded sky hung over them as all three boys came out on deck
after all was snug and ship shape. Kenneth got out his guitar, and to
the accompaniment of its softly-strummed chords the boys sang:

                   “Way down upon the Suwanee River,
                   Far, far, away.”

The spell of the quiet was on them all, and as the sound of their young
voices died away, and only the hum of the strings, the lap of the
rippling water, and the soft whirr of the breeze were in their ears, a
feeling of sadness came over them as they realized that they were indeed
far, far from home.

Arthur lay flat on his back, gazing up into the immeasurable sky; Frank
lay along the rail, looking into the clear, black, velvety depths of the
ever shifting water; Kenneth, absorbed in his brown study, watched the
bow of the small boat abstractedly as the sharp stem cleaved the current
of the tide, making little waves that glowed with phosphorescence.

For a while, no word was spoken, then “Phew!” snorted Frank. “I knew
this was too good to last. What have we run up against, a fertilizer
factory?”

“I thing do,” answered Arthur, holding his nose.

“Dee! did it worde thad a dead rad.” Ransom had his nostrils closed
also, as his manner of speech indicated.

The stench drove the three boys into the cabin, where, with closed doors
and hatch, they sweltered until a shift of wind made it possible for
them to breathe the outer air again. They looked in the direction from
which the odor had come, and saw the anchor light of a vessel swinging,
and then, as their eyes became accustomed to the darkness, they made out
the deeper shadow of the vessel herself.

Not till morning did they find out that the fragrance came from a sponge
schooner. Though they hesitated some time, at last their curiosity
overcame their squeamishness, and, after washing down decks,
breakfasting, and cleaning up, Arthur and Frank (Kenneth having, as
usual, drawn the short yarn) took “His Nibs” and rowed over to the
schooner. Kenneth watched his comrades from the “Gazelle,” and saw them
row very gingerly up to the trim vessel until the small boat’s stem
almost touched the larger boat’s side, when they half turned to go away,
but, evidently gathering up their resolution, they hailed a man on deck
and went aboard. Later, Ransom, himself, had a chance of investigating
the work. As he climbed the schooner’s sides, he found sponges of many
sizes and shapes strung around the rigging in various degrees of
decomposition. A big West Indian negro explained to him that they were
hung up to rot the animal matter out of the fibrous substance which made
the home of the multitude of small creatures. A very unsavory
occupation, but one that pays quite well, the big fellow told Kenneth,
and invited him to go sponge-fishing with him. Ransom accepted, and,
getting into a small boat, they rowed some distance from the schooner.
Putting a long, slender pine pole with a hook on one end into the boy’s
hands, the negro suggested that he try his luck. “This is easy,” Kenneth
said to himself, as he slipped it into the water and began to feel about
on the bottom. Soon the end struck something soft, and, with a little
thrill that always comes to the fisherman when he gets hooked to
something, he began to haul up, slowly and carefully. Under instructions
from the negro, he pulled up inch by inch. The thing he had on his hook
was a dead weight, utterly unlike the active fish, but he thought that
he detected a tremor in even this inert mass. Slowly, and more slowly,
he raised the pole until he could dimly see a yellow-brown substance
through the sunlit water. At last his catch was almost on the surface,
when the negro began to laugh loudly. “What’s the joke?” Kenneth began,
then he stopped, as he caught a clear glimpse of his treasure trove. An
enormous mouth gaped at him, and two protuberant eyes that shone like
jewels gleamed in the sunlight, a brown, flat body covered with warts
and excrescences of various kinds flopped feebly on the surface. “Holy
smoke, what have I struck?” Kenneth exclaimed, feeling that he had a
waking nightmare. The thing slid off from the hook, and scaling down
through the water was soon lost to view.

“Ugh!” said the boy, shivering in remembrance. “What was that?”

“Angle-fish, I reckon. Scare yer?” the other replied.

Though Kenneth tried again, he could not haul up a sponge. There was a
knack to it that completely baffled him.

All through this part of the Gulf, the boys found the sponge fishermen
and their crews—many of whom were West Indian negroes—great, big, strong
fellows, who seemed to find the odoriferous life healthy. The shallow
water, smooth and clear, produced good sponges, and the fishermen came
to reap the harvest from all directions.

Even in the town of Cedar Keys, the boys could not get away from the
horrid odor. The town, formerly a great cedar-producing place, and the
site of a large pencil manufactory, had become the sponge fisherman’s
port of call.

“For heaven’s sake, Ken, let’s get our mail, our grub, and our water,
and clear out of this place,” Arthur said, the afternoon that they
entered Cedar Keys Harbor. “It seems to me that sponge is mixed up with
everything I eat, drink, smell, taste, see, and touch. It’s awful!”

“I’m willing,” the skipper answered, “if Frank votes aye.”

“Aye! Aye!” Frank shouted emphatically, with no loss of time.

Soon after dawn the next day, the mud-hook was pulled up, and the
“Gazelle” stood for the open Gulf. She sped along as if she, too, was
glad to get away into the free, sweet air of the Southern sea.

It was a six days’ sail to Charlotte Harbor, a little below Tampa. A
sail full of incident; of friendly races with fishing boats;
exhilarating bouts with sharp little squalls that called for quick work
and unerring judgment; and an entrancing view of an ever-changing
semi-tropical coast.

A schooner with which they had been sailing hour after hour, headed into
the harbor which opened up invitingly before both vessels.

“We might as well go in too,” suggested Ransom. “There’s plenty of
water, and we might take a chance at a turtle or two. What do you say?”

So they rounded the lighthouse and sailed up the channel with their
companion ship, like a team of horses. Together the jibs came down, and
together the anchor chains rattled through the chocks.

