CHAPTER XV.
AN ISLAND MYSTERY.
It was an exhilarating sensation, this of being afloat on their ownkeels and gliding easily among sights so strange and new. On everyyellow sand-spit alligators lay sunning themselves and slid into thewater with lazy splashes as the expedition shot round points onto them.Sometimes they didn't even trouble to do this but lay blinking at thecanoes as much as to say:
"Hurry up by, and let us get to sleep again."
"What if they should take it into their heads to attack us?" askedLathrop of Pork Chops. The boy's face paled as sometimes the old black,with deliberate defiance as it seemed, steered so close to the alligatorbars that the boy could have put out a hand and touched the backs of themonsters.
"Don' you give ye'self no fuss 'bout dem 'gators 'tacking us, MarseLathrop," the old man reassured him, "why, ef I het one ob dem varmintsa slap wid dis yar paddle he'd skedaddle so quick yo couldn' see histrail for hurry--yes, sah."
The first night's halt was made at a beautiful little island overgrownthickly with palmetto, bay, water-oak, wild-fig, mastic and othertimber. Through the amber water that surrounded it fish of a dozenvarieties glided through the brilliantly colored water-grasses, thatwaved in as great luxuriance as the land-growth. While Pork Chops builta fire and busied himself with getting supper Frank and Harry sat apartand discussed their plans. They intended to select the first availableplace for the setting up of the _Golden Eagle II_, and then do a littlescouting by aeroplane. Frank knew from report that scattered through thewilderness of the Everglades there are numerous hammocks or small hills,in some cases quite considerable mounds, that would make ideal sites fora central camp. It was not much use speculating on any further method ofprocedure, however, till they were actually in the Everglades.
While the boys had been busying themselves in this way Ben Stubbs hadtaken a rifle and strolled off into the jungle in search of one of thewild turkeys whose loud "Keouk-keouks" had apprised him that the bronzebeauties were plentiful in the brush. Lathrop and Billy Barnes wentfishing with improvised hooks and lines made of stout thread from theirtoilet-bags.
The two anglers were shouting with delight over a huge reddish coloredfish that Lathrop had hooked and drawn to shore, after a struggle inwhich it seemed that his line must part or he go overboard, when BenStubbs returned from his hunting expedition. He carried with him a finebig gobbler that must have weighed fully twenty pounds. While they wereall gathered about the beautiful bird admiring the rich, coppery glossof its feathers, Lathrop, who had been busy disentangling his line froma low-growing bush, gave a sudden yell.
"What's the matter?" shouted Frank.
The boy came running toward him. His face was white and he held out hisright hand for their inspection. On the thumb were two tiny bluishpunctures.
There was no need to ask questions. The boy had got a snake bite. Thequestion was,--had a poisonous reptile bitten him?
Lathrop, what with terror and pain from the fever that was coursingthrough his veins like molten lead, was too terror-stricken to answerFrank's questions intelligibly. He finally described, however, a snakewhich they did not doubt was a rattler,--a diamond back,--one of themost deadly pests of the Everglades.
"The medicine chest quick, Harry," ordered Frank.
The younger boy darted to the canoes and soon returned with the outfitlabelled "For Snake Bites." With quick dexterity Frank had rolled upLathrop's sleeve while Harry was getting the remedies, and with a shortstick had twisted a handkerchief above the bite so tightly that it wasalmost buried in the skin. This was to prevent the poison spreading upthe arm.
Then, while Lathrop winced with the pain but endured it bravely, Frankslashed two deep cuts in his forearm which bled freely. From thesnake-bite outfit Frank rapidly selected some dark-red tablets ofpermanganate of potassium and rapidly dissolved them in water. By thistime Lathrop was in agony. His heart felt as if it was being gripped ina red-hot vise and he had great difficulty in breathing. A strangedrowsiness crept over him. Nothing seemed to matter if he could onlysleep and forget the pain.
"Leave me alone," he panted to Frank. "I guess I'd rather die."
The young leader recognized the seriousness of these symptoms and workedwith feverish haste. He fitted a needle onto a hypodermic syringe andseizing a fold of the stricken boy's skin between his thumb andforefinger he ran the needle almost up to its end in Lathrop'sarm--after having filled the squirt with the permanganate solution.Then, wrapped in blankets, the boy was laid down, while Frank and Harrywatched anxiously at his side. After an hour they breathed more freelyas Lathrop opened a pair of languid eyes and announced that the painabout his heart had moderated. The next morning he was still so weak,however, that to move him was manifestly impossible.
