Читать книгу The Boy Aviators on Secret Service; Or, Working with Wireless - Goldfrap John Henry - Страница 6

The incident related in the last chapter determined Frank to abandon his half-arrived at intention to enter the Everglades from the Atlantic side. The appearance of the dark man in Washington – he was now certain their plans had been overheard – the episode of the tramp and the attempt to blow up the aerodrome all combined to convince him that his original scheme of invasion of the little known wastes of Southern Florida was as an open book to the men who had only too evidently their destruction at heart.

A hasty trip to Washington resulted, and a consultation with the Secretary of the Navy. The result was that arrangements were made whereby the boys’ expedition was to gather at Miami as openly as possible, and then under cover of night run down Biscayne Bay and eventually double Cape Sable by the inland passage. Then they were to beat up through the Ten Thousand Island Archipelago to the mouth of either Shark or Harney River and thence into the trackless wastes of unmapped swamp and saw-grass known as the Everglades.

The Tarantula was to cruise off and on around the coast and in case of dire need was to be signaled by wireless. These details completed, Frank and Harry returned to New York and a week later, the Golden Eagle II being completed, and loaded in small cases marked “Glass, Fragile,” and other misleading labels, the Boy Aviators bade farewell to their mother and friends and started by the Southern Limited for Miami. With them they carried in ordinary trunks their mess and camp kit outfits, rifles and medical supplies as well as two of the Government’s field wireless outfits. The rest of the party was to follow a week later in a private car with all the other baggage, including the boxed sections of the Golden Eagle II. The canoes and boats for the trips were to be purchased at Miami or along the coast in the vicinity, as the boys deemed fit. In the meantime the Tarantula had been dispatched from Hampton Roads for Southern waters under sealed orders. Not till her commander opened his instructions at sea did he know the real nature of his errand.

At this point it may not be amiss to give a brief description of the little known country to which the boys were bound. Everyone has heard of the Everglades, few have any accurate idea of them beyond a sort of hazy conception of a vast tract of morass, overgrown with giant forests and rank growth of all kinds. Nothing could be further from the truth.

It is without doubt the peculiar, even extraordinary, character of this great stretch of country that has caused its geography to remain obscure. Even recent maps are extremely inaccurate. It seems remarkable in these days of African and Polar discovery that here in our own country is a vast waste, 130 miles long and 70 wide, that is as little known to the white man as the heart of the Sahara. The Everglades are bounded on the north by Lake Okeechobee, on the east by a belt of scrub pine-land about six miles wide facing the Atlantic, on the south by the great mangrove swamps facing the Bay of Florida and the Gulf of Mexico, and on the west by the Big Cypress Swamp which runs right up to the uninhabited region verging on the west coast of the peninsula.

The prevailing idea that the Everglades are unhealthy is about as far as it is possible to get from the truth. So far as the few expeditions that have penetrated the great mystery have reported, the water is fine and the air healthful. The saw-grass, the Seminoles and the snakes – rattlers and cotton-mouth moccasins – are the worst enemies the explorer ordinarily encounters, with an occasional panther.

Over the watery wastes of the Everglades which are not tree grown, but on the contrary great expanses of saw-grass grown prairie, the Seminole poles his cypress dug-out defying the government which wishes to place him on a reservation but has no means of “smoking him out” of the impassable wilds he has chosen for his refuge. The Seminoles also haunt the Big Cypress Swamp and observe numerous tribal rites and legends of which we know little. They are dignified, trustworthy people – but the bad treatment they have received from the government has made them the implacable foe of the white man for whom their word is the same as “liar” – such has been their impression of civilization.

The boys had familiarized themselves with the nature of the country by a close study of all the available works on the subject – which were not many. The government had placed the latest maps and charts of the region at their disposal. Even these, however, showed them little. In fact the parting words of the Secretary of the Navy to them were:

“Boys, you’ll have to blaze your own trail.”

Of course in selecting an equipment for such a region the boys had made lightness the prime essential.

They knew that on much of the journey in search for a spot for a permanent camp they would have to pole over shoal water, in some places not more than two feet deep. An overloaded canoe might therefore cause a lot of trouble and delay. Like true old campaigners they had prepared elaborate lists and then gone through them again and again till nothing appeared on them but the barest necessities.