They learned from the lighthouse keeper that turtles were plentiful at
this time of year, and that they crawled up on the beach at night to lay
their eggs.

All three boys wanted to go, but one had to stay and keep ship. So after
supper they drew lots.

“This yarn-pulling business is getting to be a sort of one-sided joke,”
declared Ransom, aggrievedly. “I believe the strand I choose gets
shorter when I take it.”

“Hard luck, old man,” Arthur and Frank said sympathetically, as they got
into the small boat and pushed off.

Kenneth watched the boat as it skimmed the placid water, a dim shadow in
the deepening gloom, and listened to the rhythm of the dipping oars and
creaking rowlocks, with a sense of loneliness that he found hard to
shake off. The boat finally disappeared in the darkness, and the sounds
faded into the general murmur of the water. Soon a light showed on the
beach and went swinging along, eclipsed at regular intervals by the legs
of the carrier. The boys had lighted the lantern, and shouldering their
guns were on their way to the turtles’ haunts.

Ransom wrote his log and finished some letters; then, taking some
pillows on deck, was soon lulled to sleep by the soft wind and the
gentle swing of the waves.

Loaded down with hatchets, guns, and revolvers, Frank and Arthur looked
as if they were on a pirating expedition; they went prepared for
whatever might turn up. Bears are fond of turtle eggs and coons dote on
them; so there was a reasonable chance of the boys interrupting
somebody’s feast.

Side by side they walked, talking in low tones; both felt the tingling
excitement that goes with hunting adventures day or night.

Once, Frank caught sight of a dark something flopping in the water just
beyond the tiny breakers, and, half wild with excitement, he up with his
rifle and shot at it. Arthur raised the lantern, and they saw that it
was a small shark caught in the shoal water.

“One on you, old man,” laughed Arthur. “Think it was a sea serpent?”

After walking an hour or more, they rounded the point that protected the
harbor, and were soon treading the sand of the outer beach.

“This must be the place,” whispered Arthur. They walked more cautiously,
and looked for the parallel trenches in the sand that they had been told
marked the passage of the giant turtles.

The damp, salt air blew into their faces, and made the flame of the
lantern flicker, and cast uncouth shadows on the sloping beach.

“There’s one!” cried Arthur, giving his companion a grip on the arm.
“Look!” And they both started on a run for the dark object that lay so
still.

“Oh, come off; don’t you know the difference between a patch of sand
grass and a green turtle? What about the laugh this time?”

“That’s all right; I know a shark when I see it. This lantern
flickers—By Jove! look at that!” Arthur stopped in his tracks and
grabbed the light out of Frank’s hand.

There were two deep tracks in the sand that paralleled each
other—unmistakable sign of a monster turtle. Both boys followed the
trail on the run, only to find that Madam Turtle had been and gone, also
that bruin or coon had feasted royally on the eggs.

A hundred yards further on, they came to another track, and with
excitement less strong, but still with nerves and muscles tense and
hearts throbbing, they followed fast. The moon broke from the clouds and
silvered the crescent sea, the wind-tossed palms showed black against
the sky, and the beach shone white under the light. “Hurrah!” Frank
shouted. “Now we can see.” The pale gleam showed a dark shape ten yards
from them that moved awkwardly. “There she is, Art. Come on!”

In a minute they had come up to a giant turtle, which, on their
approach, drew in its head, then shot it out again, its beaked mouth
opening and closing wickedly.

“Shoot it, Frank!” Arthur cried, utterly flustered. “Hit him in the eye!
Hit him somewhere, quick!”

“No; let’s get hold of his shell and flop him over on his back, then
we’ve got him.” Taking hold of the huge creature’s shell, just back of
the crooked hind legs, they heaved and strained to turn her over. It was
no use, the beast was too heavy, and the turtle, objecting to this
treatment, started for the water.

[Illustration: “THE MOON BROKE FROM THE CLOUDS AND SILVERED THE CRESCENT
SEA.”]

“Shoot it, Frank; it’ll get away!”

Frank did as he was bid, but the bullets had no apparent effect—the
great creature waddled on even faster than before.

Arthur, almost beside himself with excitement, jumped on to the broad,
rounded back, and yelled like an Indian, swaying to and fro in his
efforts to keep his balance on the living platform. Then suddenly
realizing that he held a hatchet in his flourishing right hand, he
reached forward and struck it deeply into the snake-like skull.

                               CHAPTER XI

                         LOST ON CAPTIVE ISLAND

Charlotte Harbor was so flooded with moonlight that the little wind
ripples shone like frosted silver. The “Gazelle,” lying peacefully at
anchor, floated like a shadow on the placid water. Kenneth lay asleep on
the cabin roof, where he had moved from the more cramped position in the
cockpit. Soundly as a tired man should, he slept; then, disturbed by
dreams of battles with wind and wave, he stirred, working his arms and
legs like a dog who has visions of the chase. At first he moved
uneasily, but still lay in the same position, then, still dead asleep,
began to work over to the yacht’s rail. A long, strong roller came in
from the Gulf and rocked the yawl so that the deck sloped sharply; there
was a sudden great splash, and then all was still, the ripples circling
away from the agitated spot. Suddenly the waters began to show signs of
a struggle below, and an instant later a bedraggled white figure
splashed to the surface and began spouting and spluttering. Kenneth
coughed and wheezed as he got rid of a large quantity of warm, salt
liquid, and between gasps called himself all the names his water-soaked
brain could think of. He finally pulled himself up on deck—rather
weakly—and lay down in the cockpit to rest a minute.

