“I thought you were to have charge for three days, or until you found a manatee.”

“No, sir; three days—­seventy-two hours, and not a minute less.”

“What are you going to do with all that time?”

“I have elected myself senior boss and Dick junior boss, and we are going to show you and Molly the Everglades.  The Irene will start down Broad River at once.  But Molly is to take the power-boat through the cut-off to Rodgers River, and down that river to its mouth, where she will find us.  Oh, by the way, Dick will go with her as engineer, but subject to her orders.”

When the Irene was opposite the cut-off, the power-boat, with Molly and Dick on board, was set adrift and was soon twisting and turning at half speed as it followed the channel of the crooked creek.  Swimming through the creek would have made a snake dizzy, and the girl at the wheel had to keep it spinning.  There were logs to be dodged and sharp-ended stumps to be avoided.  Trees lay nearly across the stream, leaving barely the width of the boat to spare, and others under which the boat had to be driven between flexible branches, while the steerswoman crouched low down in the craft.  There were birds and beasts on the bank, fish and reptiles in the water, but the girl could spare them scarcely a glance.  Great spiders hung in midair on nets that stretched from bank to bank, and Molly’s face was matted with webs that she could not avoid, while her teeth were tightly clenched lest she scream when the hairy legs of a spider with a spread of five inches traveled across her face.  Dick saw her trouble and came forward to where he could lean ahead of her and take the brunt of the spider’s work.  Molly spared him a grateful glance, but got in trouble for it the next instant.  For just then a quick turn of the craft happened to be necessary, and although Dick helped to roll the wheel, it was too late, and because of the inattention of a moment the motor-boat crashed into the bank.  The pilot and engineer were thrown violently against the wheel, but nothing was injured excepting the temper of the girl, who said to her companion: 

“That was all your fault, Dick Williams, and I wish you would go back to your engine.  I will try to manage the wheel by myself.”

After two miles of squirmy navigation the boat came out into the broad, beautiful Rodgers River, down which they turned; and when Dick pointed out where the tarpon had wrecked their canoe and stunned him, and told of Ned’s struggles to save his life, the girl’s voice trembled and there were tears in her eyes as she listened and asked questions.  The tide was low when they arrived at the mouth of the river, and Molly ran the boat on one of the oyster bars that form a network across the entrance to Broad and Rodgers rivers.  Almost the instant the boat touched, Dick was overboard heaving on the bow, and soon had the craft afloat.  Then turning to Molly, he said, while mischief sparkled in his eyes: