[CHAPTER XIII.]
JIMMY REFUSES TO GIVE UP THE GAME.
They were now fully in the great Gulf of Mexico, and headed for Tampa. Nick had been able to enjoy bear steak to his heart’s content. The others pronounced the meat pretty dry, and poor eating; but when served in the shape of a stew, or hash, it answered the purpose. There was a whole lot, they decided, in knowing that it was the genuine article. Otherwise most of them would have declined to eat it, just as they would tough beef.
“Jack, is it true that there are ten thousand of these mangrove islands?”
“Well, you’ve got me there, Josh,” laughed the leader of the little expedition, as, several days after the adventure with the bear, the three motor boats glided in and out among the queer collection of islets that marks the southwestern coast of Florida.
“But that’s what they’re called on the map,” insisted Josh.
“Oh! you don’t suppose for a minute anybody in the wide world could ever count these mud flats, covered with the everlasting mangrove, do you?” Jack went on. “A few hundred, or even thousand more or less, wouldn’t matter.”
“For my part,” spoke up George, “there are just nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine too many. I could be satisfied with one island. Why, for two days now, we’ve been going in and out of these bally old bunches of mangroves, dodging storms, and fighting skeeters to beat the band.”
“You’d better be thankful,” declared Herb, “that after you led us in a trap, Jack took us out again, George. Only for him we might be lost right now, miles deep in these everlasting tangles. You notice that now we never get far away from a sight of the big water, don’t you? It seems a dangerous business for a small boat cruiser to wander into this nest down here. He’s apt to lose his head, and never come out again.”
“Do we pull up soon, Jack?” asked Jimmy, beseechingly.