“Well, I’ll be jiggered, if that wasn’t the greatest fool stunt! I am
mighty glad the other fellows were not around. I should never have heard
the last of it.”

He turned to go below, and, as he did so, he heard the far distant crack
of a rifle.

“Must be something doing with the turtles,” he thought.

The rifle shot which Ransom heard was fired by Frank at the great
turtle, which, in spite of the hatchet in its skull and the boy on its
back, was making for the sea, determined to escape. The hatchet, half
buried in the thick bone, had no more apparent effect upon it than the
dropping of an oyster shell on it would have had.

“Shoot him again, Frank!” shouted Arthur from his perch. “We’ve simply
got to stop him.”

The boy took careful aim at the sinister black eye, the only vulnerable
spot visible, and fired. With a heave that threw Arthur from his feet,
the great creature made its last struggle for freedom, throwing the sand
in showers and digging great holes in the coarse sand, then, folding its
legs and tail beneath its roof-like shell, it died.

For a minute, the victor gazed at his victim, and then, wiping away an
imaginary tear of regret, went to search for eggs. In a hollow near the
spot where the hunters had found Mrs. Turtle, her eggs were
unearthed—several dozen of them. The boys put them in a canvas bag which
they carried, and went on to hunt for more shellbacks.

Before long they came again upon the tell-tale tracks in the sand, and
found a turtle at the end of them; smaller, but one even more active
than the other.

It was with great difficulty that they managed to get a long piece of
driftwood under the shell, and by the aid of this leverage “end her
over.” Frank and Arthur immediately rushed forward to end her misery,
and received a shower of sand in their faces that nearly blinded them.
They retired out of range in confusion, and dug the sand out of eyes,
ears, and mouths. With powerful sweep-like strokes, the turtle clawed
the beach in its efforts to right itself, and scooped the sand until it
had dug holes for each of its four legs, so deep that the coarse grains
were beyond its reach, and it lay helplessly sprawling.

With a single hatchet stroke, turtle number two was despatched, and the
victors sat a minute beside their game to rest.

“Gracious! I’d like to have these turtles in Chicago,” remarked Frank,
with speculative instinct. “Just think of the gallons of green turtle
soup they would make; and it cost twenty-five cents a half-pint
plateful! Holy smoke, we would be millionaires in no time.”

“But what are we going to do with them now?” Arthur had a way of coming
down to realities with a sickening thud.

As if in answer to the question, the lighthouse keeper came towards them
out of the fast brightening dawn, and showed them how to dismember the
creatures.

Taking two great hams, the two boys slung them on a pole stretched
between them, and started back to the place where they had left “His
Nibs.” The pieces of turtle meat, the guns, lantern, and bag of eggs
made such a heavy load that they were glad enough when they reached the
spot where the small boat had been left.

Arthur and Frank looked out over the water and saw the “Gazelle”
swinging at anchor, glorified in the warm colors of the sunrise.

“What’s the matter with Ken?” Frank exclaimed, pointing with his gun
barrel at the figure on the yacht’s deck, which waved and gestured
frantically.

“He is pointing at something. What’s the matter with the chump? He is
shouting.” Arthur stopped to listen. The faint sound of a voice came
over the harbor, but they could not make out what it said.

“He is pointing.” Arthur was shading his eyes and looking intently.
“What, in the name of common sense, is—By George, look at ‘His Nibs.’”
Arthur was pointing now at the little boat, which, like a mischievous
youngster, was bobbing airily about a short distance from shore.

“Jove! it’s well we came along when we did; that little tub would have
been out to sea in a minute.”

As it was, Arthur had to swim for it, and only caught the truant after a
long race. “The next time I leave you alone,” he said, as he pulled
himself over the stern, “I am going to make you fast to a ten-ton
anchor.”

It was a merry feast that the reunited three enjoyed that morning.
Turtle steak, which Kenneth declared to be equal to porterhouse and much
like it in flavor, was the _pièce de résistance_; but the talk and chaff
were the garnishings that made the meal worth while.

“You have got to wash dishes, old man,” Kenneth said to his mate, when
every vestige of the breakfast had disappeared, “while Frank and I get
this old house-boat under way.”

                    “Gazelle, Gazelle,
                    She’ll run pell-mell
                    With every stitch a-drawing;
                    O’er waters smooth,
                    And waters rough,
                    The seas her forefoot spurning.”

He sang light-heartedly as he went on deck.

Soon Arthur heard the cheep, cheep of the halliard blocks as the
mainsail was hoisted, then the metallic clink of the ratchet on the
capstan; Frank’s cry, “She’s broke!” was followed by the swift whirr of
the jib halliards hauled taut and the creak of the blocks as the
mainsail was sheeted home. Then the slap, slap of the little waves
against the yacht’s sides as she heeled to the fresh breeze told Arthur
that they were under way again.

“There’s no use talking, this beats farming,” Arthur said to himself.
“But, Je-_ru_salem, we had it hard on the Old Mississippi. I don’t
hanker for any more of that.”

After getting under way, the order was: “All hands and the cook prepare
meat.” There was a large amount of turtle meat left that was too
valuable to be wasted. The flesh was cut up into strips, thoroughly
sprinkled with salt, and hung up in the rigging, where the sun shone
full upon it, to dry. It was not a very appetizing job, nor did the
yacht herself present a very attractive appearance, but the product
turned out all right. Turtle meat and turtle eggs were on the bill of
fare for some time.

Kenneth made the unsavory remark that if the meat-preserving experiment
proved a failure, the “Gazelle” would be about as fragrant as a
sponge-fishing boat.

