Owen Clancy's Happy Trail; Or, The Motor Wizard in California
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without getting separated from my last meal. Darn it! This iswhy I wanted to find my lost dad in San Diego--I could go there by land.Clancy, I'm goin' to stay on this island, and live and die here. I won'tnever go back. Let's find a restaurant somewhere and fill up, I neverwas so empty in all my life."
Finding a restaurant was not difficult, for the little town was full ofthem. A rattling good fish dinner put Hill in a pleasanter mood, so thathis wretchedness of the morning survived as only a faint and far-offmemory.
Senor Jack Lopez had a curio store on the main street of the town. Theinvestigators were directed to his place of business, but to theirdisappointment, Lopez was away on the other side of the island and wouldnot be back until evening. As they came out of the curio store, a manapproached them and sounded the praises of the glass bottom boats.
"Ugh!" said Hiram, trying to get away, "no boats for mine!"
"But you don't want to leave the island without seeing the marinegardens!" exclaimed the man.
"There are enough gardens on shore to do me," answered Hill.
"My friend is afraid he'll get seasick," observed Clancy, with a wink.
"You can't get seasick in one o' my boats any more'n you could on land,"averred the runner. "We jest go out around by the Sugarloaf--we're closeinshore all the time."
"It's makin' me feel faint just to talk about it," said Hill. "Come on,Clancy!"
He caught the motor wizard's arm and tried to drag him off. Clancy,however, held back.
"I've heard a lot about these glass-bottom boats," said he, "and I'llhave to take a trip in one. If you don't want to go, Hiram, you can siton the dock and wait till I come back."
"No, you don't!" growled Hiram. "You and me don't get separated thistrip, if I can help it. If you're going, Clancy, I'll go, too, even ifit kills me."
"You won't be the least mite sick, friend," the runner insisted. "If youare, I'll give up your fare."
"That won't be a patchin' to what I'll give up--if you have to give upmy fare," commented Hill. "I only hope I don't step so hard on theglass-bottom that I go through."
"You can't do that," the man laughed. "This way, gents."
He led them out on a pier and down a flight of steps to a floatalongside of which a boat was moored. The boat was a flat-bottom affair,rigged with a canopy top, and having seats along the sides.
Extending down the middle of the craft was something which looked like along box, open at the top. The lower side of the box was covered withglass. Passengers on the seats could look into the box, through theglass bottom, and see objects on the ocean's bed with wonderfulclearness. A man up near the prow did the rowing.
"I claim," said the runner, "that this here's the only kind of a boat touse in seein' the marine gardens. We can go places in these little boatsthat they can't get, to in the big ones."
That must have been a particularly slack day for the glass-bottom boats,for Clancy and Hill were the only passengers on this particular craft.
"I reckon that's all, Ike," said the man who had brought the two youthsto the boat: "let 'er go!"
Ike proceeded to use the oars, and, while the boat rounded the end ofthe pier, Hiram hung to his seat with both hands, and looked wildly andexpectantly at Clancy.
"Beginnin' to feel squeamish," mumbled Hiram.
"Don't think about it," returned the motor wizard. "Look down at themarine gardens, Hiram."
Hill gradually forgot his uneasiness. There was hardly any motion to theboat, save a slow, steady gliding onward. Off Avalon there is no surf,the tides rise and fall, as on the mainland, but the sea is usually asquiet as the waters of a pond.
There were other glass-bottom boats out that afternoon, and they werescattered just off shore to Sugarloaf Rock and beyond. Not far from thetowering Rock were two or three rowboats, each manned by an oarsman, andcarrying a man in a bathing suit.
"Them's divers," explained Ike, nodding to the men in the bathing suits."Didn't you see 'em when your boat come in?"
"No," answered Hill, "I was too busy gettin' ashore. What were thosedivers doing when our boats came in?"
