Motor Boat Boys Among the Florida Keys; Or, The Struggle for the Leadership
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CHAPTER XVI.
A SCREECHER FROM THE NORTH.
All of them awaited the verdict with bated breath. Jack was down on hisback under the boat, and carefully examining the fracture made by thesnag.
"We can mend it, all right," he announced, as he finally snaked his wayout.
A chorus of approval greeted the announcement.
"How long will it take us, do you think?" asked Herb, who lookedrelieved to know that, after all, his boat would not be lost.
"Oh! that depends. Perhaps by tonight it may be in apple-pie shape, goodenough to hold out till we get to Tampa," Jack replied.
"Say, looks like we might have the whole bally armada in the hands ofthe ship joiners at the same time," chuckled Nick. "Because, you know,George and me want to get a new engine installed the worst kind, don'twe, George?"
The skipper of the _Wireless_ grunted in reply; Nick was evidentlyrunning things now with regard to that change in motive power, and didnot mean to let his mate draw back from his word.
"But first of all, we've got to drag the boat up further," continuedJack. "You see, if I've got to work at that broken place for hours, I'mbound to have it more comfortable than now. Lying on my back would knockme out."
Accordingly they all took hold again, after the tackle had been shifted.It was not so difficult a thing to do, with six sturdy fellows to pull arope; and presently the _Comfort_ was elevated at a point that wouldallow one to kneel under her keel.
Jack made his preparations, and set to work. With the willing Herb toassist in any way necessary, the others of course were not needed.
Josh amused himself after his favorite manner, studying up some newdishes with which he figured surprising his chums some fine day. Georgecould always find plenty to do pottering with his engine, and trying tocure its faults; for hope dies hard in the young and sanguine heart.
Jimmy and Nick took to fishing, because that employment seemed toengross their every waking thought. When Jimmy started out, the fat boygrew uneasy; and before long he, too, paddled away in one of the smalltenders.
"Be sure and don't go out of sight of the smoke from the fire," Jack hadcautioned them both; and Josh agreed to make use of some pine wood hehad picked up, in order to create a black smoke; for Florida pine isfull of the resinous sap that burns fiercely, and makes a dense smudge.
Jimmy did not remain long in one place. He seemed very restless, asthough he wanted to move about, in order to be on the lookout for achance to make a grand haul. Nick followed from time to time, meaning tobe an eyewitness to any remarkable event that took place.
"He's hoping to get fast to one of them tarpon, that's what," was theconviction of the fat youth, who had discovered that the king fish ofthe coast was in evidence in those warm waters. "I just wish he wouldright now," he went on, chuckling; "I'd give a whole heap to see Jimmypulled around by one of them high skippers of tarpon. It'd curb thatambition of his, some, I guess now."
And, singular to say, Nick's wish was fated to be realized. Jimmy'smullet bait was gorged by a tarpon about the middle of the morning.At the time the Irish boy chanced to be either half asleep or elsethinking of something else. At any rate, the first thing he knew of thecircumstance, and that he was fast to a streak of polished silver, waswhen the rod he was holding was almost jerked from his hands.
"Whoa, there, ye omadhaun!" shouted Jimmy, immediately bracing his feetso that he might not be pulled from the dinky outright.
Then something sprang from the water not fifty feet away. It was alordly tarpon, shaking its head, as if hoping to get rid of the barbedhook.
A shriek from Jimmy, echoed by one from Nick, drew the attention of allthe others. Even Jack came crawling out from under the motor boat towatch the sport.
It was certainly a great time Jimmy had. That little dinky was draggedaround at a furious pace, now darting to the right, and presentlywhirled about to head toward the left, as some new whim seized upon thecaptive fish.
Pretty soon Jimmy seemed to be getting dizzy from the rapid evolutions.
"He'll never tire that monster out!" cried Herb.
"And perhaps it might carry him out to sea, and lose him there!"suggested the cautious Josh.
"Well, even if he tired the fish out, it wouldn't weigh more than ahundred pounds; so I think he'd better cut loose," was Jack's dictum.
Accordingly he made a megaphone out of his hands, and shouted:
"Better let him go free, Jimmy; he'll upset you, and perhaps bite youafter he gets you in the water!"