After a four hours’ run, Frank, who climbed up into the port rigging,
glass in hand, made out Captive Island, a low-lying strip of land that
just showed above the surface of the water.

As they drew nearer, they could see that it was densely wooded—palms
tossed their feathery heads; the great live oaks stretched out their
mighty arms sturdily; and here and there a cedar stood out black in
contrast with the lighter greens.

“I’d like to explore that island,” said Arthur. “What’s the matter with
laying off there for the night?”

“All right; harbor is good and water enough,” Kenneth admitted, after
looking at the charts.

The anchor was let go into three fathoms, off a sort of rude landing,
which they afterward found was built by a man who lived on the island
and raised vegetables for the northern market.

After supper, Frank and Arthur went ashore, but soon returned, driven
away by mosquitoes. Frank declared that he had seen enough of that place
at close quarters, and that if the skipper and Arthur wanted to explore,
he was satisfied to stay and tend ship.

“Why,” said he, “except where the fellow has his vegetable patch, the
whole place is a morass right down to the water’s edge. I guess there is
a beach on the Gulf side, now I think of it.”

“That’s it—that beach! That’s what I want to explore.” Arthur was of an
investigating turn of mind.

It was unnecessary to go through the usual plan of drawing lots to
determine who should go and who should stay; Frank stuck to his previous
statement that he would not go “chasing round in that miserable mud
hole.” After all the morning’s work was done, the skipper and the mate
got into “His Nibs” and rowed off.

The little landing was a primitive affair, hardly strong enough, the two
boys thought, to allow of very heavy shipments being made from it; but
it was sufficiently sturdy to bear their weight without a tremor. From
it led a path through tilled land, green with the young shoots of a
freshly-planted crop. This road Kenneth and Arthur followed for some
distance. Fields crowded it closely on either side, then it branched,
and the boys found themselves walking on a narrow strip of solid ground,
hemmed in on both sides by a morass so deep and uncanny that they
shivered. Tall palmettos grew out of the slimy ground, and vines twisted
and wound in every direction like thin, green serpents; gray moss hung
from the branches everywhere, like veils placed to hide some ghastly
mystery. The path was well trod and firm, and the two boys, feeling that
it must lead somewhere, went on quickly. For an hour, they travelled
through the swamp, the way winding in and out among the trees wherever
the earth was firm.

“I wonder if this is another case of ‘Lost in the Dismal Swamp,’” said
Arthur, whose looks belied his cheerful tone.

“No; this path is perfectly clear. It will be easy enough to get back,
if we want to,” Kenneth replied. “Getting cold feet?”

“No, sure not; but I would like to get out into the open, all the same.”

The thick trees shut out all the breeze there was, and the damp,
currentless air was heavy with the odors of decaying vegetable matter.
Perspiration was running down the boys’ faces, and spots of dampness
began to show on the backs of their white jumpers.

“Hurrah!” shouted Kenneth, “there’s the beach.”

A rift in the trees showed the blue sky, and the invigorating sound of
surf reached their ears. Soon they came upon a stretch of sand that
shone white under the morning sun—smooth and hard and clean as a
newly-swept floor.

In a minute the two were running races up the beach that stretched
before them like a straightaway track. They ran and frolicked from the
pure joy of living. Under the clear sky and shining sun, they forgot the
gloomy forest and the stagnant marsh. Not till they were all out of
breath, did the rollicking skipper and his undignified mate stop to
rest; then they stretched at full length on the clean sand, and gave
themselves up to the joys of doing nothing, when there was no need to
work under the stress of an exacting conscience.

Neither of the boys realized how long they had lain there, supremely
comfortable as they were, until the pang of hunger began to make itself
felt.

“Look at that, Ken,” Arthur exclaimed, pointing to the sun long past the
meridian. “Why, it must be afternoon.”

“My stomach feels like it,” the other admitted. “Better be going back, I
guess.”

They got themselves up, and began walking leisurely along the beach,
stopping now and then to pick up a shell or to dip their bare feet in
the up-running waves.

“This is the place, Ken,” said Arthur, turning to two tall palmettos
growing on the edge of the forest.

“No, that isn’t it,” the other replied. “There was a crooked cedar near
the path where we came out.”

“I bet it’s the place,” Arthur said positively. “Let me prove it to
you.”

When they reached the trees mentioned, they glanced beyond them, and saw
the thick black ooze of the morass. A pale fungus thrust out of the mud
here and there added to the dismal aspect of the place.

“Ugh!” Arthur shivered.

“I told you so,” Kenneth jeered; “not a sign of a path.”

They walked on, looking for the crooked cedar, but not one could be
seen. Everywhere were palmettos, straight and tall, swaying in the
breeze and beckoning like sirens alluring them to the destruction that
lurked just beyond.

Every little opening that looked as if a path might lead from it was
searched eagerly, but the black swamp always stared them in the face
whenever they looked beyond the first line of trees. Hour after hour
they searched, at first hopefully, then doggedly, driven on by the
feeling that they must do something—that if they hunted carefully enough
and persistently the way would surely be found.

The sun sank lower and lower, and the feather-like fronds of the trees
cast longer and longer shadows over the beach; still the boys searched
for that mysterious path. Thirst was added to ravenous hunger that
increased every minute. The long walk through the woods, and later the
almost continuous exposure to the sun, had brought on a longing for
water that was getting well-nigh unbearable.

“What fools we were not to mark the trees where we came out,” Kenneth
wailed, as they dropped down on the sand, worn out. “We were so glad to
get out of the place that we did not think about getting through again.”

“We can’t go around,” Kenneth said, thinking aloud; “the swamp comes
right down to the water on all sides of the island but this. I guess we
have got to stick it out all night, old man.” Kenneth laid his hand on
his friend’s shoulder.

