It was very disagreeable to me, and I know it was even more so to
Rectus, to stand here and have those strangers watch us fishing. If we
had not been barefooted and bare-legged, we should not have minded it so
much. As for the old Minorcan, I don't suppose he cared at all. I began
to think it was time to stop.

"As the tide's getting lower and lower," I said to Menendez, "I suppose
our chances are getting less and less."

"Yes," said he; "I reckon we'd better shut up shop before long."

"Oh!" cried out the girl, "just look at that fish! Father! Father! Just
look at it. Did any of you catch it? I didn't see it till this minute. I
thought you hadn't caught any. If I only had a fishing-line now, I would
like to catch just one fish. Oh, father! why didn't you bring a
fishing-line?"

"I didn't think of it, my dear," said he. "Indeed, I didn't know there
were any fish here."

Old Menendez turned around and grinned at this, and I thought there was
a good chance to stop fishing; so I offered to let the girl try my line
for a while, if she wanted to.

It was certain enough that she wanted to, for she was going to run right
into the water to get it. But I came out, and as her father said she
might fish if she didn't have to walk into the water, old Menendez took
a spare piece of line from his pocket and tied it on to the end of mine,
and he put on some fresh bait and gave it a tremendous send out into the
surf. Then he put the other end around the girl and tied it. I suppose
he thought that it didn't matter if a girl should be lost, but he may
have considered that her father was there to seize her if she got jerked
in.

She took hold of the line and stood on the edge of the dry sand, ready
to pull in the biggest kind of a fish that might come along. I put on my
shoes and stockings, and Rectus his; he'd had enough glory for one day.
Old Menendez wound up his line, too, but that girl saw nothing of all
this. She just kept her eyes and her whole mind centred on her line. At
first, she talked right straight ahead, asking what she should do when
it bit; how big we thought it would be; why we didn't have a cork, and
fifty other things, but all without turning her head to the right or the
left. Then said her father:

"My dear, you mustn't talk; you will frighten the fish. When persons
fish, they always keep perfectly quiet. You never heard me talking while
I was fishing. I fish a good deal when I am at home," said he, turning
to us, "and I always remain perfectly quiet."

Menendez laughed a little at this, and said that he didn't believe the
fish out there in the surf would mind a little quiet chat; but the
gentleman said that he had always found it best to be just as still as
possible. The girl now shut her mouth tight, and held herself more
ready, if possible, than ever, and I believe that if she had got a bite
she would have jerked the fish's head off. We all stood around her, and
her father watched her as earnestly as if she was about to graduate at a
normal school.

We stood and waited and waited, and she didn't move, and neither did the
line. Menendez now said he thought she might as well give it up. The
tide was too low, and it was pretty near dinner-time, and, besides this,
there was a shower coming on.

"Oh, no!" said she; "not just yet. I feel sure I'll get a bite in a
minute or two now. Just wait a little longer."

And so it went on, every few minutes, until we had waited about half an
hour, and then Menendez said he must go, but if the gentleman wanted to
buy the line, and stay there until the tide came in again, he'd sell it
to him. At this, the girl's father told her that she must stop, and so
she very dolefully let Menendez untie the line.

"It's too bad!" she said, almost with tears in her eyes. "If they had
only waited a few minutes longer!" And then she ran up to Rectus and me,
and said:

"When are you coming out here again? Do you think you will come
to-morrow, or next day?"

"I don't know," said I. "We haven't settled our plans for to-morrow."

"Oh, father! father!" she cried, "perhaps they will come out here
to-morrow, and you must get me a fishing-line, and we will come and fish
all day."

We didn't stay to hear what her father said, but posted off to our boat,
for we were all beginning to feel pretty hungry. We took Rectus's fish
along, to give to our landlady. The gentleman and the girl came close
after us, as if they were afraid to be left alone on the island. Their
boat was hauled up near ours, and we set off at pretty much the same
time.

We went ahead a little, and Menendez turned around and called out to the
gentleman that he'd better follow us, for there were some bad shoals in
this part of the harbor, and the tide was pretty low.

"All right, my hearty!" called out the gentleman. "This isn't the first
time I've sailed in this harbor. I guess I know where the shoals are,"
and just at that minute he ran his boat hard and fast on one of them.

He jumped up, and took an oar and pushed and pushed: but it was of no
good--he was stuck fast. By this time we had left him pretty far behind;
but we all had been watching, and Rectus asked if we couldn't go back
and help him.

"Well, I s'pose so," said Menendez; "but it's a shame to keep three
decent people out of their dinner for the sake of a man like that, who
hasn't got sense enough to take good advice when it's give to him."

"We'd better go," said I, and Menendez, in no good humor, put his boat
about. We found the other boat aground, in the very worst way. The old
Minorcan said that he could see that sand-bar through the water, and
that they might as well have run up on dry land. Better, for that
matter, because then we could have pushed her off.

"There aint nuthin' to be done," he said, after we had worked at the
thing for a while, "but to jist wait here till the tide turns. It's
pretty near dead low now, an' you'll float off in an hour or two."

This was cold comfort for the gentleman, especially as it was beginning
to rain; but he didn't seem a bit cast down. He laughed, and said:

"Well, I suppose it can't be helped: but I am used to being out in all
weathers. I can wait, just as well as not. But I don't want my daughter
here to get wet, and she has no umbrella. Would you mind taking her on
your boat? When you get to the town, she can run up to our hotel by
herself. She knows the way."

