CHAPTER XXV IN THE EVERGLADES
In order to see how Nicky’s plan was, the picture that he had in hismind must be understood. This was Nicky’s mind picture:
The hi-jackers, after capturing Sam’s sloop, had sent her, with two menaboard, to make contact with their Little Card Sound headquarters. Nelsewas there and from what he had heard and pieced together, Nicky supposedthat the two men on the _Treasure Belle_ would find Nelse, and have himgo, or send Seminole Indians, across the inland waterways, to take tothe hi-jackers some liquor cases in which to conceal the treasure bars.
When they captured the _Libertad_, the hi-jackers had left three menfloundering in the water; for all they knew or cared, these men mighthave been wounded. The _Libertad’s_ own boat had been sunk by bulletholes during the fight, which was why the boys had been left without aboat when Senor Ortiga and Mr. Coleson had fled the _Senorita_ in thetender.
Under such conditions the hi-jackers had started North in _El Libertad_,the night previous to that on which the cutter arrived.
They would hardly go to the shores of the Southern States bordering theGulf of Mexico, Nicky decided, because they would be afraid of havingthe gold discovered: it was in bars and had been loaded into the_Libertad_ without any provision for its concealment and transportationlater on.
The hi-jackers would probably go, Nicky argued, into the inner channelof the archipelago and then lay up in the Shark River, that small streamhaving its source at the edge of the Everglades. It was the mostSoutherly place they could get close to the Everglades, and theSeminoles, bringing the cases to put the treasure in would come up theinland way through part of Big Cypress Swamp, along the rim of theEverglades, and meet them. That was the only way Nicky could see for thehi-jackers to do, because they had no small boat and could not go anycloser to the shallow water of the Florida swamp than the draught of _ElLibertad_ would permit.
They could not have had enough gasoline in the tanks to risk a very longvoyage; that was the reason he did not think they would try to get tothe Southern States and risk themselves in strange waters with no way tocarry the gold from the vessel to their Northern headquarters, whereverthat might be.
With all of this the older heads of the party agreed.
Their first plan, then, was to get the _Libertad_ pocketed andsurrounded; this they must do before the treasure could be hidden.
Without a small boat it was not probable that the hi-jackers could getinto the Everglades, but they might know the Seminoles and might be ableto get hold of a canoe.
A day, and a good part of the night before had passed since they wentaway in the _Libertad_, but Lieutenant Sommerlee and Mr. Neale decidedthat they had probably gone into the Shark River and laid up. They hadno reason to be afraid: they left the _Libertad’s_ owners in the water;they left three boys and a Negro in another rowboat. There was not muchdanger, from their way of looking at it, in anything that these peoplecould do.
If they had seen the signal smoke of the day or the fire and the rocketsand lights at night, it would be too late for them to run out in the_Libertad_; and, unless they had already hidden the treasure, they couldnot very easily do so in the darkness. They would be more apt to believethemselves well hidden, and would not make any move before daylight,because they would be waiting for their two men in the sloop to getSoutheast and bring help from inland. They did not know, of course, thatthe men had been captured.
First of all, Sam and a patrol sailor went over the side of the_Senorita_, in the dark, with ropes under their arms and fastened to therail. They searched about on the reef at the side of the ship whereNicky and his chums had thrown the rifles and pistols. LieutenantSommerlee did not think that these had been in the water long enough tobe severely damaged or made useless; he wanted them for a purpose.
Sam and his companion by dint of much searching brought up bothsubmerged rifles and several pistols.
They were set to work cleaning and drying and oiling them at once.
“Cliff,” ordered Lieutenant Sommerlee, taking command, “you—with Sam andJim and one of my sailors, will stay on the _Senorita_. Jim has had anight and a day to rest in and he is pretty strong again. You four arethe guardians of this Shark River channel.”
“If they try to run out past us we must try to prevent that,” Cliffagreed.
“Yes,” nodded the commander. “My boatswain, Jack, will be with you and,for the sake of discipline, you must all obey his orders. He has a coolhead and is a fine shot. Four of you ought to be able to block thischannel if the hi-jackers try to run out here.”
“We will!” agreed Cliff, feeling the importance of his share in theblockade.