“My, but I’m thirsty!” was the mate’s only comment.

With the suddenness peculiar to the tropics, the sun went down in a
blaze of color, and in its stead came a cloud of mosquitoes,
bloodthirsty and poisonous. Without protection of any kind, the boys
suffered terribly—faces, hands, and feet were soon covered with the
itching little spots, that spread until their whole bodies were covered
with the bites of the pests. Their thirst increased until their mouths
seemed like dry ovens lined with dust and cracked with heat. Hunger,
too, assailed them—the hunger of healthy appetites long unappeased,
gnawing, and weakening.

Kenneth gathered some half-green wood from the edge of the forest, built
a fire, and in the dense smoke they sat as long as they could, or until
they choked.

Then, in order that one, at least, might rest, they took turns in
brushing the invading mosquitoes from each other. While one rested,
the other plied a palm branch; and so they passed the long
night—interminable it seemed.

At length the gray dawn began to steal over the sea, and the boys, weak
with hunger, and almost frantic with parching thirst, thanked God for
it. They knew that with the appearance of the sun the mosquitoes would
go, and with the hope that “springs eternal,” longed to begin the search
for the path again.

Soon the heavens were lighted with the glory of the sunrise, and the
waters, tinged with its colors, heaved and tossed like a great surface
of iridescent molten metal—constantly changing, showing new shades that
ran into one another, dimpled, flamed, and faded.

Arthur and Kenneth could appreciate the beauty of the scene in a dull
sort of way only. They suffered terribly; the pangs of hunger and the
tortures of thirst drove all else from their minds.

A plunge in the cool surf, however, freshened them up greatly, though it
took all their resolution to resist the temptation to drink the
intensely salt water.

As they were about to begin their search anew, they noticed a little
black dog trotting about near the edge of the woods. The boys were very
much pleased to see the little beast. He was frisky and well
fed—evidently the pet of some household—and the lost ones were glad of
even this remote connection with civilization.

Kenneth suddenly made an exclamation; he tried to whistle also, but his
parched lips would not admit of it.

“I’ve got an idea, Art. Listen.”

Arthur stopped trying to make friends with the little visitor.

“That dog got here somehow; he must have come along some path, and he
will know the way back. We have got to make him go home, then we will
follow. See?”

Arthur did see, and changed his tactics accordingly. “Go home!” he
shouted. But the dog suddenly grew very friendly, wagged his tail, and
came trotting across the sand towards them. It was most exasperating.
“Go home!” both shouted at once, and waved their arms menacing. The dog
evidently thought it some kind of a game, and he frolicked about as if
it was the greatest fun imaginable. “It won’t do,” muttered the older
boy, and he stooped as if to pick up a stone. This was an old game that
the dog fully understood. Many a time had he chased a stick into the
water. He danced about and barked joyfully.

“There, you miserable little critter, go home!” Kenneth threw a pebble
that struck just before the dog’s nose, and he stopped in astonishment.
Another well-directed stone changed his doggie joy and confidence to
fear, and, lowering his tail, he began to slink towards the woods and
the swamp.

The boys’ hearts beat high with hope, though they felt ashamed to treat
such a friendly little beast so unkindly. A well-feigned angry shout and
threatening gestures were enough to make their involuntary friend turn
tail and run for home. Once started, he ran in earnest, and fearful that
they would lose sight of him before he showed the path, the boys rushed
after, panting and almost fainting with hunger and thirst. Once they
thought that they had lost their guide, and their hearts sank; but, in a
minute or two, they saw him enter the woods, and they carefully marked
the place, so that they were able to follow without trouble. The
entrance was a most unlikely place, and they had passed it many times,
but soon they saw clearly a well-beaten path leading through the maze of
tree trunks and veiling moss.

With hearts full of thankfulness, they followed along, faint, dizzy, and
well-nigh exhausted, but withal hopeful and happy once more. At no great
distance they came to a comfortable plantation house, and there in the
front yard—blessed sight!—was a well with tin dipper hanging on the pump
box. The water, cool and clear, was the most delicious thing that they
ever tasted, and the remembrance of that draught of plain well water
will always linger with them. As they drank, their canine friend eyed
them from behind the corner of the house, and though they did their best
to show their gratitude, he mistrusted and would have none of them.

After thanking the good people of the house, they went on, and at last
reached the landing. It took nearly all of their remaining strength to
row out to the “Gazelle,” and though Frank plied them with questions
showing the effects of his long night of worry, they could hardly answer
him intelligently, until he had strengthened them with black coffee and
some food.

As soon as the skipper and mate had recovered their strength, they
weighed anchor and sailed away from the island that had so nearly been
the scene of their death.

Down the coast they sped, nearer and nearer the long point that divides
the Gulf of Mexico from the Atlantic Ocean. The boys grew more and more
impatient as they drew gradually nearer to the old ocean. The stops were
as brief as possible; they merely touched to get fresh water and buy
fruit or necessary food. There were no towns of interest to visit—mere
clusters of fishermen’s huts.

Cape Romano, that point around which the waters of the Gulf continually
froth and rage, was passed in safety, though the “Gazelle” tossed about
roughly, and had, for a time, a tussle with the seas that tested her
thoroughly.

