by Van Powell
CHAPTER XI ONE MYSTERY IS SOLVED
Swimming dejectedly back to their small bit of beach the chums took offtheir soaked clothes and hung them in the sun to dry.
“Well, here we are!” observed Nicky ruefully.
“Well, here we are!” mimicked Cliff. “Don’t you like it? I thought youwere fond of mystery and adventure!”
“Whether I am or not, I’m getting it!” Nicky admitted. “But this wasmore than I bargained for.”
“Same here,” exclaimed Tom.
“I see,” Cliff grinned at them. “You two are—sort of—arm-chairadventurers. You like to have the thrills without the hardships. Justlook at us!” he declared. “We couldn’t be deeper in adventure if wetried to dig our way in! Right in the midst of treasure-land! Strandedand deserted on the edge of an awful swamp—isn’t the Big Cypress Swampnorth of us? Surely it is! Without food! Drenched and helpless. Whatmore could you ask?”
“I see what you are aiming at,” Nicky grinned back. “We must take it asit comes and make the best of it.”
“That’s it,” Cliff agreed. “You know we’re not so badly off. Mr. Nealewill come rowing along in the dinghy and then we’ll all crowd in and berescued—what a story we’ll have to tell our grandchildren.”
They were compelled to laugh at his tone and his ludicrous words. Itmade them all feel better.
Meanwhile, Mr. Neale had reached Nelse’s place and been greeted by Pomp’who assured him that he was welcome to wait until Mars’ Nelse came backwith his canoe—having gone “off yonder,” Pomp’ said with a vague wave ofhis hand toward the Sound.
Waiting on the rude little dock, Mr. Neale caught sight of the _TreasureBelle_ standing away for an opening into bigger water.
It astonished him and rendered him helpless to act! He knew that hecould not hope to overtake her with his dinghy, and Pomp’ assured himthat there was no faster boat within reach.
“I ’spect dat black man f’om Jamaica done got de skeer under his wooland run off wif de white chill’un,” he observed.
“No—he’s gone alone,” Mr. Neale stated. “I left the boys on the shore bythe inlet.”
He leaped in to the dinghy and began to row down the shore line; it wasno time to wait for Nelse. He must see whether the boys were where hehad left them or if they had managed to return, by swimming, before Samgot the boat under headway.
He was forced to conclude that they were either voluntarily going withSam or that they were under some compulsion on the sloop.
Certainly they were not on the shore!
He beached the dinghy and sat in it, considering. Where were hischarges? Why had they let Sam get away if they had reached the sloop?
As a matter of fact, the chums were having an adventure they had notcounted on.
Hardly had they decided to wait for their chief when a thought hadstruck Nicky. “If we were detectives, now,” he mused, “we could find outwhat all this mystery is concealing.”
“Well, we have nothing better to do,” Tom suggested. “Let’s try our handat ‘detecting!’”
“Good idea!” Cliff agreed. “First off, that boat, last night, didn’tcome back into the Sound. And there’s signs enough that real people werehere. Where did they go? Where did they take the boat? And what did theydo with the chests?”
“That’s easy!” Nicky declared. “They went up this little river, and theyeither put the chests back in their own boat or in another one, that hadthat funny light on it.”
“But where did they go, then,” demanded Tom.
“Up the inlet, I said,” Nicky retorted. “We can’t get through themangroves and the tangle of brush, but a boat—or boats—could go up asfar as that bend yonder.”
“I wonder what’s beyond the bend,” reflected Tom.
“Let’s see—while our clothes dry!” Nicky urged, slipping into the water.
“No—wait!” called Cliff. “Look out for water snakes!”
“Or—crocodiles!” added Tom.
“I will,” laughed Nicky, turning and swimming slowly up the inlet.
They watched him anxiously. He waved an arm reassuringly and in ahundred easy strokes was at the point where the inlet turned out oftheir sight.
“Don’t go around there by yourself!” called Cliff.
“It’s just the same, around the bend,” Nicky said as he trod water foran instant. Then he swam out of their sight.
“Nicky!” called Tom anxiously.
There was a moment of silence, then a faint answer came. The placeseemed suddenly to be spooky and queer.
Of a sudden there was a sharp, low cry, and then silence.
Tom and Cliff looked at each other.
“Nicky!” shrilled Tom.
They strained their ears.
There was no answer!
With one accord, never pausing to think of personal danger, knowing thatNicky was not the sort to play a joke, that if he failed to answer theirhail he must be in peril, they slipped into the water and used theirutmost effort to reach the bend.
Hardly had they left the tiny beach when a Seminole Indian, with analmost expressionless face, emerged from a clump of heavy bushes throughwhich he had been calmly, stolidly observing them for a half hour.
That was why, when Mr. Neale arrived ten minutes later, no clothes hungin the sun to furnish a clue to the presence of the boys.
As the two chums reached the bend and could see around it they suspendedtheir strokes and stared!
Nicky was not in danger at all!
But he was evidently too stupefied by what he was regarding to haveheard their call; or, perhaps the dense growth had dulled the sound. Atany rate, they paddled hastily forward until they could climb out besidetheir comrade.
“Why didn’t you answer?” demanded Cliff, his anxiety shifting to anatural anger at the fright Nicky had given them.
“Oh! Golly! I guess I was too surprised to hear you!”
Nicky lifted an arm and waved it at the scene before them.
On the shore a light canoe of cedar, hollowed out of the virgin wood asthe Seminoles create their water craft, lay upturned.
Beyond that there was a spot cleared in the heavy brush growth, andthere were piled cases and crates, perhaps fifty of them!
It did not require the stenciled black letters at the visible ends ofcertain cases to indicate the truth to the chums. An old ship’s lanternof the sort used at the starboard and port sides, with a screen of greenglass over its front indicated where the previous night’s uncanny glowhad come from. But the cases themselves told more.
“Rum runners!” gasped Nicky.
“We ought to have guessed,” Cliff said. “Nelse is one of them. That’swhy he tried to scare us away. This is a nest of them. I suppose theycan run up from the islands—especially Cuba—get their large boat hiddenfrom the Government patrol on some dark night, in among the keys, andthen ferry the cases over here in smaller boats.”
“But what good does that do them?” Tom wondered. “How do they get thecases to market?”
“I guess the Seminole Indians, or maybe half-breeds, work with them. Itmust be the Seminoles because they know the waterways in the Big CypressSwamp and the Everglades, and I don’t think many white men do—theydidn’t up to recently, anyhow, according to a book on exploration Iread.” Nicky made the statement excitedly.
“Even if we never find any treasure,” he added, “there must be a bigreward for breaking up trade like this. It’s wicked. It’s against thelaw and the Constitution, and even if there wasn’t any reward we willhave to try some way to get word to the Government boats.”
There was a slight stir in the grass and scrub behind and to the left ofthem.
When, with one accord, they turned, a Seminole Indian faced them.
“Hello!” said Nicky, a little uneasily.
The man made no immediate reply. Instead, he lifted an arm and beckoned,then pointed toward a narrow trail beyond the c
learing.
Nicky looked at Cliff, and both consulted Tom with their eyes. They allread a common intention; they would swing about and rush to the inletand swim back to the shore.
The Indian divined their purpose; with a snakelike movement he steppedto a point preventing the move. His hand touched something bright andsinister at his belt.
“Se-lof-ka-chop-kaw!” he said, Seminole dialect for “My knife is long!”He partly unsheathed the weapon.
Silently the chums took the trail, their captor following close.
And two hundred yards away Mr. Neale sat by the shore, wondering!