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CHAPTER XIV.
WHEN THE COMFORT WAS HUNG UP

Evidently Jimmy was not at all dismayed by his present setback. As he said, he sprang from stock that would never acknowledge defeat.

“Just wait, me laddybuck,” he declared, as he shook his finger at the grinning Nick; “the day is long yit, and by the powers, they be other ways of beating that record ye’ve hung up. I’ll kape me eyes about me, to say if another jewfish wouldn’t be afther stranding himself for me ’special benefit. And who knows but what this toime it may be a three hundred pounder I’ll be lugging into camp.”

“Oh, that’s all right, Jimmy,” remarked the fat boy, apparently not very much worried over the possibility of losing his laurels; “but make sure of one thing before you claim the earth.”

“And what moight that be?” demanded Jimmy, innocently.

“Why, don’t shout till you see whether it’s a fish —or a log!” and Nick lay back on the soft cushions he had brought on deck for his own comfort, to laugh uproariously at his remark.

Jimmy turned a bit red, but joined in the general hilarity; for he was able to enjoy a joke, even at his own expense.

Some days before, while Jimmy was fishing very industriously, he had given a yell, and was seen to be pulling at a tremendous rate at something to which his hook had evidently become attached.

Of course his rival had shown great interest in his actions, for it looked as if the Irish lad must have hooked a monster of a fish. But when finally Jimmy was able, alone and unaided, to bring the thing to the surface, he discovered, much to his chagrin, that it was only a sunken and waterlogged log. His own frantic labor had given it all the wonderful movements which he believed were the struggles of a captured fish.

“But I say, Jack, darlint,” went on the Irish boy, “before I make another thry, plase tell me this: Suppose now, ye should say me comin’ back, and ridin’ on a manatee that they do be havin’ around here – would ye call that a fish, becase it lives, so they tell me, under the wather all the toime?”

He glared triumphantly at Nick, whose mouth opened in sheer amazement upon hearing the audacious proposition.

“If he don’t take the cake for trying to do the queerest things, now!” the fat boy exclaimed. “Why, it’s just silly to think of him capturing a manatee, and harnessing it, like they say Father Neptune does the dolphins. And Jack, looky here, a manatee can’t be a fish at all, any more than an alligator is.”

“Tell me why?” demanded Jimmy, pugnaciously. “Sure, it’s amphibious it do be, and lives under the water all the toime. I think I’ve got ye there, Nick, me bhoy.”

“But listen,” Nick continued, with conviction in his manner, “haven’t you heard it called a sea cow; and can a cow be a fish, Jack?” with which he turned triumphantly toward the laughing umpire.

“Now, what’s the matter with a cow-whale?” asked Jimmy; “and yet deny that a whale is a fish if ye dare?”

“Jack, settle that, won’t you, before he goes and brings in every old varmint to be found in this region?” pleaded Nick.

But Jack was too wise. He did not want to shut out the possibility of their having the time of their lives, should the energetic and ambitious Jimmy attempt to carry his plans into effect.

“No, I’m not going to bother my head over things that may never happen,” he declared; and with that Jimmy paddled away in the little dinky, grinning broadly at the uneasy Nick.

“Nobody just knows what that fellow will do next,” muttered the fat boy, as he followed his retreating rival with his eyes.

Meanwhile Jack was taking a look around with his glasses.

“Somehow I don’t altogether like this place after we’ve anchored,” he remarked.

“And why?” inquired Herb.

“For one thing,” Jack continued, “it’s more exposed than would be pleasant, if one of those Northers we’ve been hearing so much about should spring up in the night. And I’ve been watching those ibis and cranes flying over for some time now. They all head in one quarter, and from that I reckon there’s a bird roost over yonder.”

Herb pricked up his ears, for he had long since expressed a desire to look in on a real roosting place, where all kinds of birds came together each night.

“I tell you, Jack,” he remarked, eagerly, “let’s change our anchorage, and head that way. It can’t be more than a mile or so further in, d’ye think?”