Now began the trip through that maze of intricate channels of the Ten
Thousand Islands, where many a good vessel has been lost—a place that
was once the refuge of pirates, and even now retains the flavor of
bloodthirsty tales. On one of these islands, or keys, the boys landed in
search of fresh water. After walking a while, they came to a snug little
cove or inlet, and were surprised to find a graceful sloop anchored
cosily therein. From the cove led a well-beaten path, which, Frank and
Kenneth following, came to a picturesque cottage thatched with palm
branches. It was weatherbeaten, but looked comfortable. A young woman
was standing in front, and in answer to their polite questions about
water and the easiest of the many puzzling channels to follow, suggested
that they ask “John,” and pointed with her thumb over her shoulder to
the open door of the hut. Needing no second invitation, their curiosity
fully aroused by the strange remoteness of this little home, they
stepped on, and looked through the door into the larger of the two rooms
the house contained. There, prone on the floor, stretched on a gray rag
carpet, lay an old man; his complexion was brown, dark, and rich in
color as century-old mahogany; his thick, white hair—bushy and
plentiful—framed a face seamed and lined, but keen and full of vigor.
The old man stirred at the sound of the boys’ step, then rose and went
toward them inquiringly.

“The young lady said that you knew all about the coast, and could tell
us the best way to get through the islands,” Kenneth began.

“Yes, I do know something of the coast,” and the old man smiled, as if
at a joke too private to be told.

He asked the boys about themselves, and was much interested in their
tale of pluck and their plans for the balance of the cruise. After they
had finished their recital, he, in his turn, began an account of the
channels, harbors, shoals, tides, and currents, that showed an
acquaintance with the coast along the Gulf that was indeed marvellous.
His voice was clear and full, and he gestured freely as he talked with
the animation of a young man.

  JOHN GOMEZ’S CABIN.
  “A ... COTTAGE THATCHED WITH PALM BRANCHES.”
]

Both of the boys instinctively understood that there was something
extraordinary about him, although they could not tell what it was.

He expressed a wish to see the boat that had been built so far away from
the warm clime she was now visiting, so the youngsters filled their
breaker at a spring near the cottage and led the way to the beach where
they had landed. It was quite a long walk, but the old native tramped it
as sturdily as the young men themselves. The “Gazelle” lay swinging idly
at her anchor; a sight to make her owner’s heart glad.

The old man seemed much pleased with the yacht, and complimented her
builder. Then he talked about boats in general, displaying such a
knowledge of vessels of all kinds that Kenneth’s curiosity finally
overcame him, and he asked if their host would not tell him some
incident that they might put down in the log in remembrance of the
visit—hoping that he might in some way reveal his history.

“Well, boys, how old should you say I am?” He looked quizzically from
one to the other. Frank guessed eighty; Kenneth eighty-five, and he was
afraid he was stretching it.

“Well,” said he, “my name is John Gomez, and if I live till Christmas—as
I hope I shall—I’ll be a hundred and twenty-three.”

Frank and Kenneth could do nothing but gaze at him open-mouthed. “Holy
smoke!” at last ejaculated Frank.

“Now, there’s something to put down in your log,” said John Gomez. “Good
luck to you.”

He shook the boys’ hands with a hearty grip, and went off.

“Well,” said Frank, as he and Kenneth got aboard “His Nibs” and pushed
off, “a hundred and twenty-three, think of it! I bet that old chap has a
history.”

And he had.

                              CHAPTER XII

                      FIGHTING A MAN-EATING SHARK

It was some time before the boys heard about old John Gomez; but the
tales that were current from Mobile to Key West would fill a book.
According to one story, he was the only surviving member of a pirate
crew—one of the many that formerly cruised about in the waters of the
Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. The crew of this ship had a
disagreement about the division of the spoils, and a great fight
followed. All but Gomez were slain, and though he was badly wounded, he
hid the great treasure which was in his hands, and so carefully that no
one had ever been able to learn its whereabouts. The old man had never
alluded to the subject; and it was feared that his secret might die with
him. Some said that the young woman the boys saw with the old man was a
relative, others declared that she was merely a guard stationed to
secure the secret should the centenarian by any chance let it drop
unawares. Gomez’s general appearance did not a little to give credence
to these stories; his looks were certainly of the piratical order—a
lean, sallow face, keen, piercing black eyes, gold rings in his ears,
and a watchfulness that never wearied, were characteristics which he had
in common with light-fingered gentlemen of seafaring tastes.

Over a year later, the boys read a newspaper clipping describing his
death. He was drowned while sailing alone in his sloop on the open Gulf.
But they never heard that any of the treasure was ever found.

For several days the voyagers travelled among the Ten Thousand Islands,
winding in and out through the labyrinthine channels. It was a journey
full of incident. Islands of every size and shape—green islands and
islands bare of verdure—crowded the sea.

A whole week passed, and the boys did not see the least sign of a white
man. Every vessel of sufficient size stood out into the Gulf to avoid
the winding passages. They ran across several Seminole Indians, tall,
splendid fellows, who considered the coils of bright-colored cloth on
their heads sufficient covering for the whole body.

At last they sighted Cape Sable, and they knew that with a favorable
wind the “Gazelle” would soon be ploughing the waters of the Atlantic
Ocean.

Off Cape Sable the “Gazelle” ran into a fleet of fishing boats, and for
an hour the boys and the men of the fishing boats swapped yarns; then
they busied themselves laying in a stock of cocoanuts against future
need.

It was a straight run from Cape Sable to Grassy Key, one of the long
chain of islands which drip off the end of the Florida peninsula. At
last, only the narrow island lay between the “Gazelle” and the Atlantic
Ocean. The great body of salt water Kenneth and his crew had so
perseveringly fought to gain was almost in sight, and the deeper note of
its thundering surf could at times be plainly heard. What might befall
them on the greater tide they knew not, but with undaunted courage all
were impatient to venture, and to learn.