Of course we had no objection to this, and the girl was helped aboard.
Then we sailed off, and the gentleman waved his hat to us. If I had been
in his place, I don't think I should have felt much like waving my hat.

[Illustration: "THE GENTLEMAN WAVED HIS HAT TO US."]

Menendez now said that he had an oil-skin coat stowed away forward, and
I got it and put it around the girl. She snuggled herself up in it as
comfortably as she could, and began to talk.

"The way of it was this," she said. "Father, he said we'd go out
sailing, and mother and I went with him, and when we got down to the
wharf, there were a lot of boats, but they all had men to them, and so
father, he said he wanted to sail the boat himself, and mother, she said
that if he did she wouldn't go; but he said pooh! he could do it as well
as anybody, and wasn't going to have any man. So he got a boat without a
man, and mother, she didn't want me to go; but I went, and he stuck fast
coming back, because he never will listen to anything anybody tells him,
as mother and I found out long ago. And here we are, almost at the
wharf! I didn't think we were anywhere near it."

"Well, you see, sis, sich a steady gale o' talkin', right behind the
sail, is bound to hurry the boat along. And now, s'pose you tell us your
name," said Menendez.

"My name's Cornelia; but father, he calls me Corny, which mother hates
to hear the very sound of," said she; "and the rest of it is Mary
Chipperton. Father, he came down here because he had a weak lung, and
I'm sure I don't see what good it's going to do him to sit out there in
the rain. We'll take a man next time. And father and I'll be sure to be
here early to-morrow to go out fishing with you. Good-bye!"

And with this, having mounted the steps to the pier, off ran Miss
Corny.

"I wouldn't like to be the ole man o' that family," said Mr. Menendez.

That night, after we had gone to bed, Rectus began to talk. We generally
went to sleep in pretty short order; but the moon did not shine in our
windows now until quite late, and so we noticed for the first time the
curious way in which the light-house--which stood almost opposite on
Anastasia Island--brightened up the room, every minute or two. It is a
revolving light, and when the light got on the landward side it gave us
a flash, which produced a very queer effect on the furniture, and on
Rectus's broad hat, which hung on the wall right opposite the window. It
seemed exactly as if this hat was a sort of portable sun of a very mild
power, which warmed up, every now and then, and lighted the room.

But Rectus did not talk long about this.

"I think," said he, "that we have had about enough of St. Augustine.
There are too many Indians and girls here."

"And sea-beans, too, perhaps," said I. "But I don't think there's any
reason for going so soon. I'm going to settle those Indians, and you've
only seen one girl, and perhaps we'll never see her again."

"Don't you believe that," said Rectus, very solemnly, and he turned
over, either to ponder on the matter, or to go to sleep. His remarks
made me imagine that perhaps he was one of those fellows who soon get
tired of a place and want to be moving on. But that wasn't my way, and I
didn't intend to let him hurry me. I think the Indians worried him a
good deal. He was afraid they would keep on troubling us. But, as I had
said, I had made up my mind to settle the Indians. As for Corny, I know
he hated her. I don't believe he spoke a word to her all the time we
were with her.

The next morning, we talked over the Indian question, and then went down
to the fort. We hadn't been there for three or four days, but now we had
decided not to stand nagging by a couple of red-skinned savages, but to
go and see the captain and tell him all about it. All except the
proclamation--Rectus wouldn't agree to have that brought in at all. Mr.
Cholott had introduced us to the captain, and he was a first-rate
fellow, and when we told him how we had stormed his old fort, he laughed
and said he wondered we didn't break our necks, and that the next time
we did it he'd put us in the guard-house, sure.

"That would be cheaper for you than buying so many beans," he said.

As to the two Indians, he told us he would see to it that they let us
alone. He didn't think that Maiden's Heart would ever harm us, for he
was more of a blower than anything else; but he said that Crowded Owl
was really one of the worst-tempered Indians in the fort, and he advised
us to have nothing more to do with him, in any way.

All of this was very good of the captain, and we were very glad we had
gone to see him.

"I tell you what it is," said Rectus, as we were coming away, "I don't
believe that any of these Indians are as innocent as they try to make
out. Did you ever see such a rascally set of faces?"

Somehow or other, I seldom felt sorry when Rectus changed his mind. I
thought, indeed, that he ought to change it as much as he could. And
yet, as I have said, he was a thoroughly good fellow. The trouble with
him was that he wasn't used to making up his mind about things, and
didn't make a very good beginning at it.

The next day, we set out to explore Anastasia Island, right opposite the
town. It is a big island, but we took our lunch and determined to do
what we could. We hired a boat and rowed over to the mouth of a creek in
the island. We went up this creek quite a long way, and landed at a
little pier, where we made the boat fast. The man who owned the boat
told us just how to go. We first made a flying call at the coquina
quarries, where they dig the curious stuff of which the town is built.
This is formed of small shells, all conglomerated into one solid mass
that becomes as hard as stone after it is exposed to the air. It must
have taken thousands of years for so many little shell-fish to pile
themselves up into a quarrying-ground. We now went over to the
light-house, and climbed to the top of it, where we had a view that made
Rectus feel even better than he felt in the cemetery at Savannah.

When we came down, we started for the beach and stopped a little while
at the old Spanish light-house, which looked more like a cracker-bakery
than anything else, but I suppose it was good enough for all the ships
the Spaniards had to light up. We would have cared more for the old
light-house if it had not had an inscription on it that said it had been
destroyed, and rebuilt by some American. After that, we considered it
merely in the light of a chromo.