“Not more than that,” was the reply.

“But we don’t want to get lost among these blooming islands!” said George.

“We could make some sort of mark as we go, to leave a trail, and it would be easy to come out the same way,” was Jack’s sensible suggestion.

“But how about Jimmy; if he came back here, and found us gone, there would be a howl, believe me?” Nick observed.

“It happens by good luck that he’s headed in just the right direction, so I could pick him up on the way,” Jack declared.

“And that would wind up his fishing for today, wouldn’t it?” asked Nick.

“It surely would,” was the reply of the Tramp’s skipper; whereupon the fat boy heaved an audible sigh of gratification.

“Then I vote in favor of doing what Jack says, and having a peep in at the bird colony tonight, if we can,” he remarked.

“We might as well, I suppose,” Josh put in, being somewhat curious himself with regard to what such a roost looked like.

“I say this,” continued Jack, who thought his sudden desire to change their anchorage needed further explanation, “because I understand that these roosts, once so plentiful in Southern Florida, are hard to find nowadays; and we might not have another chance to see the sight.”

“What happens to make ’em scarce?” asked Josh.

“Oh, well! the main thing has been that plume hunters have found them out, and murdered the birds by the thousands. It’s worse when they hunt out the nesting places of the herons, and kill the mother birds, just to get the aigrette, which, it happens, is always at its best about the time the birds have young.”

“Say, I’ve read a lot about that,” mentioned George; “and they tell us that it’s the most dreadful thing to visit one of those nesting places in the swamp after the plume hunters have been at their bloody work. Thousands of young birds are starving in the nests, and the sounds they put up just haunt a fellow forever.”

“None of that in mine,” declared tender-hearted Nick, firmly.

“I guess we all say the same,” Jack added; “but when our intention is only to see what such a place looks like, nobody can blame us for going.”

“I should hope not,” said George. “But do we get up our mudhooks right now, Jack, and mosey out of this nook?”

“That’s the programme, and here goes for my anchor. Whew! it’s stuck fast in the mud, all right. Give me a lift, Josh, after you and Herb have pulled yours up on deck,” and inside of five minutes all of them had washed the mud from the forked anchors, which were then placed conveniently on the forward deck, where they could be dropped overboard with a push.

Then the boats moved off.

This time it was the steady going old Comfort that took the lead – Jack being in no particular hurry and George, as usual, being compelled to tamper with his eccentric motor, before he could get it to going right.

Of course Herb meant to fall back presently, and let the Tramp take the lead; but it was really so seldom that he had a chance to leave the others in the lurch that he and Josh seemed to enjoy running away.

Jack, of course, was on the lookout for the first sign of his teammate. Jimmy was discovered rowing frantically around one end of the big island, as though, upon hearing the popping of exhausts, he had been seized with a sudden fear lest he was in danger of being abandoned there in that terrible region, with not a foot of high land within many miles.

“Hi! howld on there, Jack darlint!” he called out, stopping to wave a hand toward the advancing Tramp.

When alongside he of course demanded to know what it all meant; and upon learning that they were about to go a mile or so further in, Jimmy shook his head in a discouraged manner, saying:

“Arrah! now, as if I couldn’t say through a stone that has a hole in the same. I do be belaving that it’s all the fault of that same sly one, Nick. He’s that fearful of me accomplishin’ me threat, and securin’ a whopper of a fish, that he invents all sorts of rasons for being on the jump. But I’ll get the better of him yet, say if I don’t, Jack, me bhoy!”

He climbed aboard, still grumbling, as though unable to convince himself that this was not all some smart scheme, engineered by his rival, in order to keep him from securing a prize catch.

Herb was still far ahead, and skirting some of the many islands. When he reached a certain point he had marked out for himself, he intended to lie to, and wait for the coming of Jack. George had started on at a fast gait, and doubtless was determined to head off the clumsy Comfort, which fact may have urged Herb to do his best and cut corners sharply. All of which led up to a sequel.

