She laughed heartily, her mirth and the resting of her gaze on Tom making Dixon secretly more furious than ever.
“Let me have the wheel, now,” volunteered Joe, moving into place. “You’ll want your eyes on the lookout for game now.”
“Slow down the speed a whole lot,” directed Halstead. “If we’re going to explore this stretch of water we don’t want to travel too fast.”
“That’s right,” nodded Mr. Tremaine. “And, Dawson, if we sight an alligator, we don’t want more than to creep over the water. ’Gators are wary of fast-moving boats, and they’re easily scared below the surface by voices.”
“I see something,” whispered Ida Silsbee, some ten minutes later, pointing over the water.
A dark object floated on the water, some four hundred yards distant. It was plain, too, that the object was moving.
“’Gator snout,” whispered Tremaine, enthusiastically. “Jove, I didn’t think we’d sight anything out on the lake, like this!”
“Shall I steer for it, sir?” asked Joe, in an undertone.
“Yes, but let the boat just barely crawl.”