We had a good time on the island, and stayed nearly all day. Toward the
end of the afternoon, we started back for the creek and our boat. We had
a long walk, for we had been exploring the island pretty well, and when,
at last, we reached the creek, we saw that our boat was gone!

This was astounding. We could not make out how the thing could have
happened. The boatman, from whom we had hired it, had said that it would
be perfectly safe for us to leave the boat at the landing if we tied her
up well and hid the oars. I had tied her up very well and we had hidden
the oars so carefully, under some bushes, that we found them there when
we went to look for them.

"Could the old thing have floated off of itself?" said Rectus.

"That couldn't have happened," I said. "I tied her hard and fast."

"But how could any one have taken her away without oars?" asked Rectus.

"Rectus," said I, "don't let us have any more riddles. Some one may have
cut a pole and poled her away, up or down the creek, or----"

"I'll tell you," interrupted Rectus. "Crowded Owl!"

I didn't feel much like laughing, but I did laugh a little.

"Yes," I said. "He probably swam over with a pair of oars on purpose to
steal our boat. But, whether he did it or not, it's very certain that
somebody has taken the boat, and there isn't any way, that I see, of
getting off this place to-night. There'll be nobody going over so late
in the afternoon--except, to be sure, those men we saw at the other end
of the island with a flat-boat."

"But that's away over at the upper end of the island," said Rectus.

"That's not so very far," said I. "I wonder if they have gone back yet?
If one of us could run over there and ask them to send a boatman from
the town after us, we might get back by supper-time."

"Why not both of us?" asked Rectus.

"One of us should stay here to see if our boat does come back. It must
have been some one from the island who took it, because any one from the
mainland would have brought his own boat."

"Very well," said Rectus. "Let's toss up to see who goes. The winner
stays."

I pitched up a cent.

"Heads," said Rectus.

"Tails," said I.

Tails it was, and Rectus started off like a good fellow.

I sat down and waited. I waited a long, long time, and then I got up and
walked up and down. In about an hour I began to get anxious. It was more
than time for Rectus to return. The walk to the end of the island and
back was not much over a mile--at least, I supposed it was not. Could
anything have happened to the boy? It was not yet sunset, and I couldn't
imagine what there was to happen.

After waiting about half an hour longer, I heard a distant sound of
oars. I ran to the landing and looked down the creek. A boat with a man
in it was approaching. When it came nearer, I saw plainly that it was
our boat. When it had almost reached the landing, the man turned around,
and I was very much surprised, indeed, to see that he was Mr.
Chipperton.




CHAPTER VII.

MR. CHIPPERTON.


I took hold of the boat, and pulled the bow up on the beach. Mr.
Chipperton looked around at me.

"Why, how do you do?" said he.

[Illustration: "WHY, HOW DO YOU DO?"]

For an instant I could not answer him, I was so angry, and then I said:

"What did you----? How did you come to take our boat away?"

"Your boat!" he exclaimed. "Is this your boat? I didn't know that. But
where is my boat? Did you see a sail-boat leave here? It is very
strange--remarkably strange! I don't know what to make of it."

"I know nothing about a sail-boat," said I. "If we had seen one leave
here, we should have gone home in her. Why did you take our boat?"

Mr. Chipperton had now landed.

"I came over here," he said, "with my wife and daughter. We were in a
sail-boat, with a man to manage it. My wife would not come otherwise. We
came to see the light-house, but I do not care for light-houses,--I have
seen a great many of them. I am passionately fond of the water. Seeing a
small boat here which no one was using, I let the man conduct my wife
and Corny--my daughter--up to the light-house, while I took a little
row. I know the man. He is very trustworthy. He would let no harm come
to them. There was a pair of oars in the sail-boat, and I took them, and
rowed down the creek, and then went along the river, below the town;
and, I assure you, sir, I went a great deal farther than I intended, for
the tide was with me. But it wasn't with me coming back, of course, and
I had a very hard time of it. I thought I never should get back. This
boat of yours, sir, seems to be an uncommonly hard boat to row."

"Against a strong tide, I suppose it is," said I; "but I wish you hadn't
taken it. Here I have been waiting ever so long, and my friend----"

"Oh! I'm sorry, too," interrupted Mr. Chipperton, who had been looking
about, as if he expected to see his sail-boat somewhere under the trees.
"I can't imagine what could have become of my boat, my wife, and my
child. If I had staid here, they could not have sailed away without my
knowing it. It would even have been better to go with them, although, as
I said before, I don't care for light-houses."

"Well," said I, not quite as civilly as I generally speak to people
older than myself, "your boat has gone, that is plain enough. I suppose,
when your family came from the light-house, they thought you had gone
home, and so went themselves."

"That's very likely," said he,--"very likely indeed. Or, it may be that
Corny wouldn't wait. She is not good at waiting. She persuaded her
mother to sail away, no doubt. But now I suppose you will take me home
in your boat, and the sooner we get off the better, for it is growing
late."

"You needn't be in a hurry," said I, "for I am not going off until my
friend comes back. You gave him a good long walk to the other end of the
island."

"Indeed!" said Mr. Chipperton. "How was that?"

Then I told him all about it.

"Do you think that the flat-boat is likely to be there yet?" he asked.