Jack suddenly missed the loud noise that usually accompanied the progress of the broad-beamed boat. As he looked up he discovered that George was heading straight for the Comfort, which hung near the point of an island; also that both Herb and Josh were jumping wildly about, as though greatly excited.

“What do be the matter with the gossoons?” asked Jimmy.

“I don’t know for certain,” replied Jack; “but I’ve got my suspicions. Herb was running in a careless way and just as like as not he managed to snag his boat. If that’s what happened, we’re in for a peck of trouble; for there’s no boat builder within many miles of this place, and we’d be lucky to find even a piece of shore to pull her up on.”

CHAPTER XV.
THE BIRD ROOST

“Sure, it’s just like ye say, Jack!” exclaimed Jimmy, while they were hurrying toward the imperiled boat at full speed. “They do be throwin’ wather out to beat bannigher. Josh has got a bucket and Herb handles a basin. Glory be! but this is a bad job all around!”

Jack was looking beyond the sinking boat.

“I think I can see a little bit of a shore just over there,” he declared, “if only now we can drag the Comfort there before she goes down. You jump aboard with this bucket as soon as we get there. She looks lower in the water already, but one more hand to toss it out may keep her afloat long enough.”

Jimmy was more than eager to lend all the assistance in his power. No sooner had the Tramp run alongside the other boat than he was over the side. Nick, too, had been given the same instructions by George, for he was already laboring with might and main to reduce the amount of water that persisted in entering the big boat through the hole knocked in her bottom by a stump or a submerged log.

“Here, George, lay close alongside, and let’s get fast to her!” Jack called out, realizing that heroic measures were all that would save the imperiled craft now.

Quickly they carried out the plan. Ropes were passed back and forth, so that the Comfort could not really sink, with two such staunch boats buoying her up.

“Now,” continued Jack, when this had been accomplished, “start your engine slowly and we’ll try and beach her over yonder. By the greatest of good luck there’s a small patch of ground in sight, different from these mud banks. Ready, George?”

“Yes,” came the reply.

“Then go ahead!”

Jack held back until he heard the puttering of the Wireless exhaust; then he also started his engine, and the three boats moved slowly and majestically off, the Comfort looking, as Josh expressed it, like a wounded duck sustained by the wings of two companions.

Those aboard the sinking craft had to keep up their work in a frantic manner, if they did not want the boat to go down under them in midstream. Now and then one would make a bad shot, and spill the contents of bucket or basin over the forms of his fellow laborers. But although this might have seemed comical to Nick or Josh or Jimmy at another time, they failed to laugh now, even when struck full in the face by a deluge, and half choked.

Fortunately the other island, where the little patch of rising ground had been discovered by Jack, was close at hand, so that in less than ten minutes they had arrived as near as they dared go.

“Now, I’m going to break loose and get behind,” said Jack. “If I can shove her further in, it’ll be all right, for then she won’t sink any lower. In the morning we can get the block and tackle, and drag her out on skids.”

The workers were encouraged to keep at it furiously for another minute or two, while the Tramp did the shoving part. Knowing just how to go about it, Jack made a success of his part of the business.

“Hurrah!” gasped Nick, when the keel grated on the bottom, and the weary water-casters could rest from their labors.

But there was a lot more to do. The bedding and stores that were aboard had to be rescued, and placed where they might have a chance to dry. It took some little time to get all the stuff out; and then Jack had another idea.

“Perhaps I might shove her up still further, if you fellows went ashore,” he suggested; which they declared to be a good thing.

“After all,” said Jack, when he had actually succeeded in pushing the stranded Comfort a foot or so further in, “what does it matter? We’ll have to make a couple of skids tomorrow, and get a purchase on some of the mangroves yonder; when we can yank her up, no matter where she is. And now I vote that we get ashore, and see about starting supper. I’m as hungry as a bear.”

