“I am sorry I ran you on that bar, Miss Barstow.”

“You shouldn’t bear malice, Dick,” replied the girl.

CHAPTER XXIV

TO THE GLADES IN THE “IRENE”

They found the Irene waiting for them near the mouth of the river, with Ned impatient to be off to catch the inflowing-tide from the mouth of Harney’s River, which was about two miles down the coast.

It was still daylight when they crossed the bar and passed the little key inside the mouth of the river, but they sailed up the stream by the light of the stars, which gave mystic beauty to the smooth water and the shadowy outlines of the tropical forest that bordered the banks of the river.  Captain Hull anchored the Irene for the night in Tussock Bay, at the head of the lower division of Harney’s River, because, as he said, he needed all the daylight he could get when he tackled the crooked courses between Tussock Bay and the Everglades.

When the anchor was hoisted in the morning, Dick was at the wheel, which he held on to when the captain came up to relieve him.  The captain stood by as the boy steered across the bay, and wondered at the chance that kept him for miles on exactly the right course.  As the boat was passing Tussock Key, Dick headed up to the northeast.

“Too far north,” said the captain.  “Course is east-southeast.”

“No talking to the man at the wheel,” said Dick, and Captain Hull laughed and waited for the trouble that was coming.  But no trouble came, and the Irene twisted in and out, always in plenty of water, for a mile and a half of crooked creek, until it floated in a wider stream, the banks of which were covered with long prairie grass, when Dick handed over the wheel to the captain, saying: 

“Guess you know the rest of the way, don’t you, Captain?  If you get in any trouble call on me.”

“That was one on me,” said Captain Hull as he took the wheel.  “I never came that way before.  Wonder who taught you piloting?  Mighty few pilots can find their way up this river.”

“I came that way,” said Dick nonchalantly, “because the water is deeper and there is less grass.  The other river is pretty shallow and gets badly choked up at this season.”

“That’s so,” replied the captain, “but I’d like to know who told you.”

It took the rest of the day to reach the Everglades.  There were narrow streams so crooked that the Irene had to be poled around the sharp corners, broad, shallow rivers, so choked with eel and manatee-grass that every five minutes one of the boys went overboard to clear the clogged propeller, and twisting creeks, through which the water of the Everglades poured so swiftly, that to make headway and avoid snags kept the captain busy at the wheel and the boys fending off from the banks with oars.  Sometimes for miles the channel was clear; and while the captain stood at the wheel the rest of the exploring family sat upon the cabin roof and chattered like children about the turtle and terrapin heads that dotted the surface, the leaping young tarpon, grave old alligators, shy otters, and birds that flew from the trees or soared overhead.