"It's gone, long ago," said I; "and I'm afraid Rectus has lost his way,
either going there or coming back."

I said this as much to myself as to my companion, for I had walked back
a little to look up the path. I could not see far, for it was growing
dark. I was terribly worried about Rectus, and would have gone to look
for him, but I was afraid that if I left Mr. Chipperton he would go off
with the boat.

Directly Mr. Chipperton set up a yell.

"Hi! hi! hi!" he cried.

I ran down to the pier, and saw a row-boat approaching.

"Hi!" cried Mr. Chipperton. "Come this way! Come here! Boat ahoy!"

"We're coming!" shouted a man from the boat. "Ye needn't holler for us."

And in a few more strokes the boat touched land. There were two men in
it.

"Did you come for me?" cried Mr. Chipperton.

"No," said the man who had spoken. "We came for this other party, but I
reckon you can come along."

"For me?" said I. "Who sent you?"

"Your pardner," said the man. "He came over in a flat-boat, and he said
you was stuck here, for somebody had stole your boat, and so he sent us
for you."

"And he's over there, is he?" said I.

"Yes, he's all right, eatin' his supper, I reckon. But isn't this here
your boat?"

"Yes, it is," I said, "and I'm going home in it. You can take the other
man."

And, without saying another word, I picked up my oars, which I had
brought from the bushes, jumped into my boat, and pushed off.

"I reckon you're a little riled, aint ye?" said the man; but I made him
no answer, and left him to explain to Mr. Chipperton his remark about
stealing the boat. They set off soon after me, and we had a race down
the creek. I _was_ "a little riled," and I pulled so hard that the other
boat did not catch up to me until we got out into the river. Then it
passed me, but it didn't get to town much before I did.

The first person I met on the pier was Rectus. He had had his supper,
and had come down to watch for me. I was so angry that I would not speak
to him. He kept by my side, though, as I walked up to the house,
excusing himself for going off and leaving me.

"You see, it wasn't any use for me to take that long walk back there to
the creek. I told the men of the fix we were in, and they said they'd
send somebody for us, but they thought I'd better come along with them,
as I was there."

I had a great mind to say something here, but I didn't.

"It wouldn't have done you any good for me to come back through the
woods in the dark. The boat wouldn't get over to you any faster. You
see, if there'd been any good at all in it, I would have come back--but
there wasn't."

All this might have been very true, but I remembered how I had sat and
walked and thought and worried about Rectus, and his explanation did me
no good.

When I reached the house, I found that our landlady, who was one of the
very best women in all Florida, had saved me a splendid supper--hot and
smoking. I was hungry enough, and I enjoyed this meal until there didn't
seem to be a thing left. I felt in a better humor then, and I hunted up
Rectus, and we talked along as if nothing had happened. It wasn't easy
to keep mad with Rectus, because he didn't get mad himself. And,
besides, he had a good deal of reason on his side.

It was a lovely evening, and pretty nearly all the people of the town
were out-of-doors. Rectus and I took a walk around the "Plaza,"--a
public square planted thick with live-oak and pride-of-India trees, and
with a monument in the centre with a Spanish inscription on it, stating
how the king of Spain once gave a very satisfactory charter to the town.
Rectus and I agreed, however, that we would rather have a pride-of-India
tree than a charter, as far as we were concerned. These trees have on
them long bunches of blossoms, which smell deliciously.

"Now, then," said I, "I think it's about time for us to be moving along.
I'm beginning to feel about that Corny family as you do."

"Oh, I only objected to the girl," said Rectus, in an off-hand way.

"Well, I object to the father," said I. "I think we've had enough,
anyway, of fathers and daughters. I hope the next couple we fall in with
will be a mother and a son."

"What's the next place on the bill?" asked Rectus.

"Well," said I, "we ought to take a trip up the Oclawaha River. That's
one of the things to do. It will take us two or three days, and we can
leave our baggage here and come back again. Then, if we want to stay, we
can, and if we don't, we needn't."

"All right," said Rectus. "Let's be off to-morrow."

The next morning, I went to buy the Oclawaha tickets, while Rectus staid
home to pack up our handbags, and, I believe, to sew some buttons on his
clothes. He could sew buttons on so strongly that they would never come
off again without bringing the piece out with them.

The ticket-office was in a small store, where you could get any kind of
alligator or sea-bean combination that the mind could dream of. We had
been in there before to look at the things. I found I was in luck, for
the storekeeper told me that it was not often that people could get
berths on the little Oclawaha steam-boats without engaging them some
days ahead; but he had a couple of state-rooms left, for the boat that
left Pilatka the next day. I took one room as quick as lightning, and I
had just paid for the tickets when Mr. Chipperton and Corny walked in.

"How d' ye do?" said he, as cheerfully as if he had never gone off with
another fellow's boat. "Buying tickets for the Oclawaha?"

I had to say yes, and then he wanted to know when we were going. I
wasn't very quick to answer; but the storekeeper said:

"He's just taken the last room but one in the boat that leaves Pilatka
to-morrow morning."

"And when do you leave here to catch that boat?" said Mr. Chipperton.

"This afternoon,--and stay all night at Pilatka."

"Oh, father! father!" cried Corny, who had been standing with her eyes
and ears wide open, all this time, "let's go! let's go!"