“Hear! hear!” applauded Nick. “And while I’m about it, I guess I had ought to change my shoes and socks, because I’m wet to the knees; fact is, I’m pretty well soaked all over. Josh kept emptying his old pail over me right along. I guess I swallowed as much of the salt stuff as he got over the side.”

However, by the time night had set in, the boys were all feeling in a better humor. Those who were wet had changed some of their things, and dried the rest beside the fire that was burning cheerily.

“What do you think of it, Jack?” asked Herbert, after the other had made as good an examination of the hole in the bottom of the wrecked motor boat as the circumstances permitted.

“It’s a clean hole, all right,” was the response, “but I don’t see any reason why we can’t patch it up to last until we get to a boat builder’s yard.”

“I’m right glad to hear you say that,” continued the anxious skipper, “because, as you all know, I’m mighty fond of my boat, and would hate like everything to have to abandon the poor old thing in this place. So now I can eat some supper with a touch of appetite.”

At any rate it was pleasant to again stretch their legs, after being confined to the boats for several days. And Josh seemed to have enjoyed cooking a full meal once more for the crowd.

“Now, how about that roost; do you suppose we can find it from here?” George asked, when they were about through.

“If you still feel like going, I think it won’t be a hard thing,” Jack declared.

“Count me out, please,” Nick remarked. “I don’t believe I care enough about it; and, besides, somebody ought to stay here, to keep the fire going, so you can tell where to come back.”

“Huh! he’s clean filled up to the top, that’s what,” remarked Josh; “and when Nick gets that way, you just can’t coax him to budge an inch. But I’m with you, boys.”

It was presently decided that all the others would go in the three tenders. As Nick was given a shotgun, this time fully loaded, and ready for business, he expressed himself as willing to stand guard.

“Anyhow,” he observed, with a wide smile, “I don’t reckon on having any bear for a visitor this time. He couldn’t get on this island, could he, Jack?”

“Not in a thousand years,” was the reassuring reply.

“And you can stay aboard the Tramp until we come back,” George went on to say. “Only don’t let that fire go out a minute, or perhaps you’ll be minus all your chums. A nice time you’d have here, all alone, wouldn’t you? Why, you’d starve to death before long with that appetite of yours, Nick.”

“Shucks! there ain’t much danger of your getting lost while Jack’s along. If it depended on you, George, I’d be scared right bad now,” the fat boy got back at him as the party moved away.

They took the lighted lantern with them, and expected to be very cautious how they managed, not wanting to lose their bearings in the darkness. Jack had made a mental map of the vicinity, and behind that he could find his way back to where the fire showed.

He led off, paddling with one of the oars, for when the little dinky held two these could not be used in the ordinary fashion.

And it was not very long before the others knew that again Jack had shown more than ordinary skill, for they reached an island where, from the sounds, it was evident that the roost of the birds could be found.

Landing, they made their way over the exposed roots of mangroves and cypress trees, gradually drawing near the middle of the island. And here they found what they sought.

Jack made several torches out of some wood he found, and when these were lighted they saw a sight that none of them would soon forget. Thousands of birds were in the trees, many of them herons, ibis, cranes and water turkeys.

For some time the boys looked at the spectacle. Then, tiring of it, as well as objecting to the anything but pleasant odor of the roost, which had long been in use they imagined, they retreated again to the boats, after which the return trip was begun.

Nick had kept the fire going, and little trouble was experienced getting back to where the larger craft awaited them.

The night passed quietly and with the morning they began to make preparations looking to the repairing of the snagged Comfort.

Breakfast over, Jack set out with the ax, and Josh to help him, taking two of the small boats. When he found a couple of cypress trees that he thought would answer the purpose, over on Bird Island, as they had named the place of the roost, he cut them down, and by hard work they towed the intended skids to camp.

Here they were shaped, and placed in position. Then the block and tackle, which had been carried on board the roomy Comfort, were brought into play.

Jack selected the strongest mangrove within line of the boat that was to be hauled out, when fastening the tackle.

