“Boys, you’ll have to blaze your own trail.”
Of course in selecting an equipment for such a region the boys had made lightness the prime essential.
They knew that on much of the journey in search for a spot for a permanent camp they would have to pole over shoal water, in some places not more than two feet deep. An overloaded canoe might therefore cause a lot of trouble and delay. Like true old campaigners they had prepared elaborate lists and then gone through them again and again till nothing appeared on them but the barest necessities.
Ben Stubbs had put in several days making a number of light but strong chests twenty-two inches by thirteen and nine inches deep. These contained, among other necessities, an aluminum cooking outfit weighing nine pounds. There were two pots, a frying pan and four plates nesting into each other. And then there was a coffee pot in which was stowed away four cups (nested) pepper and salt castors, knives, spoons and forks, the frying-pan and coffee-pot had detachable handles for lifting on and off the campfire with ease and comfort, no matter how the wind might be blowing the flames about.
The grocery chest contained flour, sugar, salt, cornmeal, pepper, sliced bacon, beef extracts, soup-tablets (three varieties), root-beer, lemonade and sarsaparilla tablets, oatmeal and evaporated fruits of various kinds. These were all put in glass jars with screw tops and rubber gaskets so that even in case of an upset the contents would remain dry. There was also a blue-flame double burner kerosene stove of the marine type, lanterns, and a supply of candles and matches in waterproof jars. The medical outfit consisted of some antiseptics, pills, several tablets of permanganate of potassium for the same purpose and a hypodermic outfit, bandages and lotions.
Each boy carried an automatic rifle for big game or defense, the kind chosen being a weapon carrying .49-50 nickeled steel cartridges. This gun was heavy enough for alligators; or the more savage crocodile, pumas, leopards, gray wolves or any human enemy. They also purchased two three-barreled guns having two parallel barrels, twelve gauge, for shotted shells, and another rifled barrel underneath of .35-55 caliber. Two 16-gauge shot-guns for duck and small game were also stowed away in the “armory” chest. In addition each boy had his magazine revolver of .38 caliber, and a six-inch bladed hunting-knife with a heavy back so that it might even be used for chopping.
Shovels, axes, picks, etc., were back with the heavy baggage to be brought on by Ben Stubbs and Billy. Frank, of course, carried his nautical instruments. A sextant, a compass, two tested watches of the finest split-second make and an artificial horizon.
Their clothes were stout hunting boots, khaki trousers and Norfolk jackets of the same material and flannel shirts with campaign hats. Each carried a change of underwear and socks in his toilet bag which also held two towels, toothbrush, cake of soap and brush and comb.
For transportation into the Everglades the boys soon managed with little difficulty to secure canoes and a lighter draught “cruiser,” similar to a Barnegat duck-boat. The flotilla was to be taken down the coast by an auxiliary sloop also chartered at Miami.
On the appointed day the boys were at the railroad station of the Florida East Coast railroad to meet the arrivals from New York, and warm were the greetings as Billy Barnes and Stubbs stepped from the private car which had been attached for them when they left the north. The car was sidetracked at Miami and the train kept on its way to Key West along the wonderful chain of cement bridges constructed over the numberless keys that run out from the “leg” of Florida. The boys and Ben were busily engaged getting the various bales and crates in some sort of order for transfer to the trucks by which they were to be taken to the flotilla of canoes when they were startled at being hailed by a voice that sounded familiar.
The boys hastened to the door of one end of the car and were amazed to see standing on the steps, looking rather embarrassed and doubtful, Lathrop Beasley. He wore a well cut suit of white serge and a straw hat with a light blue ribbon. In addition he sported snowy canvas shoes, topped off with light purple socks and a pale pink tie. Altogether he looked as if he had just stepped from a clothing ad. Even in their astonishment at seeing him there the boys could not help laughing at the contrast they presented to him.
In their rough working garb, and all begrimed with dust as they were from handling the kit in the car, two more unpresentable youths from a sartorial standpoint, could not well be imagined. The three boys gazed at each other in silence for a few seconds and then Lathrop said rather shamefacedly:
“Hello, fellows.”
“Well, Lathrop, what on earth are you doing here?” naturally demanded Frank.
“I guess I came on a wild impulse,” began Lathrop, and then stopped.
“Well?” questioned Harry.
“When I heard of your trip, from hanging around the aerodrome after you left – oh, it wasn’t Ben Stubbs or Barnes that told me, they were close as clams,” – he hurried on, “but when old Schultz told me that you were going to cross the Everglades I thought that maybe you’d need an extra hand so I got permission from my folks and here I am.
“If you want to say the word I’ll go back,” he concluded rather lamely but with a longing look in his face that told of his eager desire to be allowed to join the expedition.
“Well, you certainly have an impetuous way of doing things,” commented Frank. “Did you come on this train?”
“Yes,” replied the boy. “I’ve just been up to the hotel and engaged rooms and tidied up a bit and then hurried right down here.”
Frank and Harry exchanged glances of amusement, the cause of which Lathrop was at a loss to fathom.
“Well,” began Frank, after a brief whispered conversation with his brother, “you are here now and I suppose you’ll have to stay. We can find some work I dare say for you to do and there are a lot of ways you can be useful.”
“I’ll start right in at anything you tell me,” began the boy eagerly. “It’s mighty good of you – ”
“Not much you won’t. Not in that fancy rig,” burst out Harry, “if you are coming with us you’d better go up to the village store and get an outfit as much like ours as possible and forget you ever patronized a tailor.”
Lathrop gladly agreed and hurried off to get himself a working outfit. As he hastened down the tracks, Frank turned to Harry with a grin.
“Well, we have gone and done it now,” he said. “But we really have use for another hand, and I think that we can make something out of Lathrop, besides we owe him a debt of gratitude for helping us out at White Plains. If it hadn’t been for him we might have lost the Golden Eagle II and all our work.”
“That’s so,” assented Harry. “I guess he will work out all right. But those fancy duds he had on – ”
And the boy burst out laughing at the recollection.
By sundown most of the “duffle” in the car had been transferred to trucks and carted down to the wharf, where the boys, with considerable pride, exhibited to Ben Stubbs, Billy, and the newly overalled Lathrop, the light draught thirty-foot sloop, with an auxiliary five-horse engine, the four canoes and the light draught “sneak-box,” they had secured for their transportation round the Cape and into the Thousand Island Archipelago. The canoes were of the “Ontario” type, fitted with narrow decks round the edges and canvas covered. The sneak-box was of the spoon-bowed variety familiar to duckers in Barnegat Bay. It drew only a few inches of water and afforded a lot of space in its sixteen feet of length for the stowage of the heavier baggage. It rejoiced in the name of Squeegee.
Ben Stubbs was delighted with the “fleet” as he called it, and declared that the sloop was a “witch.” After a dinner at the quiet boarding house at which the boys had been stopping the adventurers that night finished the stowage of their impedimenta aboard the sloop and piled the canoes on the top of the canvas enclosed “summer cabin.” The “sneak-box”