"Passengers were throwin' money overboard and they were divin' for it.You'll see 'em when you get in the steamer to go back to Pedro. Over yanby Ole Sugarloaf the divers goes down under the glass bottoms, looks upat you from below, makes faces, throws kisses at the girls, and I don'tknow what all. Likewise, they brings up abalone shells; you can see 'embrought up, and can buy 'em for a quarter apiece. A very pretty andinterestin' souvenir of your trip to the island. Now, look down, forwe're right over, the gardens."
"It's funny," remarked Hill, "that I'm such a good swimmer when thisseasickness takes holt o' me so, hard and quick. Maybe if I'd swim theocean the water wouldn't bother my stummick at all. I---"
The words died on Hill's lips. He suddenly found himself gazing from oneworld into another of weird beauty and wondrous enchantment.
Beneath his eyes and Clancy's there unfolded a landscape of rainbowtints flecking a forest of softly waving trees. Some of the trees borefruit, and in and out among their branches swam fishes of silver andgold. It was like fairyland, that landscape on the bed of the sea.
"Beats anything I ever seen!" whispered the entranced Hiram. "If amermaid was to float up to the glass bottom of this here boat and shakea finger at me, I'd go right over the side and join her in them prettygardens."
"Wonderful!" exclaimed Clancy. "Look at the rocks and shells! You can,see them as clearly as though they were out of the water and on theland."
"Them forests," explained Ike, "are made of kelp. From kelp is where weget our iodine of commerce. It takes four hundred pounds of kelp to makeone pound of iodine."
"And a million pounds of the iodine o' commerce," snorted Hiram, "ain'tworth one pound o' kelp, down below and growin' same as we see. What dothey, want to root it up for? Why don't they leave it where it is, toplease the eye that looks down through these glass-bottom boats?"
"I pass," answered Ike wearily. "I ain't no philosopher, that-a-way.Kelp's no good and iodine's useful--that's all I know. Diver's goin'over and comin' this way," he added, with sudden animation. "Watchclose, now, and maybe you'll see him pick up an abalone shell, and lookup and make faces. It's right remarkable how long some o' them diverscan stay under the water. Look sharp!"
Clancy and Hill looked sharp, but they couldn't see anything of thediver.
"Shucks!" grunted Ike. "He come up for another boat afore he got here.But he'll be along after a spell."
Ike rested from his rowing a bit, and filled and, lighted his pipe.
"Up there," said he, waving his hand aloft, "is the towerin' summits o'Black Jack and Orizaba, If you're goin' to be on the island overnightyou don't want to miss the coach trip to the top o' the uplifts. It'sten miles up and two miles back, same road all the way," he chuckled ashe exhaled a cloud of smoke, "and the round trip is only eight miles.It'll cost you a dollar apiece, and you don't want to miss it."
Clancy and Hill had already discovered that the inhabitants of Avalonhad a hand out for tourist money. When one had got all he could of aguileless sight-seer, he passed him on to a brother who had somethingelse to show. But they were a kindly lot, those Avalonians for all that.
"Now, watch!" warned Ike. "Here the diver comes, for sure!"
This time Ike was correct. Clancy and Hill, peering through the glassbottom of the boat, saw a human form glide gracefully to a pointdirectly underneath, turn over on its back, and float face upward, fulla dozen feet below the surface.
The diver commenced to throw kisses and to make faces, but he suddenlyceased that pleasing performance. His face abruptly froze as withhorror, and his wide eyes looked, up at the two faces staring downthrough the glass.
A sharp exclamation escaped Clancy's lips. Hill gave a yell, sat up andbegan tearing off his coat, hat, and vest.
"It's--it's Hank Burton!" he murmured, far gone with wonder. "It'sGerald Wynn's pard, and he helped walk off with your fifteen thousand,Clancy! What's he doin' in the
marine gardens, I'd like to know?Wouldn't this put kinks into your intelleck? Say!"
Hiram Hill was climbing up on his seat, bending low to avoid hitting thecanopy top.
"What are you going to do?" shouted Clancy.
"I'm