“Here you are, now, fellows!” he declared, when all was ready.

“Come along, everybody, and take a grip on the rope,” invited Herb, who was more than anxious to get busy at the job of patching the smashed sheathing of his boat, so they could continue their voyage.

Even Nick was made to lend the power of his muscles to the good work.

“If we could only get the full force of his weight, she’d come with a rush,” Josh had declared, though the fat boy only noticed the slur with a smile and a nod.

“Are you all ready to pull?” asked Jack, who, being master of ceremonies, had the leading position on the line.

“Sure we are; get busy, Jack, darlint!” sang out Jimmy.

“Then altogether now, and away we go! – one, two, three! She moved that time, fellows, I tell you. Once more now, yo-heave-o! That was worth talking about, and she jumped six inches. Again, and put every ounce of muscle into it! Now, then, up with her! Another turn! That’s the way to do it, boys!” And Jack continued to encourage his mates to do their level best until they had dragged the Comfort up the skids to a point where one could crawl underneath her exposed keel.

CHAPTER XVI.
A SCREECHER FROM THE NORTH

All of them awaited the verdict with bated breath. Jack was down on his back under the boat, and carefully examining the fracture made by the snag.

“We can mend it, all right,” he announced, as he finally snaked his way out.

A chorus of approval greeted the announcement.

“How long will it take us, do you think?” asked Herb, who looked relieved to know that, after all, his boat would not be lost.

“Oh! that depends. Perhaps by tonight it may be in apple-pie shape, good enough to hold out till we get to Tampa,” Jack replied.

“Say, looks like we might have the whole bally armada in the hands of the 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’t we, George?”

The skipper of the Wireless grunted in reply; Nick was evidently running things now with regard to that change in motive power, and did not mean to let his mate draw back from his word.

“But first of all, we’ve got to drag the boat up further,” continued Jack. “You see, if I’ve got to work at that broken place for hours, I’m bound to have it more comfortable than now. Lying on my back would knock me 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 a rope; and presently the Comfort was elevated at a point that would allow one to kneel under her keel.

Jack made his preparations, and set to work. With the willing Herb to assist in any way necessary, the others of course were not needed.

Josh amused himself after his favorite manner, studying up some new dishes with which he figured surprising his chums some fine day. George could always find plenty to do pottering with his engine, and trying to cure its faults; for hope dies hard in the young and sanguine heart.

Jimmy and Nick took to fishing, because that employment seemed to engross their every waking thought. When Jimmy started out, the fat boy grew uneasy; and before long he, too, paddled away in one of the small tenders.

“Be sure and don’t go out of sight of the smoke from the fire,” Jack had cautioned them both; and Josh agreed to make use of some pine wood he had picked up, in order to create a black smoke; for Florida pine is full of the resinous sap that burns fiercely, and makes a dense smudge.

Jimmy did not remain long in one place. He seemed very restless, as though he wanted to move about, in order to be on the lookout for a chance to make a grand haul. Nick followed from time to time, meaning to be an eyewitness to any remarkable event that took place.

“He’s hoping to get fast to one of them tarpon, that’s what,” was the conviction of the fat youth, who had discovered that the king fish of the coast was in evidence in those warm waters. “I just wish he would right now,” he went on, chuckling; “I’d give a whole heap to see Jimmy pulled around by one of them high skippers of tarpon. It’d curb that ambition of his, some, I guess now.”

And, singular to say, Nick’s wish was fated to be realized. Jimmy’s mullet 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 else thinking of something else. At any rate, the first thing he knew of the circumstance, and that he was fast to a streak of polished silver, was when the rod he was holding was almost jerked from his hands.

“Whoa, there, ye omadhaun!” shouted Jimmy, immediately bracing his feet so that he might not be pulled from the dinky outright.

Then something sprang from the water not fifty feet away. It was a lordly tarpon, shaking its head, as if hoping to get rid of the barbed hook.