Ben Stubbs had put in several days making a number of light but strong chests twenty-two inches by thirteen and nine inches deep. These contained, among other necessities, an aluminum cooking outfit weighing nine pounds. There were two pots, a frying pan and four plates nesting into each other. And then there was a coffee pot in which was stowed away four cups (nested) pepper and salt castors, knives, spoons and forks, the frying-pan and coffee-pot had detachable handles for lifting on and off the campfire with ease and comfort, no matter how the wind might be blowing the flames about.

The grocery chest contained flour, sugar, salt, cornmeal, pepper, sliced bacon, beef extracts, soup-tablets (three varieties), root-beer, lemonade and sarsaparilla tablets, oatmeal and evaporated fruits of various kinds. These were all put in glass jars with screw tops and rubber gaskets so that even in case of an upset the contents would remain dry. There was also a blue-flame double burner kerosene stove of the marine type, lanterns, and a supply of candles and matches in waterproof jars. The medical outfit consisted of some antiseptics, pills, several tablets of permanganate of potassium for the same purpose and a hypodermic outfit, bandages and lotions.

Each boy carried an automatic rifle for big game or defense, the kind chosen being a weapon carrying .49-50 nickeled steel cartridges. This gun was heavy enough for alligators; or the more savage crocodile, pumas, leopards, gray wolves or any human enemy. They also purchased two three-barreled guns having two parallel barrels, twelve gauge, for shotted shells, and another rifled barrel underneath of .35-55 caliber. Two 16-gauge shot-guns for duck and small game were also stowed away in the “armory” chest. In addition each boy had his magazine revolver of .38 caliber, and a six-inch bladed hunting-knife with a heavy back so that it might even be used for chopping.

Shovels, axes, picks, etc., were back with the heavy baggage to be brought on by Ben Stubbs and Billy. Frank, of course, carried his nautical instruments. A sextant, a compass, two tested watches of the finest split-second make and an artificial horizon.

Their clothes were stout hunting boots, khaki trousers and Norfolk jackets of the same material and flannel shirts with campaign hats. Each carried a change of underwear and socks in his toilet bag which also held two towels, toothbrush, cake of soap and brush and comb.

For transportation into the Everglades the boys soon managed with little difficulty to secure canoes and a lighter draught “cruiser,” similar to a Barnegat duck-boat. The flotilla was to be taken down the coast by an auxiliary sloop also chartered at Miami.

On the appointed day the boys were at the railroad station of the Florida East Coast railroad to meet the arrivals from New York, and warm were the greetings as Billy Barnes and Stubbs stepped from the private car which had been attached for them when they left the north. The car was sidetracked at Miami and the train kept on its way to Key West along the wonderful chain of cement bridges constructed over the numberless keys that run out from the “leg” of Florida. The boys and Ben were busily engaged getting the various bales and crates in some sort of order for transfer to the trucks by which they were to be taken to the flotilla of canoes when they were startled at being hailed by a voice that sounded familiar.

The boys hastened to the door of one end of the car and were amazed to see standing on the steps, looking rather embarrassed and doubtful, Lathrop Beasley. He wore a well cut suit of white serge and a straw hat with a light blue ribbon. In addition he sported snowy canvas shoes, topped off with light purple socks and a pale pink tie. Altogether he looked as if he had just stepped from a clothing ad. Even in their astonishment at seeing him there the boys could not help laughing at the contrast they presented to him.

In their rough working garb, and all begrimed with dust as they were from handling the kit in the car, two more unpresentable youths from a sartorial standpoint, could not well be imagined. The three boys gazed at each other in silence for a few seconds and then Lathrop said rather shamefacedly:

“Hello, fellows.”

“Well, Lathrop, what on earth are you doing here?” naturally demanded Frank.

“I guess I came on a wild impulse,” began Lathrop, and then stopped.

“Well?” questioned Harry.

“When I heard of your trip, from hanging around the aerodrome after you left – oh, it wasn’t Ben Stubbs or Barnes that told me, they were close as clams,” – he hurried on, “but when old Schultz told me that you were going to cross the Everglades I thought that maybe you’d need an extra hand so I got permission from my folks and here I am.

