HUNTING IN HARNEY’S RIVER

The boys had chosen the last of the ebb tide for the trip down Rodgers River, which gave them low water for their work on the clam bar and a flood tide to help them up Harney’s River. They made a false start at the mouth of the river by taking a channel that ran too far to the east and led them a mile or two out of their course, before they discovered their mistake and returned. After entering the channel, the course up the river, which averaged east-northeast, was plain, there being but a single branch to mislead them, in the first six miles. At the end of these the lower section of Harney’s unites with a branch of Shark River to form Tussock Bay. This bay is a labyrinth of channels and keys and opens into creeks large and small, and water-courses shallow and deep, grass-choked and clear.

After exploring its mazes for miles, Dick and Ned found, near the northeast end of the bay, a tiny key marked by two tall palmettos, on which were the signs of an old Indian camp. Here they roasted a mess of clams and spent the night. An entire day was wasted in following creeks that led nowhere and blind trails. That night they slept again at the Indian camp and on the following day found a small channel which, through twisting creeks and crooked waterways, led to the broad waters of the upper section of Harney’s River, which they followed until they were stopped by the Everglades. They made their camp by a lime tree which was burdened with fruit, and went out from it each day to hunt fish or explore and to study and chart the country about them. The waters of the streams were all flowing clear and fresh from the Everglades. The creeks were alive with fish of many kinds, and their surfaces dotted with the heads of edible turtles.

Alligators were abundant and otters could often be seen sliding down the banks, or in families, playing together in the water. Ned had seen a pet otter at Myers and wanted one for himself. He had brought with him an otter trap, with smooth jaws instead of the cruel teeth which are customary, and he set it near an otter slide. The next day as the canoe approached the point where the trap had been set the rattling of the chain that held it told of the victim it had made. The hind leg of the otter was held firmly by the trap, but he sprang fiercely at Ned as he came near, and the sharp teeth snapped together within a few inches of the boy’s face as the short chain straightened out. The boys went back to their camp, where Ned made a cage out of the box in which they kept most of their stores, and then returned to their captive.

“How are you going to get him into the cage, Ned?”

“Hold his head down with a forked stick, take him round the neck with my hand so he can’t bite, take the trap off of his leg and poke him in the cage.”

“Ned! He’ll eat you up. I’d rather tackle a wildcat.”

“Just watch him eat me up. You stand by, when I’ve got a good hold, and take off that trap quick as you can. Then I’ll drop him in the box and there you are.”

“No, we won’t be there not all of us. I wish I was the otter. He’ll have all the fun.”

Ned got his forked stick and, after a long struggle, in which Dick had to help with another stick, caught the otter’s neck in the fork and held the creature firmly to the ground. Then putting his left hand around its neck he held the head down in the mud, and with his right hand clutched the skin of the animal’s back.

“All right, Dick, take off the trap.”

“Trouble’s goin’ to begin. Here goes,” said Dick, and the trap was removed.

Like a flash of light, as Ned lifted the little beast, it thrust its head through the loose skin of the neck and turning backward bit Ned’s hand to the bone four times in something less than a second. The otter would have been free, but that Dick, who was looking for trouble, had it by the neck with both hands and in spite of its biting, scratching and struggling, it was dumped in the box and the door of its cage closed.

“Been having fun! Haven’t we?” said Dick, ruefully, as the boys, scratched, bitten and bleeding, stood looking at each other, after their victory. Ned’s hand was disabled and so painful that Dick paddled the canoe, with its cargo of boys and pet otter, to their camp.

“Now, Ned,” said Dick, “I’m the surgeon and you are to be respectful and call me Dr. Dick. Let me see your left hand first. I’ve got to decide whether to chop it off, or to try and save some of it.”

“You look as if you needed some fixing up yourself, Dick.”

“That will be all right. You shall have a chance at me if you survive the operation.”

Dick got a bottle of carbolated vaseline from their stores, tore up one of Ned’s shirts and put the strips in boiling water. He then washed Ned’s wounds with warm water and soap and dressed and bandaged them. His own injuries were less serious than Ned’s, although more numerous, and although he spoke lightly of them, his companion insisted on their having as careful treatment as his own. When the bandaging was over, Dick said:

“We ought to have a yellow flag to fly over this hospital. I wish we had a medical book to tell us what we’ve probably got. The only things I’m sure of are blood poisoning and hydrophobia. Then there’s enlargement of the spleen. I’ve got all the symptoms of that.”

“Your only danger is from melancholia, Dick. But what are we to do with the otter? That box is too small for his comfort.”

“I’m not losing any sleep over his comfort. I thought I’d take him out of his cage every morning and lead him around the camp for exercise until you were ready to begin his education.”

“It does not seem quite as easy to tame him as it looked before we caught him.”

“Guess you mean before he caught us.”

“Shouldn’t wonder if I did. Couldn’t we build a cage of poles, with some of these big vines woven in basket fashion?”