"I believe I will," said Mr. Chipperton,--"I believe I will. You say you
have one more room. All right. I'll take it. This will be very pleasant,
indeed," said he, turning to me. "It will be quite a party. It's ever so
much better to go to such places in a party. We've been thinking of
going for some time, and I'm so glad I happened in here now. Good-bye.
We'll see you this afternoon at the dГ©pГґt."

I didn't say anything about being particularly glad, but just as I left
the door Corny ran out after me.

"Do you think it would be any good to take a fishing-line?" she cried.

"Guess you'd better," I shouted back, and then I ran home, laughing.

"Here are the tickets!" I cried out to Rectus, "and we've got to be at
the station by four o'clock this afternoon. There's no backing out now."

"Who wants to back out?" said Rectus, looking up from his trunk, into
which he had been diving.

"Can't say," I answered. "But I know one person who wont back out."

"Who's that?"

"Corny," said I.

Rectus stood up.

"Cor----!" he exclaimed.

"Ny," said I, "and father and mother. They took the only room
left,--engaged it while I was there."

"Can't we sell our tickets?" asked Rectus.

"Don't know," said I. "But what's the good? Who's going to be afraid of
a girl,--or a whole family, for that matter? We're in for it now."

Rectus didn't say anything, but his expression saddened.

We had studied out this trip the night before, and knew just what we had
to do. We first went from St. Augustine, on the sea-coast, to Tocoi, on
the St. John's River, by a railroad fifteen miles long. Then we took a
steam-boat up the St. John's to Pilatka, and the next morning left for
the Oclawaha, which runs into the St. John's about twenty-five miles
above, on the other side of the river.

We found the Corny family at the station, all right, and Corny
immediately informed me that she had a fishing-line, but didn't bring a
pole, because her father said he could cut her one, if it was needed. He
didn't know whether it was "throw-out" fishing or not, on that river.

There used to be a wooden railroad here, and the cars were pulled by
mules. It was probably more fun to travel that way, but it took longer.
Now they have steel rails and everything that a regular grown-up
railroad has. We knew the engineer, for Mr. Cholott had introduced us to
him one day, on the club-house wharf. He was a first-rate fellow, and
let us ride on the engine. I didn't believe, at first, that Rectus would
do this; but there was only one passenger car, and after the Corny
family got into that, he didn't hesitate a minute about the engine.

We had a splendid ride. We went slashing along through the woods the
whole way, and as neither of us had ever ridden on an engine before, we
made the best of our time. We found out what every crank and handle was
for, and kept a sharp look-out ahead, through the little windows in the
cab. If we had caught an alligator on the cow-catcher, the thing would
have been complete. The engineer said there used to be alligators along
by the road, in the swampy places, but he guessed the engine had
frightened most of them away.

The trip didn't take forty minutes, so we had scarcely time to learn the
whole art of engine-driving, but we were very glad to have had the ride.

We found the steam-boat waiting for us at Tocoi, which is such a little
place that I don't believe either of us noticed it, as we hurried
aboard. The St. John's is a splendid river, as wide as a young lake; but
we did not have much time to see it, as it grew dark pretty soon, and
the supper-bell rang.

We reached Pilatka pretty early in the evening, and there we had to stay
all night. Mr. Chipperton told me, confidentially, that he thought this
whole arrangement was a scheme to make money out of travellers. The boat
we were in ought to have kept on and taken us up the Oclawaha; "but,"
said he, "I suppose that wouldn't suit the hotel-keepers. I expect they
divide the profits with the boats."

By good luck, I thought, the Corny family and ourselves went to
different hotels to spend the night. When I congratulated Rectus on this
fact, he only said:

"It don't matter for one night. We'll catch 'em all bad enough
to-morrow."

And he was right. When we went down to the wharf the next morning, to
find the Oclawaha boat, the first persons we saw were Mr. Chipperton,
with his wife and daughter. They were standing, gazing at the steam-boat
which was to take us on our trip.

"Isn't this a funny boat?" said Corny, as soon as she saw us. It _was_ a
very funny boat. It was not much longer than an ordinary tug, and quite
narrow, but was built up as high as a two-story house, and the wheel was
in the stern. Rectus compared her to a river wheelbarrow.

Soon after we were on board she started off, and then we had a good
chance to see the St. John's. We had been down to look at the river
before, for we got up very early and walked about the town. It is a
pretty sort of a new place, with wide streets and some handsome houses.
The people have orange-groves in their gardens, instead of
potato-patches, as we have up north. Before we started, we hired a
rifle. We had been told that there was plenty of game on the river, and
that most gentlemen who took the trip carried guns. Rectus wanted to get
two rifles, but I thought one was enough. We could take turns, and I
knew I'd feel safer if I had nothing to do but to keep my eye on Rectus
while he had the gun.

There were not many passengers on board, and, indeed, there was not room
for more than twenty-five or thirty. Most of them who could find places
sat out on a little upper deck, in front of the main cabin, which was in
the top story. Mrs. Chipperton, however, staid in the saloon, or
dining-room, and looked out of the windows. She was a quiet woman, and
had an air as if she had to act as shaft-horse for the team, and was
pretty well used to holding back. And I reckon she had a good deal of it
to do.

One party attracted our attention as soon as we went aboard. It was made
up of a lady and two gentlemen-hunters. The lady wasn't a hunter, but
she was dressed in a suitable costume to go about with fellows who had
on hunting-clothes. The men wore long yellow boots that came ever so far
up their legs, and they had on all the belts and hunting-fixings that
the law allows. The lady wore yellow gloves, to match the men's boots.
As we were going up the St. John's, the two men strode about, in an easy
kind of a way, as if they wanted us to understand that this sort of
thing was nothing to them. They were used to it, and could wear that
style of boots every day if they wanted to. Rectus called them "the
yellow-legged party," which wasn't a bad name.

