Although they ate supper ashore, it was considered wise to sleep aboard. The only one who grumbled at this decision was poor Nick. He had a hard lot to follow, for the narrow speed boat offered but poor sleeping accommodations for two, and many a time the stout youth was wont to bemoan his sad fate as he rubbed his aching sides in the morning.
They left the camp at Mosquito Inlet an hour after sunrise on the following morning, and started down past New Smyrna, heading for the Haulover Canal that connects Mosquito Lagoon with the famous Indian River.
Under Jack’s wise guidance they found little trouble in navigating the broad or narrow waters of the various channels. As steamboats passed through daily in the season, there were plenty of “targets” pointing out the deeper waters; and where the lagoon happened to be very shallow, canals had been dredged.
Taking it leisurely, they arrived at Titusville about two in the afternoon. Here one of the boys went for the mail, and also to pick up the few things they had on the list of “necessities wanted.”
As the western shore of the river is pretty thickly settled now, it was decided to cross over, and skirt along Merritt’s Island until near its foot, where they could probably find a spot free from civilization’s touch; and this was what appealed to the motor boat boys at all times—wild solitude.
Long before evening overtook them they had come to a halt, and anchored the boats close to the eastern shore, just beyond a point that would protect them from any wild norther that might chance to spring up. All of them had heard so much about these dreaded storms that swoop down upon the pilgrims in small boats when navigating Florida waters that they were always on the watch for their coming.
“I say, Jack!” exclaimed George, as they landed in their small dinkies, intending to again have a fire, and be congenial; “look out yonder on the river, and tell me if that ain’t the same strange launch we saw twice before above.”
“You’re right, George, that’s what,” replied the other, as he whirled around, to shade his eyes with one hand in order to see the better; for the sun was just going down beyond the wide river, Rockledge way, and shone fiercely.
“If I had the glasses now, I’d like to see who they are,” George went on. “Seems to me the parties on that boat act queer. They dodge out of sight whenever they think we’re watching. I don’t just like the way they act, Jack, do you?”
“Oh! I don’t know,” replied the other. “That may be only imagination with you, George. The only thing that strikes me as queer is that the boat seems to be as near a ringer for the Tramp as anything I ever struck.”