“That would be all right. We could watch him day times and you could put him back in the box every night for safe keeping. I don’t think he’s an otter at all. He just fits the definition of a white elephant.”

On the day after his little difference of opinion with the otter, Ned’s left hand and wrist were so sore and stiff that he could neither hold his paddle nor his gun. Dick, too, was partially disabled by the soreness of his arms, but he managed to get about in the canoe and shoot ducks enough for their meals. They could not induce the otter to eat anything, although it seemed much less fearful of them. The leg which had been in the trap was broken and appeared to trouble the animal, but they could do nothing to help it. Dick did propose to take the otter out of the cage and offered to set its leg if Ned would hold the creature. On the second day their wounds continued to be so troublesome that the boys stayed in their hospital camp. As they sat that afternoon in the shade of a lime tree, drinking limeade, Dick, the philosopher, began to question Ned.

“Don’t you pity all these folks about here, Ned? Crackers, alligators, Indians, the whole ignorant lot of ’em. If they had got hurt as we did, they would have gone right on about their business. They’d never have found out that they were probably suffering from appendicitis and microbes and ought to go to a hospital and be carved up.”

At this moment the bow of an Indian canoe glided silently into the tiny cove in front of the camp. The boys recognized one of the two bronzed, bare-legged Seminoles that stood so erect in the canoe, as from Osceola’s camp. His response to Ned’s greeting was a question.

“Whyome (whiskey), got him? Want him, ojus (very much).”

Ned told them he had no whyome, but brought out coffee and sugar and invited them to make a brew for themselves. He also produced grits and venison. The Indians sat down to a feast which lasted as long as any food remained in sight. One of the Indians looked curiously at Ned’s bandages and smiled a little as he pointed to the box that held the pet otter. Ned nodded and asked the Indian, by signs, if he had ever been bitten by one of the creatures. The Indian held out his hand and showed the scar of a bite that must have nearly taken off his thumb. After the Indians had gone Dick looked ruefully over the diminished stores and exclaimed:

“There’s going to be a famine in this camp if those Injuns hit us again.”

The next day the boys were very much better and ready for work. Ned could not hold a paddle with his left hand, so they took a trip into the Everglades, where the water was so shoal that they used their paddles as poles and he could push with one hand. They left their stores in camp, for which afterwards they were glad, and pushed out several miles among the keys of the Glades, where Dick got a shot at a deer which was running from one key to another, but made a clean miss. They saw several alligators and in the afternoon chased one with the canoe. The boys could go faster than the ’gator, but the reptile could turn more quickly. At last the canoe was right behind the quarry and within a few feet of it.

“Give it to her!” yelled Ned, as he seized his paddle in both hands and threw his weight upon it.

“Here goes!” shouted Dick, as he threw his weight on his paddle, which, unfortunately, slipped from the point of coral rock on which it first struck. Dick landed on his back in the water, capsizing the canoe as he fell. When the young canoemen had picked themselves up, righted the canoe, and found the rifle, it was too late to look for the missing alligator, and they plodded slowly home to camp. They found their captive much tamer. He drank a little water, although he refused to eat. His leg was badly swollen and they were anxious about him, and with good reason, for when they awoke in the morning he was dead.

Ned’s last, reckless thrust with his paddle had broken open his wounds and they became very painful. Dick dressed them again and warned him that he wasn’t to use his hand until he had Dr. Dick’s permission. They explored the creeks around their camp in the canoe, Dick doing most of the paddling, while Ned helped as well as he could, with his unhurt arm. The clear water of these little streams abounded with baby tarpon and other small fish, while often, in the deeper pools, turtles could be seen scurrying along the bottom. Dick had never told Ned of the turtle-catching that Johnny had taught him, so when he said, very casually, “Ned, I think I’ll go overboard and pick up that turtle for supper,” Ned replied:

“Don’t be an idiot. You couldn’t catch that thing in the water in a thousand years.”

“Just hold the canoe steady and watch me.” And Dick, resting his hands on the gunwales, threw himself overboard.

The splash frightened the turtle, which made off up the creek, but the boy was on his trail and, after a few futile grabs, had the reptile in his hand.

“Think that will do for supper, Ned, or shall I pick up a few more?” said Dick, as he put the turtle in the canoe.

“I’d like to know who taught you that, you rascal, playing roots on your poor old chum, who never had your chance to see the world.”

While they were waiting for Ned’s hand to get well, Dick got out the fly-rod and cast-net that came with his canoe and spent all his spare time trying to learn to throw the net. Johnny had given him a few lessons, until he thought he had learned to cast it. It was the kind of net which is used by the Florida Cracker, to the knowledge of which he is born, which he can cast when he leaves his cradle. The net was conical, six feet long with a ten-foot mouth, lined with leaden sinkers. The top of the net was closed, excepting for a small hole in which was fitted a small ring, through which puckering strings led from the mouth of the net to a 25-foot line, which was to be fastened to the fisherman’s wrist.