“The rest of us will start at once in the cutter,” the lieutenantcontinued. “We will tow our own light dory, and when we reach the innermouth of the Harney River, Mr. Neale, Nicky, and one of my men who hasbeen into the Everglades, will drop off in the dory and go up the HarneyRiver as fast as they can by night. By submerging a flashlight in thewater, training its beam on the bottom, and rowing carefully they canget almost to the head of the stream, where it has its source at the rimof the Everglades. From there, as soon as dawn comes, my man will directthe course South along the rim of the Everglades to the nearest point hesees fit to the Shark River. The Harney starts a few miles North of theShark, at the rimrock, and by sending the boat there, we can block theEverglades side and stop any Indians who may come there from BigCypress.”
“And we will stop them, never fear!” declared Nicky stoutly.
“I know that you will,” said the lieutenant with a smile. “The cutterwill proceed carefully down the inner channel. I will be in command, andwill lie-to close to the bank, not far from the Shark. Unless thehi-jackers rush out I will do nothing until we are all in position. Weshall need some signals.”
“Have you any smoke-rockets on the cutter?” asked Nicky. “They wouldmake enough light to be seen at night, and smoke to see by day.”
“We have,” answered a sailor. “Plenty of them.”
“Then we will take four,” Nicky suggested. “How will we use them?”
“One at night will call for help. One right after the other at nightwill call urgently for help. Do not use them for any other purposetonight, and I will be watching the sky over the ’Glades.”
“All right, sir,” said Nicky in proper nautical deference. “Then, whenwe get into place at the inside end of the Shark, shall we signal?”
“No,” replied the lieutenant. “But if you see that there is no boat inthe Shark River at all, send up a rocket, wait a minute and then send upa second. Watch for the same signal in reply; if you do not get it,repeat with your other two rockets. If the boat is there, make no signalunless the men are escaping. In that case, send up three rockets inquick succession, as fast as you can.”
“How shall we be able to set them up?” asked Mr. Neale.
“You will find clumps of tall saw-grass almost everywhere; it is fromfour to eight or nine feet high, and you must be careful not to let itssharp edges gash you, but it is strong enough to support a rocket in anupright position while you set and light it.”
Hasty repetition by each member of the party of plans in which they mustparticipate, the arranging of signals from the cutter, and of othersfrom the _Senorita_, completed the arrangements.
Cliff, with Jim, Sam and the boatswain, Jack, busily getting therecovered arsenal into good shape again, saw the cutter disappear intothe gloom.
The run up the channel into the Harney River was without event, andsince Lieutenant Sommerlee had cruised in those waters, making a chartfor the U. S. Geodetic Survey, he knew the safest way, and finally, withtense, thrilling nerves, Nicky dropped into the light dory with Mr.Neale and a sailor called Brownie because his last name was Brown and hewas a short, fat, jolly little man. With whispered directions from thecutter’s commander, they pushed off and with Mr. Neale at the oars andNicky in the stem, Brownie being at the bow to give
the course up therapidly narrowing stream, they slipped into a darkness that seemed toclose down about them like a curtain.
By following the lieutenant’s directions they made steady progress asfar as their boat dared go in the dark, feeling-out the channel with thetip of their flashlight under water so they could see the coral bottomof the river. Finally they stopped, tied to a heavy root and got suchsleep as they could, curled up on their hard seats.
At about four-thirty, before dawn cut through the heavy tangle of trees,intertwined overhead, Brownie awoke his companions and they ate theirhardtack, and picked the bones of a chicken from the cutter’s recentpurchases, cooked the night before on the _Senorita_; this they washeddown with cocoa from tin cups, cocoa hot out of a thermos bottle.
The hot liquid helped to drive away the night chill, and Nicky declaredthat he felt fit for anything.
“That’s good,” chuckled Brownie. “We’re going to have to stand inshallow water and walk in it, too. We must drag our dory up over therock bed here at the rim of the Everglades.”
In spite of the cold of the water, fed by the overflow from theEverglades which, themselves, are renewed by many streams that spout outcold and clear, from holes in the limestone, they dragged and tugged andlaughed softly as they slipped, until, when the dory was over the rim,and into fairly good water, they were quite warm from their exertions.
“Here we are!” said Brownie softly, with a wave of his hand. “Here weare—in the Everglades!”