“If you want to say the word I’ll go back,” he concluded rather lamely but with a longing look in his face that told of his eager desire to be allowed to join the expedition.

“Well, you certainly have an impetuous way of doing things,” commented Frank. “Did you come on this train?”

“Yes,” replied the boy. “I’ve just been up to the hotel and engaged rooms and tidied up a bit and then hurried right down here.”

Frank and Harry exchanged glances of amusement, the cause of which Lathrop was at a loss to fathom.

“Well,” began Frank, after a brief whispered conversation with his brother, “you are here now and I suppose you’ll have to stay. We can find some work I dare say for you to do and there are a lot of ways you can be useful.”

“I’ll start right in at anything you tell me,” began the boy eagerly. “It’s mighty good of you – ”

“Not much you won’t. Not in that fancy rig,” burst out Harry, “if you are coming with us you’d better go up to the village store and get an outfit as much like ours as possible and forget you ever patronized a tailor.”

Lathrop gladly agreed and hurried off to get himself a working outfit. As he hastened down the tracks, Frank turned to Harry with a grin.

“Well, we have gone and done it now,” he said. “But we really have use for another hand, and I think that we can make something out of Lathrop, besides we owe him a debt of gratitude for helping us out at White Plains. If it hadn’t been for him we might have lost the Golden Eagle II and all our work.”

“That’s so,” assented Harry. “I guess he will work out all right. But those fancy duds he had on – ”

And the boy burst out laughing at the recollection.

By sundown most of the “duffle” in the car had been transferred to trucks and carted down to the wharf, where the boys, with considerable pride, exhibited to Ben Stubbs, Billy, and the newly overalled Lathrop, the light draught thirty-foot sloop, with an auxiliary five-horse engine, the four canoes and the light draught “sneak-box,” they had secured for their transportation round the Cape and into the Thousand Island Archipelago. The canoes were of the “Ontario” type, fitted with narrow decks round the edges and canvas covered. The sneak-box was of the spoon-bowed variety familiar to duckers in Barnegat Bay. It drew only a few inches of water and afforded a lot of space in its sixteen feet of length for the stowage of the heavier baggage. It rejoiced in the name of Squeegee.

Ben Stubbs was delighted with the “fleet” as he called it, and declared that the sloop was a “witch.” After a dinner at the quiet boarding house at which the boys had been stopping the adventurers that night finished the stowage of their impedimenta aboard the sloop and piled the canoes on the top of the canvas enclosed “summer cabin.” The “sneak-box” was towed astern.

The owner of the sloop, a coal-black negro called Pork Chops – the boys could never discover that he had any other name – was to take them round the cape as far as the Thousand Island Archipelago where they were to be left. From there on their course would lie up the Shark River into the heart of the little known Everglades.

Of course the wharf loungers were full of curiosity as the work of transferring the boys’ belongings and outfit to the sloop proceeded, but Frank and Harry had allowed it to become widely circulated that they were a hunting party bound for some of the keys to the east of Cape Sable, and “Pork Chops” also was of this belief, so that the boys were pretty sure that none but the members of their own immediate party knew of the real goal of their journey.

By midnight everything was in readiness and the tide served for start. With her big mainsail flapping lazily in the breath of wind that was stirring Pork Chops’ sloop, which held the poetic name of Carrier Dove dropped down Biscayne Bay with her “kicker” going and dawn found her well on her journey south with a spanking breeze out of the northeast to fill her canvas. As she skimmed along over the sparkling blue of the tropical waters in whose crystalline depths hosts of fish of all kinds could be easily seen and on the surface of which floated great masses of yellow gulf weed, the boys rejoiced that their momentous expedition had started so auspiciously. As for Lathrop he acted like a boy out of his head with joy at his unexpected good fortune. Ben Stubbs and the inky Pork Chops relieved each other at the wheel, and Frank and Harry, at the table in the stuffy little cabin, worked at plans and lists trying to devise ways of still further cutting down their outfit without impairing its usefulness. Billy Barnes, with a knowing air, scrutinized the sails and from time to time admonished Ben Stubbs to “keep her up a bit,” to which suggestion Ben with an air of ineffable contempt replied:

“I never knowed they taught navigation on a newspaper but it’s a good school for nerve.”