"Faith, what shall I be afther doing, then?" came back faintly.
"Cut loose! you've got a knife, haven't you?" called George.
"But I'll lose me line that way, and the hook in the bargain!"remonstrated the reluctant Irish boy.
"Well, better that than your life, or my boat," George told him.
So poor Jimmy found himself compelled to creep forward, when the chanceoffered, and push the blade of the knife against the taut line. Ofcourse it parted instantly; and he came near capsizing when the littledinky sprang up again, freed from the drag of the big fish.
The tarpon went speeding away toward the gulf, leaping madly out of thewater now and then, as though still trying to shake that jewelry fromits jaw, or else making sport of disconsolate Jimmy, who sat therecasting yearning looks after his escaped prize.
He always maintained that it was a two hundred-and-thirty-five-poundfish, though just why he hit upon that odd figure Nick alone couldguess. The jewfish he remembered had been calculated to tip the scalesat two hundred and thirty pounds. And it is always the largest fish thatgets away.
Well, after that disappointment Jimmy might have been pardoned had hegiven up for the day; but that was not his way. He kept at it all theblessed afternoon. Several bites rewarded his diligence, but he did notsucceed in getting fast to another of the silver kings.
And, greatly to his disappointment, the evening came on with thegrinning Nick still holding high record in the contest.
Jack had been quite as successful as he had ventured to hope. George andHerb both declared that he had patched the fracture in the ribs andplanks of the _Comfort_ in a truly shipshape manner; and that therecould be no question about the repair holding, up to the time theyexpected reaching Tampa.
"Then we go on tomorrow, do we?" asked Nick, anxious to get Jimmy awayfrom the tarpon temptation; for he feared the lucky Irish lad mightsooner or later get hold of some monster, which would put his prize outof the running.
Jack said there was nothing to hinder; and with all of them, saveperhaps Jimmy, feeling quite happy and contented, the night came on.
In the morning they were off again, and that day they saw the last ofthat weird region charted as the Ten Thousand Islands. None of them weresorry; indeed, the very monotony of those mangrove covered mud flats hadbegun to pall upon every member of the expedition.
When they began to see plumed palmetto trees along the shore, the sightbrought forth cheers from several of the more joyous among the voyagers.
And it certainly looked more like life to note the buzzards floatingoverhead again, with pelicans skimming the waves out on the gulf, insearch of their fish dinner. There were also many water turkeys, withtheir snake-like necks, and black cormorants swimming in the lagoonsbehind the keys.
Jack, who had read up on the subject, related how the Chinese fishermenmake use of such birds as these latter, trained for the purpose, to dotheir fishing for them: a band being fastened around each creature'sneck, so that it can never swallow its capture, which is, of coursetaken possession of by the master.
"We want to make sure to get a good anchorage tonight," Jack remarked toHerb; for the two boats were moving along close together, late thatafternoon.
"Why so particular tonight; is it going to be any different fromothers?" asked the skipper of the _Comfort_.
"Well, I don't just like the looks of that sky over yonder"--and Jackpointed to the southwest as he spoke. "We've been told that in nearlyeve
ry case these Northers swoop down after the clouds roll up there, thewind changing to nor'west, and the cold increasing. There's something inthe air that makes me think we're due right now for our first Norther."
"But to Northern fellows that oughtn't strike a wave of dread," declaredHerb. "We're used to winter ice and snow. The thermometer down belowzero never bothered me. Why should it down here, when it don't eventouch freezing?"
"Let's wait and see," laughed Jack. "After it comes, we'll know morethan we do now. But a harbor we must have. Keep your eye peeled for whatlooks like a good landing place, Herb."
They found this presently, though the key was not so heavily wooded asJack had hoped to find; and he did not think it would wholly break theforce of the wind, should a gale come roaring down upon them during thenight.
When they crawled under their blankets about ten, the sky was cloudedover, but nothing else had come to pass. This condition of affairspuzzled Jack, who did not know what to think of it.
But when he was awakened later on by a dull roaring sound, not unlikethe noise of a heavy freight train passing over a long trestle, hesprang up, understanding full well what it meant.
"Wake up, everybody; here comes your first Norther!" he shouted at thetop of his young and healthy voice.