The Outdoor Girls in Florida Part 22

"You needn't worry," spoke Mr. Hammond with a laugh. "Tom will be glad to come, and the worst of the rush is over now. Just consider him your escort, and he'll do anything you want, from catching an alligator to getting your meals. He's a handy young fellow, Tom is, and he knows all the streams about here."

While the overseer was gone to summon the young man, the girls prepared for the little outing. They had put up a lunch, or, rather, Aunt Hannah, the genial colored "mammy" had done it for them, putting in plenty of fried chicken and corn bread.

"Perhaps we'd better have more," suggested Mollie, to Aunt Hannah, when the fact of Tom Osborne going along was mentioned.

"Bress yo' he'at, honey!" exclaimed the buxom cook, "I done put in enough fo' two mo' gen'men if yo'all would laik t' take 'em along.

Don't yo'all worry!"

"No, I think one young man will be sufficient," laughed Betty. "Only I didn't want him to go hungry, and I know the appet.i.tes of my friends."

"Speak for yourself, if you please!" chided Mollie. "You eat as much as any of us."

"I wonder if those two suspicious characters Mr. Hammond spoke of could be the ones who followed us in the boat?" asked Amy, to change the subject.

"They _could_ have been," remarked Grace, "but I wouldn't want to think so."

"Why not?" asked Mollie.

"Because it would show that they were still following us."

"Perhaps it was unwise that I told them where we were from," said Betty, "but I did it for the best. I didn't want them to think that we had no friends near at hand."

"Of course," rejoined Amy. "You meant it all right. And they may not have been the same ones at all. Mr. Hammond did not say they made inquiries for us, or for that poor young fellow. What was it they called him--'The Duck?'"

"'Loon--loon!'" corrected Betty, with a laugh.

"Well, I knew it was some kind of a bird," a.s.serted Amy. "I wonder why they called him that?"

"A loon is supposed to be a crazy sort of a bird," went on Betty, "and, come to think of it, that poor chap didn't look very bright. Maybe he was half-witted, and that's why they called him The Loon."

"Well, he knew enough to shoot the manatee, and get our boat for us,"

defended Grace. "I don't think he was very stupid."

"Oh, I don't mean it that way," said Betty quickly. "I only suggested that perhaps those mean men--I'm sure they were mean--might have called him that to suit their own purposes. But I think we are well rid of them, anyhow. Here comes Mr. Hammond, and that must be Tom with him,"

and she indicated two figures approaching.

"Oh, are you going to call him Tom?" gasped Grace.

"I don't see why not," was the calm answer. "He looks just like the sort of a nice young chap whom one would call Tom."

"Betty Nelson!" cried Mollie. "I'm going to tell----"

"Hus.h.!.+" commanded the Little Captain, quickly. "I haven't done it yet."

Mr. Hammond presented the young man, who seemed quite at his ease under the scrutiny of four pairs of eyes--pretty eyes, all of them, too.

"You needn't worry when Tom is along," said the overseer with a laugh, as he named each of the girls in turn. "Now go off and have a good time.

I depend on you, Tom, to bring them safely back."

"I will, Mr. Hammond. Are you ready, young ladies?" and he smiled at them.

The girls started for the boat, into which a colored boy had already put the baskets of lunch. Somehow or other Betty naturally fell into step beside Tom. She looked up at him frankly and said:

"Mr. Hammond told us your last name, but I have forgotten it, I'm ashamed to say."

"It's...o...b..rne. But I'd rather you'd call me Tom, if you don't mind.

Everyone does around here--that is, all my friends, of course," he added quickly.

"Then we'd like to be your friends," said Betty with a smile, and a calm look at Mollie, who was making signs behind Tom's back. Obvious signs they were, too. Betty looked triumphant, as though saying: "There, didn't I tell you?"

Tom Osborne proved that he knew something about motor boats, and was also versed in the ways of making girls comfortable. He asked if they wanted him to steer, and as Betty had not taken her craft down the river very often she agreed. The girls sat on the after deck, under a wide-spread awning, and chatted of the sights they saw.

They emerged into Lake Chad, skirted its sh.o.r.es and swept into the river beyond. They pa.s.sed several other power craft and one or two houseboats in which were gay parties.

At the suggestion of Tom, they decided to go up a little side stream to where he said was a pleasant place to eat lunch, and this they reached about noon.

"Now, if you girls want to walk about and see what there is to be seen,"

he told them, "I'll get out the victuals and set the table on the gra.s.s under that tree," and he indicated it. "I'll call you when I'm ready."

Betty and her chums a.s.sented, and Tom proceeded to set out the luncheon.

The girls strolled on for some distance, and Mollie, attracted by some flowers on the end of a small spit of land, extending for some distance into the stream, walked toward them, the others following.

They picked many blossoms, and were watching a pair of large turtles when Amy, glancing toward the main land, which was reached by crossing a narrow neck of sand, uttered a cry of alarm.

"Look!" she gasped, pointing to two long, black objects stretched right across the narrow place. "Alligators! Two big ones!"

It was only too true. The girls' way back was blocked.

CHAPTER XVIII

BETWEEN TWO PERILS

"What--what are we going to do?" gasped Grace. She, as Betty said afterward, seemed always to be the first to ask questions that were hard to answer in an emergency. "They--they may attack us!"

"Why can't you say something less--less scary?" demanded Mollie who, after the first gasp of fright, had come forward to stand beside Betty.

Amy had already shrunk to a place in the rear near Grace. It seemed to be always thus, with Betty and Mollie facing the immediate danger, and Grace and Amy needing protection.

Not that they were not brave when occasion demanded it. They would not have been outdoor girls else, but somehow the first fear of something menacing sent Amy and Grace scurrying to the rear, whence it needed considerable persuasion to bring them to the van again.

"They--they don't seem to see us," ventured Amy, after a few tense seconds, during which the four had stared at the alligators.

"They won't see you and Grace at all, if you stay behind us," said Mollie a bit sharply. "There's no present danger, as far as I can see.

Why don't you come out and help Betty and me throw stones at them?"