The “Gazelle” reached her secure anchorage just as the storm, which had
been threatening several days, broke with terrible fury. Sheltered as
they were, the joy of the boys at reaching the last obstacle to their
way to the Atlantic, gave place to awe as they heard the roar of the
wind and felt the shock of the beating surf on the coral shores outside.
For three days a heavy wind prevailed—too strong to allow of the
“Gazelle” venturing out. In fact, the seas had been swept free of all
craft as if by a gigantic broom. Then the boys were forced to live on an
almost purely vegetable diet of cocoanuts and oatmeal—a liberal supply
of weevils in the last constituting the only foreign element in the
otherwise strictly vegetable nature of the food. At the end of the three
days, the wind subsided enough to allow the yacht to crawl out of her
hole, and with wings spread wide, she entered the dangerous passage that
led to the almost limitless waste of waters of the grand old ocean.

It was a proud moment for Kenneth when his yacht sailed out on the broad
Atlantic—pride in his boat, pride in the crew, and a pardonable
satisfaction with his own good work.

“All hail to Old Ocean!” shouted the crew as the “Gazelle,” with a shake
that was like the toss of the head, bounded into the embrace of the
Atlantic’s long billows.

“Well, we did it!” cried the mate exultingly. “Sailed to the ocean.”

“And we will sail back, too,” added Frank.

“But we have a trick or two to turn yet.” Kenneth foresaw experiences
before them during the long coast-wise trip.

The voyage up the Hawk Channel to Miami, on Biscayne Bay, seemed long
only because of their short supply of food; and when they anchored off
that southernmost town on the mainland of Florida, they were ready to
tackle anything in the shape of eatables except oatmeal and cocoanuts.

For many, many days the boys had not been able to send word to their
people in far off Michigan; nor had _they_ heard from home. At Miami a
big batch of mail awaited them; and they at once satisfied a hunger for
home news and civilized food. Day by day the boys had added to their
letters, until Uncle Sam received almost as much mail matter as he had
brought.

For two days the boys enjoyed the comfort of a safe anchorage in a port,
and all hands got a good rest, many good feeds, and a good hair-cut
apiece. When their unkempt shaggy locks were shorn, the places protected
from the sun showed white in contrast to their tanned skins.

“Arthur, you look like Barnum’s piebald boy,” said Frank, pointing a
derisive finger at him.

“Well, you look as if you needed a good scrub. You started all right,
apparently, but you must have got tired.”

“Every man his own hair brush,” said Ransom, running his fingers
appreciatively through his stiff, closely cropped hair. “If I could only
reach my feet with my head I would always have a shine.”

“That’s all right; you can reach mine,” and Arthur put up his foot to
prove it.

The fame of the young sailors and their staunch craft had preceded them,
so they made many friends in the far Southern town, and spent the days
very pleasantly. The place was a great shipping point for
pineapples—crates of the spiky fruit being shipped by the thousands to
Northern cities; and now, for once in their lives, the boys had their
fill of them—great, juicy, luscious things ripened in their own warm,
native sun.

In spite of all these enticements, Kenneth and his crew were eager to
begin their long cruise up the coast, and in spite, also, of many
invitations to stay, they weighed anchor and got under way the second
day after they had entered the famous harbor. The bay, though large, was
full of bars, and these and great masses of seaweed made it difficult to
keep to the deep water.

A fine breeze was blowing, and the “Gazelle,” her booms well to port,
sailed off handsomely. Her crew, rested, well fed, and at peace with
all, were in high spirits, and proud of the fine appearance their yacht
made. Kenneth at the stick, Frank tending sheets, Arthur below making
all snug for the coming tussle with old ocean—all were in high feather.
The “Gazelle” was sailing her best, skimming over the water at good
speed, like a graceful gull, when suddenly she struck bottom, and
stopped with a jar. There she stuck, all sail spread and every stitch
drawing, but as hard on the bar as though she had been rooted to it.
This was too common an experience to give the boys any uneasiness, but
the delay was vexatious, and they tried every means that experience
suggested to shove her into deep water. The tide was falling, and they
soon saw that there was nothing to do but wait until it changed to
flood, and released them. A long day of waiting was before them, and
since with the falling water the yacht careened more and more, there was
no comfort in staying aboard of her.

“What’s the matter with a swim?” Frank suggested.

“I’ll beat you in,” Kenneth responded.

In a trice, all three were overboard.

Farther on the bar was entirely bare, and a smooth, hard sand beach was
left. One side sloped suddenly into deep water, and made a splendid
diving place.

For an hour, the three swam in the warm salt sea, and then Ken and
Arthur, growing a little weary of the sport, went on shore and lay
basking on the beach. Frank, however, not satisfied, continued to float
about.

Arthur and Kenneth talked comfortably for some time, then, becoming
interested, fell into a lively discussion, which Arthur suddenly
interrupted with, “Why, look at Frank. What in the world is the matter
with him?”

“Oh, he’s just fooling. Splashing around for exercise,” Kenneth answered
indifferently.

It was Frank’s peculiar motions that had attracted Arthur’s attention.
He swam around in circles, then he stopped and splashed and made a great
to-do. After that, he swam ahead for a little, only to stop and begin
all over again his previous absurd tactics.

“He’s not fooling, Ken; something is the matter with him. Perhaps he has
got cramp.” Just as Arthur stopped speaking, Frank seemed to regain his
senses, and swam straight ahead in an entirely rational and dignified,
if somewhat speedy, fashion.

Then, all of a sudden, he began to lash about with arms and legs anew.
His feet and hands flew about like flails, and beat the water into white
foamy lather. The two boys watched the antics of their friend with
growing alarm. All at once they saw something that stirred them to
instant action—the sharp triangle of a shark’s fin cutting through the
water just behind Frank’s wildly waving arms.

