A moment later, with a graceful drop and upward curve, it struck the sandy beach and ran forward lightly until the brakes were applied and it was brought to a standstill.
CHAPTER XII
FIGHTING A DEVIL-FISH
Many questions were asked our friends by the onlookers, but they gave them evasive replies, being careful to let out no hint as to their real identity and connection with the approaching race around the world. Two husky negroes were engaged to watch the airplane until relieved from such responsibility, and Mr. Giddings then led the boys to the home of a Mr. Choate, a close and trusted friend and superintendent of the big Miami Aquarium, one of the most noted repositories for live fish in the country.
Mr. Choate was astonished beyond measure when he learned that his old friend had come in the big airplane which he and his wife had noticed over the town a short time before, and was still further surprised when Mr. Giddings bound him to secrecy and told him that the young men with him constituted the crew of one of the two airplanes which was so soon to circle the earth by way of the equator. He shook hands warmly with them, and with his charming wife made them all very much at home.
Than Mr. Choate, no man in the South knew more about the multitudinous varieties of fish inhabiting Florida waters. He was not only an authority on them, but he was also recognized as a most skillful catcher of fish. For over an hour that evening he told them absorbing stories of the habits of Gulf Stream denizens, and recited stirring tales of battles with some of the biggest of them. And when he finally announced, "To-morrow I shall see that you are given a taste of our wonderful fish-life by joining me in a fishing expedition," they could hardly get to sleep for thinking of the fine prospect.
After breakfast the next morning, their host conducted them down to the waterside and into the beautiful white concrete buildings of the aquarium, and here he proceeded to show them, swimming about in great glass tanks, the most wonderful collection of fish they had ever seen outside of the big New York aquarium itself.
"You probably never realized before," said Mr. Choate, "that in the warm waters of the Gulf Stream, between Miami and Key West, more than 600 varieties of fish are to be found. They vary in size all the way from the tiny sea-horse, the size of a baby's little finger, to the great tarpon and killer-whale, the latter a vicious creature weighing many tons and large enough to swallow a good-sized boy without scraping the buttons off his jacket."
"It must be a lot of sport to catch some of these fairly big fish," remarked John Ross.
"Well, this afternoon I shall take you fellows where you can all have a chance at them," said Mr. Choate with a smile. "It would be interesting to have a motion-picture record of the thoughts which flash through the mind of the average inland fisherman the first time he feels the tiger-like swoop of a five-foot barrancuda, the fierce yank of a hundred-pound amber-jack, or the sullen surge of a big grouper on his line; for even when armed with the heaviest rod, and a line as big around as a silver dollar, he is pretty sure to wish, at least subconsciously, that his tackle might be twice as formidable and his arm twice as strong. Just imagine yourself, for instance, out in the clear blue waters of the Gulf Stream, looking overboard at your baited hook thirty feet below, which you can see as plainly as if it were in no water at all. Then up comes a great jewfish, which is just as likely to weigh five hundred pounds as fifty, and to be as large as a good-sized Shetland pony, and he makes a lunge for your bait, and— Well, you can go right on imagining the rest, too."