Dick in the Everglades

by A. W. Dimock

"That was one on me," said Captain Hull as he took the wheel. "I never came that way before. Wonder who taught you piloting? Mighty few pilots can find their way up this river."

"I came that way," said Dick nonchalantly, "because the water is deeper and there is less grass. The other river is pretty shallow and gets badly choked up at this season."

"That's so," replied the captain, "but I'd like to know who told you."

It took the rest of the day to reach the Everglades. There were narrow streams so crooked that the Irene had to be poled around the sharp corners, broad, shallow rivers, so choked with eel and manatee-grass that every five minutes one of the boys went overboard to clear the clogged propeller, and twisting creeks, through which the water of the Everglades poured so swiftly, that to make headway and avoid snags kept the captain busy at the wheel and the boys fending off from the banks with oars. Sometimes for miles the channel was clear; and while the captain stood at the wheel the rest of the exploring family sat upon the cabin roof and chattered like children about the turtle and terrapin heads that dotted the surface, the leaping young tarpon, grave old alligators, shy otters, and birds that flew from the trees or soared overhead.

The sensitive Tom resented Dick's neglect, and was seen sitting on the after end of the cabin, in front of the wheel, making friends with the captain. Every few minutes Tom put out a paw and rested it on the captain's hand as it rolled the wheel. Then Tom would look up in his face, and finally rubbed his cheek on the captain's hand, and after that became his shadow. That night Tom abandoned his sleeping place beside Dick's bunk and turned in with the captain. Dick was a little annoyed at first, but his conscience told him that he had neglected Tom, and had himself to blame.

When the anchor was dropped, the Irene rested in a solid mass of lily pads, with her bowsprit extending over the border of the Everglades, which stretched out eastward, a great, grassy, overflowed meadow, dotted with keys, to the horizon. A slough of clear water, deep enough to float the little power-boat, zigzagged out into the Glades, and the captain, with Mr. Barstow, Molly and Dick in the craft, followed it for more than a mile. There was water enough over the light grass of the Glades to float the skiff, which Ned poled through a carpet of white pond-lilies, that here and there covered the surface. Many little grassy mounds showed where an alligator had his cave. From one of them an alligator slid out and started across the Glades at full speed. Ned was soon on his trail, poling like mad. He was nearly up to the reptile when it swung around and darted away at right angles to its former course, gaining many yards on its pursuer, for the grass prevented the quick turning of the skiff. Time after time the reptile repeated this dodge, time after time the boy was near enough to have touched the alligator with a pole, but always he dodged, until Ned was too exhausted to follow the creature any farther.

"Oh, I wish you could have caught it," said Molly when Ned returned.

"We'll get one to-morrow sure," said Dick, while Ned's only comment was:

"Don't you get Dick to try fool things, sis."

"Captain," said Dick that evening, "I want an alligator, and if you will help Ned pole in the skiff in the morning until we are near enough to one, I'll either put a rope over his head or go overboard and grab him."