A shriek from Jimmy, echoed by one from Nick, drew the attention of all the others. Even Jack came crawling out from under the motor boat to watch the sport.

It was certainly a great time Jimmy had. That little dinky was dragged around at a furious pace, now darting to the right, and presently whirled about to head toward the left, as some new whim seized upon the captive 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 a hundred 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 you after 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 chance offered, and push the blade of the knife against the taut line. Of course it parted instantly; and he came near capsizing when the little dinky sprang up again, freed from the drag of the big fish.

The tarpon went speeding away toward the gulf, leaping madly out of the water now and then, as though still trying to shake that jewelry from its jaw, or else making sport of disconsolate Jimmy, who sat there casting yearning looks after his escaped prize.

He always maintained that it was a two hundred-and-thirty-five-pound fish, though just why he hit upon that odd figure Nick alone could guess. The jewfish he remembered had been calculated to tip the scales at two hundred and thirty pounds. And it is always the largest fish that gets away.

Well, after that disappointment Jimmy might have been pardoned had he given up for the day; but that was not his way. He kept at it all the blessed afternoon. Several bites rewarded his diligence, but he did not succeed in getting fast to another of the silver kings.

And, greatly to his disappointment, the evening came on with the grinning Nick still holding high record in the contest.

Jack had been quite as successful as he had ventured to hope. George and Herb both declared that he had patched the fracture in the ribs and planks of the Comfort in a truly shipshape manner; and that there could be no question about the repair holding, up to the time they expected reaching Tampa.

“Then we go on tomorrow, do we?” asked Nick, anxious to get Jimmy away from the tarpon temptation; for he feared the lucky Irish lad might sooner or later get hold of some monster, which would put his prize out of the running.

Jack said there was nothing to hinder; and with all of them, save perhaps Jimmy, feeling quite happy and contented, the night came on.

In the morning they were off again, and that day they saw the last of that weird region charted as the Ten Thousand Islands. None of them were sorry; indeed, the very monotony of those mangrove covered mud flats had begun to pall upon every member of the expedition.

When they began to see plumed palmetto trees along the shore, the sight brought forth cheers from several of the more joyous among the voyagers.

And it certainly looked more like life to note the buzzards floating overhead again, with pelicans skimming the waves out on the gulf, in search of their fish dinner. There were also many water turkeys, with their snake-like necks, and black cormorants swimming in the lagoons behind the keys.

Jack, who had read up on the subject, related how the Chinese fishermen make use of such birds as these latter, trained for the purpose, to do their fishing for them: a band being fastened around each creature’s neck, so that it can never swallow its capture, which is, of course taken possession of by the master.

“We want to make sure to get a good anchorage tonight,” Jack remarked to Herb; for the two boats were moving along close together, late that afternoon.

“Why so particular tonight; is it going to be any different from others?” asked the skipper of the Comfort.

“Well, I don’t just like the looks of that sky over yonder” – and Jack pointed to the southwest as he spoke. “We’ve been told that in nearly every case these Northers swoop down after the clouds roll up there, the wind changing to nor’west, and the cold increasing. There’s something in the 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,” declared Herb. “We’re used to winter ice and snow. The thermometer down below zero never bothered me. Why should it down here, when it don’t even touch freezing?”

“Let’s wait and see,” laughed Jack. “After it comes, we’ll know more than we do now. But a harbor we must have. Keep your eye peeled for what looks like a good landing place, Herb.”

They found this presently, though the key was not so heavily wooded as Jack had hoped to find; and he did not think it would wholly break the force of the wind, should a gale come roaring down upon them during the night.

When they crawled under their blankets about ten, the sky was clouded over, but nothing else had come to pass. This condition of affairs puzzled Jack, who did not know what to think of it.

But when he was awakened later on by a dull roaring sound, not unlike the noise of a heavy freight train passing over a long trestle, he sprang up, understanding full well what it meant.

“Wake up, everybody; here comes your first Norther!” he shouted at the top of his young and healthy voice.