After steaming about twenty-five miles up the St. John's River, we went
in close to the western shore, and then made a sharp turn into a narrow
opening between the tall trees, and sailed right into the forest.




CHAPTER VIII.

THE STEAM-BOAT IN THE FOREST.


We were in a narrow river, where the tall trees met overhead, while the
lower branches and the smaller trees brushed against the little boat as
it steamed along. This was the Oclawaha River, and Rectus and I thought
it was as good as fairy-land. We stood on the bow of the boat, which
wasn't two feet above the water, and took in everything there was to
see.

The river wound around in among the great trees, so that we seldom could
see more than a few hundred yards ahead, and every turn we made showed
us some new picture of green trees and hanging moss and glimpses into
the heart of the forest, while everything was reflected in the river,
which was as quiet as a looking-glass.

"Talk of theatres!" said Rectus.

"No, don't," said I.

At this moment we both gave a little jump, for a gun went off just
behind us. We turned around quickly, and saw that the tall yellow-legs
had just fired at a big bird. He didn't hit it.

"Hello!" said Rectus; "we'd better get our gun. The game is beginning to
show itself." And off he ran for the rifle.

I didn't know that Rectus had such a bloodthirsty style of mind; but
there were a good many things about him that I didn't know. When he came
back, he loaded the rifle, which was a little breech-loader, and began
eagerly looking about for game.

Corny had been on the upper deck; but in a minute or two she came
running out to us.

"Oh! do you know," she called out, "that there are alligators in this
river? Do you think they could crawl up into the boat? We go awfully
near shore sometimes. They sleep on shore. I do hope I'll see one soon."

"Well, keep a sharp look-out, and perhaps you may," said I.

She sat down on a box near the edge of the deck, and peered into the
water and along the shore as if she had been sent there to watch for
breakers ahead. Every now and then she screamed out:

"There's one! There! There! There!"

But it was generally a log, or a reflection, or something else that was
not an alligator.

Of course we were very near both shores at all times, for the river is
so narrow that a small boy could throw a ball over it; but occasionally
the deeper part of the channel flowed so near one shore that we ran
right up close to the trees, and the branches flapped up against the
people on the little forward deck, making the ladies, especially the
lady belonging to the yellow-legged party, crouch and scream as if some
wood-demon had stuck a hand into the boat and made a grab for their
bonnets.

This commotion every now and then, and the almost continual reports from
the guns on board, and Corny's screams when she thought she saw an
alligator, made the scene quite lively.

Rectus and I took a turn every half-hour at the rifle. It was really a
great deal more agreeable to look out at the beautiful pictures that
came up before us every few minutes; but, as we had the gun, we couldn't
help keeping up a watch for game, besides.

"There!" I whispered to Rectus; "see that big bird! On that limb! Take a
crack at him!"

It was a water-turkey, and he sat placidly on a limb close to the
water's edge, and about a boat's length ahead of us.

Rectus took a good aim. He slowly turned as the boat approached the
bird, keeping his aim upon him, and then he fired.

The water-turkey stuck out his long, snake-like neck, and said:

"Quee! Quee! Quee!"

And then he ran along the limb quite gayly.

"Bang! bang!" went the guns of the yellow-legs, and the turkey actually
stopped and looked back. Then he said:

"Quee! Quee!" again, and ran in among the thick leaves.

I believe I could have hit him with a stone.

"It don't seem to be any use," said Mr. Chipperton, who was standing
behind us, "to fire at the birds along this river. They know just what
to do. I'm almost sure I saw that bird wink. It wouldn't surprise me if
the fellows that own the rifles are in conspiracy with these birds. They
let out rifles that wont hit, and the birds know it, and sit there and
laugh at the passengers. Why, I tell you, sir, if the people who travel
up and down this river were all regular shooters, there wouldn't be a
bird left in six months."

At this moment Corny saw an alligator,--a real one. It was lying on a
log, near shore, and just ahead of the boat. She set up such a yell that
it made every one of us jump, and her mother came rushing out of the
saloon to see if she was dead. The alligator, who was a good-sized
fellow, was so scared that he just slid off his log without taking time
to get decently awake, and before any one but Rectus and myself had a
chance to see him. The ladies were very much annoyed at this, and urged
Corny to scream softly the next time she saw one. Alligators were pretty
scarce this trip, for some reason or other. For one thing, the weather
was not very warm, and they don't care to come out in the open air
unless they can give their cold bodies a good warming up.

Corny now went up on the upper deck, because she thought that she might
see alligators farther ahead if she got up higher. In five minutes, she
had her hat taken off by a branch of a tree, which swept upon her, as
she was leaning over the rail. She called to the pilot to stop the boat
and go back for her hat, but the captain, who was up in the pilot-house,
stuck out his head and said he reckoned she'd have to wait until they
came back. The hat would hang there for a day or two. Corny made no
answer to this, but disappeared into the saloon.

In a little while, she came out on the lower deck, wearing a seal-skin
hat. She brought a stool with her, and put it near the bow of the boat,
a little in front and on one side of the box on which Rectus and I were
sitting. Then she sat quietly down and gazed out ahead. The seal-skin
cap was rather too warm for the day, perhaps, but she looked very pretty
in it.

