Dick in the Everglades

by A. W. Dimock

"Are you hurt?" said Dick, as soon as he got enough breath to speak.

"Course not! Manatees are harmless. Told you so before. But, say, Dicky boy, why didn't you get there a minute sooner and grab a flipper? He'd be our manatee now, if you had."

"More likely he'd have had us, Neddy. You didn't see what he did to me with just one slap of his tail."

The boys collected their paddles and swam with the canoe to shoal water, where they lifted it, poured out the water and got aboard.

On their next hunt the boys put a number of chunks of wood in the canoe and when a manatee was started they paddled quietly and tried not to frighten the creature by going too near it at first. Then Ned took in his paddle and armed himself with chunks of wood, while Dick paddled toward the quarry. When the sea-cow lifted its nose out of water, for air, it was hit or splashed by a chunk. The frightened animal dove quickly, but came up again almost immediately for the air it had to have. Another chunk hit its nose, but, confused and half strangled, the manatee hardly moved until Dick had driven the canoe beside it and Ned had landed on its back. Ned failed to grasp the creature's nose with his right hand, but caught the manatee by the flipper with his left and clung to it, although tossed off of the back of the animal. But Dick was in the river a second after his companion and was clutching the right flipper of the manatee with one hand and reaching for its nose with the other. The sea-cow threw its tail high in the air, then lashing it downward, plunged, head-foremost, deep in the water. The boys went under but hung on to the flippers, and Dick got a grip on the creature's nose. Both of the boys were expert swimmers and divers, and were prepared to stay under water as much as a minute rather than release their quarry, but within half that time the animal wanted to breathe and rose to the surface. After that the boys had little trouble, and the manatee, which was a small one, became almost tame. They swam with it to a shoal place where, standing in water a little more than waist deep, they petted and soothed their prize until it seemed quite friendly. Suddenly, Dick exclaimed:

"What's become of the canoe? I capsized it when I went overboard and haven't thought of it since."

"I'd forgotten it, too. It must have floated with the tide a good ways down the river by this time. I'll swim down stream and hunt it up, if you will stay here and take care of the manatee, unless you think we had better turn it loose and both go for the canoe. We will be in a bad fix if we lose it. If you can take care of the manatee I can find the canoe." And Ned swam away down the river.

Helped by the current he had swum a mile when the stream spread out into a bay that was a mile long and nearly as wide, which was filled with eel-grass and covered with moss. He soon found one of the paddles, but in getting it became entangled in the long grass, until he was in great danger of drowning. By lying lengthways on the paddle, keeping his legs extended and swimming with long over-hand strokes, he got out of the tangle. He had been pretty well frightened, and swimming to the shore, climbed up on some mangrove roots. After looking for a long time, Ned made out the bow of the submerged little canoe sticking out from a bunch of moss in the eel-grass. It was about an eighth of a mile away and he started for it, swimming along the edge of the field of grass, but sheering away constantly, as the treacherous current seemed striving to sweep him within the clinging clutch of the swaying blades of the rope-like grass.

When Ned got opposite the canoe he found that it was forty feet within the field of grass. He dreaded to put himself again within that deadly grasp, but the thought of Dick waiting for him, alone with that strange beast, nerved him to make the plunge. Again he lay on the paddle, keeping his feet quiet and making his way slowly with his hands toward the canoe. At last he reached the craft, but could do nothing with it. He could not pull it and it refused to be pushed. He could touch the bottom with his feet, but it was of soft mud and the thick grass tangled him worse than ever. He got into the canoe and lay on his back under the thwarts, with only part of his head out of water. By rocking the canoe, with a short, jerky motion, he got rid of some of the water and finished the bailing with his hat. It was not easy to paddle out through the grass and moss to the open water, but Ned accomplished it. Standing up in the canoe, he searched for the other paddle and soon saw and recovered it. He had now more than a mile to paddle against a tide that was still strong, and he saw, to his alarm, that it was nearly sunset. It was about midday when they tackled the manatee, and Dick must have been alone with it for a good many hours. Ned was so anxious that he paddled furiously and was glad enough when he found Dick standing in water shoulder deep, hanging on to the flipper of the manatee, and occasionally patting its nose with his hand.