The boys were in a quandary. They could not leave him and yet time wasprecious. They must press on. An unexpected solution to the problem wasfound when Frank and Harry, after spending half a day exploring thelittle key, announced that they had found a deserted plantation house onthe northerly end of it, and that better than that even, there was aquite considerable clearing about the abandoned house that would make anexcellent "take off" for the _Golden Eagle II_. It was decided thatnight to go to work at once to put the aeroplane together right thereand abandon the canoe expedition.
The house that Frank and Harry had found had evidently been longdeserted. It was built of clay daubed over plaited branches of themastic tree and roofed with palmetto leaves. Its door, a queercontrivance of twisted branches and palmetto leaves hung from brokenhinges formed by loops of pliable twigs, bent round large crooked sticksset into the frame. All about it stretched a clearing in whichapparently the former proprietor had carried on some sort of farmingoperations. But its condition showed that like the house it had beenunused for many years.
"Who do you suppose could have built it?" asked Harry as the boys gazedabout them at the dismal scene of desolation and abandonment.
"Some fellow anxious to keep out of the way I should imagine," put inBen Stubbs, who was already busy with a mattock clearing up a space ofground on which to begin operations,--for this conversation took placethe morning following the boys' discovery of the hut and the clearing.
"Or maybe a sailor who was marooned here," put in Billy Barnes.
"Ah, that's more like it," commented Ben. "Now I come to think of it,pirates used to be thick in among these yere islands and depend upon itthat this place was put up by one of them poor fellows as they had putashore for some fancied offence or other."
As if to confirm this theory it was not much later that Billy, pokingabout the clearing, found way off in one corner, under a hugecabbage-palm, a board stuck at one end of a low mound, evidently agrave.
Billy's shout at once brought the others clustering about him, and afterBen's knife had scraped away the mould and dirt with which the years hadcoated the head-board they read:
"Jem Bristol,--a sailor of the Walrus. Died May 21, 1775. Berried Here by His Ship matz."
Underneath in smaller letters was cut the inscription:
"He was maruned here for five years been found by us as he was diing. The krew of the Murmade."
"Poor fellow," exclaimed Billy, "marooned here for five years, what afate!"
"I suppose that the Walrus was some sort of a pirate ship?" asked Harry.
"Yes, I think I remember reading somewhere that Captain Flint, a famoussea-rover, called his ship by that name," chimed in Frank.
"Wall, them fellers from the Mermaid, however they got here, done whatthey could for the fellow," commented Ben Stubbs.
"Just the same they only found him when it was too late to do anythingfor him but bury him," commented Frank.
It was a good morning's work transporting the packing cases containingthe sections of the air-ship across the island and when it was completedall hands were glad to sit down and partake of a lunch of reef oysters,pilot bread, fried bacon washed d
own with tablet lemonade prepared byPork Chops. Lathrop was so far recovered as to be able to drink someoyster broth and after he had taken the nourishment he declared that hefelt strong enough to be moved.
The boys had reached the decision that it would be a good plan totransport the entire camp to the clearing and occupy the dead sailor'shouse as a more comfortable permanent camp than they could erectthemselves. The rest of the day was devoted to putting this idea intoexecution and carrying Lathrop, in a sort of stretcher made out of oneof the canoe-tents and two long branches across the island. The canoeswere then poled round the island to a little bay with a shelving beachthat cut into the land opposite the new camp which by unanimous consenthad been christened Walrus Camp. The little craft were dragged up to apoint above tide-water, for the waters about the island were stilltidal. That evening, when the lamp was lit and the mouldering house ofthe maroon neatly swept out and the boys' possessions all put in place,the young adventurers declared it was as comfortable a dwelling as onecould find.
As for Pork Chops, he was fairly delighted with the place.
"Dis am as framjous as any palace I ever did done see," he exclaimed,rubbing his hands in satisfaction.
"What palaces have you ever seen?" asked Frank quizzingly of the oldman.
Pork Chops, with a look of great superiority, replied:
"Ah's seen palaces an' palaces. Moren' you could shak' a stick at," hereplied indignantly.
The exact location of Pork Chops' palaces and the eagerly demandeddefinition of the mysterious word "framjous" was indefinitely postponedby a startling occurrence at this juncture.
Ben Stubbs, who had been sitting by the door almost keeled over. Lathropin his enfeebled condition set up a startled cry. Even Frank and Harryturned a shade paler. As for Billy his eyes almost popped out of hishead. With a loud cry of "Fo' de Lawd's sake, spookses!" Pork Chopsleaped from beside his stove, upsetting his pots with a loud crash. Whathad occurred was in fact sufficiently startling considering their lonelysurroundings.
Somebody had knocked at the door.
Frank was the first to recover his senses. Revolver in hand he dashedacross the floor and flung the door wide open. Eagerly his eyes searchedthe night but without result.
There was nobody to be seen!
The Boy Aviators on Secret Service; Or, Working with Wireless Page 15