Directly she looked around at us.

"Where do you shoot alligators?" said she.

"Anywhere, where you may happen to see them," said I, laughing. "On the
land, in the water, or wherever they may be."

"I mean in what part of their bodies?" said she.

"Oh! in the eye," I answered.

"Either eye?" she asked.

"Yes; it don't matter which. But how are you going to hit them?"

"I've got a revolver," said she.

And she turned around, like the turret of an iron-clad, until the muzzle
of a big seven-shooter pointed right at us.

"My conscience!" I exclaimed; "where did you get that? Don't point it
this way!"

"Oh! it's father's. He let me have it. I am going to shoot the first
alligator I see. You needn't be afraid of my screaming this time," and
she revolved back to her former position.

"One good thing," said Rectus to me, in a low voice; "her pistol isn't
cocked."

I had noticed this, and I hoped also that it wasn't loaded.

"Which eye do you shut?" said Corny, turning suddenly upon us.

"Both!" said Rectus.

She did not answer, but looked at me, and I told her to shut her left
eye, but to be very particular not to turn around again without lowering
her pistol.

She resumed her former position, and we breathed a little easier,
although I thought that it might be well for us to go to some other part
of the boat until she had finished her sport.

I was about to suggest this to Rectus, when suddenly Corny sprang to her
feet, and began blazing away at something ahead. Bang! bang! bang! she
went, seven times.

"Why, she didn't stop once to cock it!" cried Rectus, and I was amazed
to see how she had fired so rapidly. But as soon as I had counted seven,
I stepped up to her and took her pistol. She explained to me how it
worked. It was one of those pistols in which the same pull of the
trigger jerks up the hammer and lets it down,--the most unsafe things
that any one can carry.

"Too bad!" she exclaimed. "I believe it was only a log! But wont you
please load it up again for me? Here are some cartridges."

"Corny," said I, "how would you like to have our rifle? It will be
better than a pistol for you."

She agreed, instantly, to this exchange, and I showed her how to hold
and manage the gun. I didn't think it was a very good thing for a girl
to have, but it was a great deal safer than the pistol for the people on
board. The latter I put in my pocket.

Corny made one shot, but did no execution. The other gunners on board
had been firing away, for some time, at two little birds that kept ahead
of us, skimming along over the water, just out of reach of the shot that
was sent scattering after them.

"I think it's a shame," said Corny, "to shoot such little birds as that.
They can't eat 'em."

"No," said I; "and they can't hit 'em, either, which is a great deal
better."

But very soon after this, the shorter yellow-legged man did hit a bird.
It was a water-turkey, that had been sitting on a tree, just as we
turned a corner. The big bird spread out its wings, made a doleful
flutter, and fell into the underbrush by the shore.

"Wont they stop to get him?" asked Corny, with her eyes open as wide as
they would go.

One of the hands was standing by, and he laughed.

"Stop the boat when a man shoots a bird? I reckon not. And there isn't
anybody that would go into all that underbrush and water only for a bird
like that, anyway."

"Well, I think it's murder!" cried Corny. "I thought they ate 'em. Here!
Take your gun. I'm much obliged; but I don't want to kill things just
to see them fall down and die."

I took the gun very willingly,--although I did not think that Corny
would injure any birds with it,--but I asked her what she thought about
alligators. She certainly had not supposed that they were killed for
food.

"Alligators are wild beasts," she said. "Give me my pistol. I am going
to take it back to father."

And away she went. Rectus and I did not keep up our rifle practice much
longer. We couldn't hit anything, and the thought that, if we should
wound or kill a bird, it would be of no earthly good to us or anybody
else, made us follow Corny's example, and we put away our gun. But the
other gunners did not stop. As long as daylight lasted a ceaseless
banging was kept up.

We were sitting on the forward deck, looking out at the beautiful scenes
through which we were passing, and occasionally turning back to see that
none of the gunners posted themselves where they might make our
positions uncomfortable, when Corny came back to us.

"Can either of you speak French?" she asked.

Rectus couldn't; but I told her that I understood the language tolerably
well, and asked her why she wished to know.

"It's just this," she said. "You see those two men with yellow boots,
and the lady with them? She's one of their wives."

"How many wives have they got?" interrupted Rectus, speaking to Corny
almost for the first time.

"I mean she is the wife of one of them, of course," she answered, a
little sharply; and then she turned herself somewhat more toward me.
"And the whole set try to make out they're French, for they talk it
nearly all the time. But they're not French, for I heard them talk a
good deal better English than they can talk French; and every time a
branch nearly hits her, that lady sings out in regular English. And,
besides, I know that their French isn't French French, because I can
understand a great deal of it, and if it was I couldn't do it. I can
talk French a good deal better than I can understand it, anyway. The
French people jumble everything up so that I can't make head or tail of
it. Father says he don't wonder they have had so many revolutions, when
they can't speak their own language more distinctly. He tried to learn
it, but didn't keep it up long, and so I took lessons. For, when we go
to France, one of us ought to know how to talk, or we shall be cheated
dreadfully. Well, you see, over on the little deck, up there, is that
gentleman with his wife and a young lady, and they're all travelling
together, and these make-believe French people have been jabbering about
them ever so long, thinking that nobody else on board understands
French. But I listened to them. I couldn't make out all they said, but I
could tell that they were saying all sorts of things about those other
people, and trying to settle which lady the gentleman was married to,
and they made a big mistake, too, for they said the small lady was the
one."

