"Every one of these coral keys is built on crawfish and Snake Creek here is full of 'em."
"Then after you've shown us a lot of crawfish and we've caught them we'll have breakfast."
Captain Hull lashed two tarpon hooks to broomsticks, and getting in the skiff with Molly and the two boys, poled to the nearest key. Beneath the water the steep coral banks of the key were filled with deep holes from out of many of which long feelers projected. Pushing a hook into one of these holes the captain gave it a quick turn and brought out a squirming, squeaking imitation of a young lobster. Then he handed the hooks to the boys. Ned got overboard and began to haul out crawfish at the rate of two a minute. Dick was less successful, for Molly had promptly commandeered his hook and left him nothing to do but watch her when she tried to hook the shell-fish. They didn't get many fish and when Ned came along with a bunch of crawfish which he dropped in the skiff, he said:
"Here, you kids, you aren't earning your salt. Just take my hook, Dick, and catch some crawfish. I'll help Molly do whatever she's doing."
On the way to the Irene Molly called out:
"Oh, the beautiful, beautiful, bubble!"
"Don't touch it," shouted Dick.
But he was too late, for Molly had picked up a Portuguese man-o'-war and sat wringing her hands with the pain of its poison. For, while nothing in nature is more exquisite, few things are more virulent than this animated, opalescent, iridescent bubble with its long, delicate, purplish tentacles.
Molly's hand pained her all that day and the next, while Dick's commiseration was boundless, but was kept in restraint by Ned, who frequently assured both of them that, although a surgical case, it was probably not quite hopeless. A run of two hours in directions that varied, but averaged northwest, brought the Irene to Madeira Hammock, where the anchor was dropped.