The water was delightful, and Frank was not ready to come in when Arthur
and Kenneth had had enough, so he dived over and swam out where the tide
was several times over his head. Once he dived down and tried to reach
bottom, and, as he rose toward the surface, his heart laboring for air,
his face turned up, he saw a sinister shadow slowly swaying in the
yellowish-green water almost above him. For an instant his heart sank,
and cold chills ran up and down his spine. Never had he seen so large a
shark, and for a moment he almost lost his presence of mind. Then, with
a rush, his courage returned, and working arms and legs with frantic
zeal, he shot up to the surface, and began splashing about to frighten
the shark off—a plan that he had heard was sometimes successful. For a
while the man-eater, surprised by these tactics, was held at bay, then,
as Frank grew weary of his efforts and stopped to rest, the monster drew
slowly nearer, and began to turn on his back to allow his long,
under-cut jaw to work.

“He’ll have me in a minute,” thought Frank, and he began a new
movement—turning suddenly, he swam _straight for the shark_, arms and
legs going like miniature paddlewheels. It was a bold move, and life or
death depended on its success or failure. Straight at the ugly, cruel
head he swam, and directly away from shore. For a moment the shark lay
still, its fins slowly waving, its evil eye watching its enemy; the
curved line of the wicked mouth was partly visible. Nearer swam the boy.
Nearer, till he could almost feel the current set in motion from those
powerful fins. “I am a goner, sure,” thought Frank; but he determined to
play the game out to the end, and kept on. Where were Kenneth and
Arthur? Why did they not come to his rescue? he wondered, with a fearful
dread at his heart.

Surely the shark was backing away from his onslaught. In spite of aching
limbs and laboring lungs, the boy increased his efforts, and followed
after the retreating tiger of the sea. He had been struggling for a long
time, and his whole body ached with the exertion; he felt that he could
not keep up much longer. Once, when his mouth was open, gasping for
breath, he had splashed it full of water, and had had to stop a minute
to cough it out. His heart was beating like a trip hammer, and each move
seemed to take the last ounce of his strength.

The boy felt that he must give up, and wondered vaguely if a shark made
quick work of a chap, and what his people at home would think of his
end. Just as he seemed at the very last gasp, he felt the clutch of
Kenneth’s hand on his hair, and the firm grip warm on his bare arm.

Then, half dead with fatigue and dazed with horror, the limp figure was
dragged into the small boat by Kenneth’s sturdy arms.

Feebly, the exhausted boy was able to say: “You came in the nick of
time, old man; I could not have lasted much longer.”

Kenneth answered not a word, but thought with a shudder of how close he
had come to mistaking his friend’s frantic movements for playful antics.
He reached out his hand and grasped the other’s fervently—it was a grip
of thankfulness and affection on both sides.

Though Frank’s escape was narrow, the recovery of his high spirits was
almost immediate, and soon the three friends were running races on the
exposed sand bar as if one of them had never been in peril of his life,
let alone a short hour before.

With the returning tide, the “Gazelle” straightened up, and after a few
strong pulls on the anchor, which had been previously dropped for that
purpose, she slipped off into deep water. It was still early afternoon,
so with an eased sheet and light hearts the “Gazelle” and her gallant
crew passed through the channel, out on the open ocean.

“Look at that old lighthouse; that’s a fine tower, but I don’t see any
signs of a lantern.” Frank pointed to a tall shaft like a great chimney
that rose from a cluster of palm trees. The yacht was slipping past the
long point that forms one of the barriers between the ocean and Biscayne
Bay.

“That must be the old Cape Florida light a fellow in Miami told me
about,” said Ransom, gazing at the tall, graceful tower that pierced the
blue.

“That tower has a story to tell. This place was full of Indians, I don’t
know how long ago, and the lighthouse keeper and his assistant, a
colored man, were in mortal terror of them. They thought, however, that
they had a safe refuge, if worse came to worse, in the tower. One day a
big bunch of the red savages came up and, after shooting a while at the
men in the keeper’s house, set it afire. To save themselves from being
roasted alive, the two men took refuge in the lighthouse itself and
climbed up the long, winding flights of wooden stairs to the lantern
room on top. For a time it seemed as if they were safe, but the
ingenious devils soon hit upon the plan of setting fire to the stairs
and platforms inside the tower. The door open at the bottom and top, the
lighthouse became a veritable chimney, and the flames licked up the dry
woodwork in a flash.”

“Gracious! What happened to the men?” Frank interrupted Kenneth to ask.

“When it got too hot inside,” Ransom continued, “and when the platform
they were standing on inside began to smoke, they climbed out on that
narrow little run-around outside; you can see it from here.”

The skipper pointed to the tower and the little balcony running round it
near the top.

“Phew! That would be an unpleasant place to stay with a fire burning in
the tower inside and a lot of savages looking for your gore hanging
’round waiting for you to drop off.”

“But they didn’t drop off,” Kenneth went on to say. “They stuck to the
little balcony till the Indians got tired waiting and began shooting at
them with their bows and arrows. The men lay flat on the boards, as
close to the bricks as they could get, but before long the assistant got
an arrow through his heart and the keeper himself was shot in the
shoulder. The Indians, thinking that both were done for, went away,
leaving the wounded man with the dead one, high up on a lonely tower,
the only means of reaching the ground burned away, without food, and
entirely without shelter.”

“Did he die up there?” both of the other boys inquired at once.

“Almost, but not quite. Some of the settlers near, fearing trouble,