"How do you know they were wrong?" I said.

"Why, I went to the gentleman and asked him. I guess he ought to know.
And now, if you'll come up there, I'd just like to show those people
that they can't talk out loud about the other passengers and have nobody
know what they're saying."

"You want to go there and talk French, so as to show them that you
understand it?" said I.

"Yes," answered Corny, "that's just it."

"All right; come along," said I. "They may be glad to find out that you
know what they're talking about."

And so we all went to the upper deck, Rectus as willing as anybody to
see the fun.

Corny seated herself on a little stool near the yellow-legged party, the
men of which had put down their guns for a time. Rectus and I sat on the
forward railing, near her. Directly she cleared her throat, and then,
after looking about her on each side, said to me, in very distinct
tones:

"_Voy-ezz vows cett hommy ett ses ducks femmys seelah?_"[B]

I came near roaring out laughing, but I managed to keep my face
straight, and said: "_Oui._"

"Well, then,--I mean _Bean donk lah peetit femmy nest pah lah femmy due
hommy. Lah oter femmy este sah femmy._"[C]

[Illustration: "VOY-EZZ VOWS CETT HOMMY ETT SES DUCKS FEMMYS SEELAH?"]

At this, there was no holding in any longer. I burst out laughing, so
that I came near falling off the railing; Rectus laughed because I did;
the gentleman with the wife and the young lady laughed madly, and Mr.
Chipperton, who came out of the saloon on hearing the uproar, laughed
quite cheerfully, and asked what it was all about. But Corny didn't
laugh. She turned around short to see what effect her speech had had on
the yellow-legged party. It had a good deal of effect. They reddened
and looked at us. Then they drew their chairs closer together, and
turned their backs to us. What they thought, we never knew; but Corny
declared to me afterward that they talked no more French,--at least when
she was about.

The gentleman who had been the subject of Corny's French discourse
called her over to him, and the four had a gay talk together. I heard
Corny tell them that she never could pronounce French in the French way.
She pronounced it just as it was spelt, and her father said that ought
to be the rule with every language. She had never had a regular teacher;
but if people laughed so much at the way she talked, perhaps her father
ought to get her one.

I liked Corny better the more I knew of her. It was easy to see that she
had taught herself all that she knew. Her mother held her back a good
deal, no doubt; but her father seemed more like a boy-companion than
anything else, and if Corny hadn't been a very smart girl, she would
have been a pretty bad kind of a girl by this time. But she wasn't
anything of the sort, although she did do and say everything that came
into her head to say or do. Rectus did not agree with me about Corny. He
didn't like her.

When it grew dark, I thought we should stop somewhere for the night, for
it was hard enough for the boat to twist and squeeze herself along the
river in broad daylight. She bumped against big trees that stood on the
edge of the stream, and swashed through bushes that stuck out too far
from the banks; but she was built for bumping and scratching, and
didn't mind it. Sometimes she would turn around a corner and make a
short cut through a whole plantation of lily-pads and spatterdocks,--or
things like them,--and she would scrape over a sunken log as easily as a
wagon-wheel rolls over a stone. She drew only two feet of water, and was
flat-bottomed. When she made a very short turn, the men had to push her
stern around with poles. Indeed, there was a man with a pole at the bow
a good deal of the time, and sometimes he had more pushing off to do
than he could manage by himself.

When Mr. Chipperton saw what tight places we had to squeeze through, he
admitted that it was quite proper not to try to bring the big
steam-boats up here.

But the boat didn't stop. She kept right on. She had to go a hundred and
forty miles up that narrow river, and if she made the whole trip from
Pilatka and back in two days, she had no time to lose. So, when it was
dark, a big iron box was set up on top of the pilot-house, and a fire
was built in it of pine-knots and bits of fat pine. This blazed finely,
and lighted up the river and the trees on each side, and sometimes threw
out such a light that we could see quite a distance ahead. Everybody
came out to see the wonderful sight. It was more like fairy-land than
ever. When the fire died down a little, the distant scenery seemed to
fade away and become indistinct and shadowy, and the great trees stood
up like their own ghosts all around us; and then, when fresh knots were
thrown in, the fire would blaze up, and the whole scene would be
lighted up again, and every tree and bush, and almost every leaf, along
the water's edge would be tipped with light, while everything was
reflected in the smooth, glittering water.

Rectus and I could hardly go in to supper, and we got through the meal
in short order. We staid out on deck until after eleven o'clock, and
Corny staid with us a good part of the time. At last, her father came
down after her, for they were all going to bed.

"This is a grand sight," said Mr. Chipperton. "I never saw anything to
equal it in any transformation scene at a theatre. Some of our theatre
people ought to come down here and study it up, so as to get up
something of the kind for exhibition in the cities."

Just before we went into bed, our steam-whistle began to sound, and away
off in the depths of the forest we could hear every now and then another
whistle. The captain told us that there was a boat coming down the
river, and that she would soon pass us. The river did not look wide
enough for two boats; but when the other whistle sounded as if it were
quite near, we ran our boat close into shore among the spatterdocks, in
a little cove, and waited there, leaving the channel for the other boat.

Directly, it came around a curve just ahead of us, and truly it was a
splendid sight. The lower part of the boat was all lighted up, and the
fire was blazing away grandly in its iron box, high up in the air.