For casting, about half of the net is thrown over each wrist and one of the sinkers held between the teeth. The net is then swung behind the fisherman, thrown forward with a whirling motion, the sinker in his mouth released at exactly the right instant and the net falls in an almost perfect circle wherever, within thirty feet, the fisherman wishes. That is the way the net behaved when Johnny threw it. And when Johnny arranged the net on Dick’s arms, told him just what to do and watched him, Dick made some respectable throws, and thought he had learned the game; but now, away from his teacher, when he tried to cast it, net and leads went out in a solid mass that never could have caught anything, though it might have killed a fish by knocking it in the head. Dick, however, was bound to learn, and practiced by the hour, without seeming to make any progress, when suddenly the net began to go out in circles and his casts became creditable. He was so fearful of losing his new-found facility that he practiced for the rest of that day, and lay down at night with what he called the toothache in every muscle.

But from that day fish was on the bill of fare of the young explorers.

When Ned’s hand was well enough to be used a little, he began by fishing, sitting in the bow of the canoe, with the fly-rod, while Dick paddled. He caught several of the big-mouthed black bass, often called in the South fresh-water trout, and other small fish which they saved for the pan. Then the line was carried out with a rush by a fish that twice jumped one or two feet in the air.

“Got a tarpon, sure,” said Ned, who had never taken one, and he became most anxious lest the fish escape.

For nearly half an hour he carefully played the fish, which never jumped again. When the tired fish was ready to be landed Ned found that his prize, instead of a tarpon, was a ten-pound fish which he did not recognize, but which he afterwards learned was a ravaille.

“Well, it was mighty good fun, almost as exciting as if it had been a tarpon,” said Ned, who didn’t know how foolishly he was talking.

They were down the river bright and early the following morning but, for the first hour, failed to hook any of the fish that struck. Then the hook was snatched and instantly a silver, twisting body shot ten feet up in the air. As it fell back in the water, the reel began to buzz and Ned’s fingers were burned where the line touched them. Again and again the great fish leaped high in the air, while the line ran low on the reel.

“Paddle, Dick, paddle all you know,” shouted Ned.

But Dick was already doing his very best. The tarpon changed his course, came back a little, leaped once more and again started off. But Ned had got a good many yards of line back on his reel, and was getting hopeful of landing his first tarpon. He was beginning to lose line again, when the tarpon turned around and, swimming straight for the canoe, leaped against Ned with such fury that the craft was nearly capsized, and when Ned had recovered from the shock his line was nearly out and the fish headed for a little creek that was almost overgrown with trees and vines. The first jump of the tarpon as he entered the stream carried him up among the bushes that hung over the water, but fortunately the line did not catch in the branches and, as the fish swam slowly up the little channel, the canoe was close behind him. Ned held the point of his rod low, that it might not catch in the bushes, but his heart was up in his mouth every time the tarpon sprang in the air.

“It’s no use, Dick, we’ve got to lose him. He isn’t a bit tired and the tangle is getting worse. Then if he turns back I won’t have room for the rod and you can’t turn the canoe.”

“Never say die, Ned. If he gets away from you, I’ll go overboard and pick him up.”

“The creek’s opening out into a big river, Dick. We may land him yet.”

The tarpon stayed in the big river, swimming a mile or so and then turning back, while Ned put all the strain he dared on rod and line and, excepting when the tarpon made a rush, Dick held his paddle still and let the fish tow the canoe by the line.

“We’ve got all the scales we want,” said Dick, “and I move we don’t gaff another tarpon. When we have tired this one so it’s through jumping, let’s turn it loose. We don’t need it to eat and I hate to feed sharks with such a beautiful creature.”

“Sure!” said Ned. “And if it is as tired as I am it will give in pretty soon or die.”

The tarpon grew weaker, his leaps lower and soon the canoe was held close to him, while Ned even laid his hands on the tired fish.

“Think we can take him aboard, Dick?”

“I think you can swamp the canoe and break the rod, all right.”

“I don’t mind swamping the canoe and we can take care of the rod. If you’ll take the rod now, I’ll hang on to his jaw and take out the hook, which I can see in the corner of his mouth. Then, if you will look out for the rod and balance the canoe, I’ll slide that tarpon over the gunwale

“And we will all go overboard together,” added Dick.

“No, we won’t, but just as soon as we have fairly caught him and got him in the canoe, we’ll slide him overboard again.”

Dick took the rod, Ned removed the hook from the mouth of the tarpon and hoisted its head over the gunwale. The canoe canted over until water poured over its side, and the attempt would have failed but for the tarpon which, with a blow of its tail, threw itself up in the air and fell on top of Ned, who had tumbled into the bottom of the canoe. The sight of Ned hugging the big fish, which was spanking his legs with its tail, was too much for Dick, who sat down on the gunwale of the canoe in a spasm of mirth, and of course the craft was capsized. Ned clung to the fish for a few seconds until his captive had bumped him with its head and slapped him with its tail a few times, when he was glad to let it go. He then joined Dick, who was holding the rod with one hand and clinging to the canoe with the other, as he swam to the bank.

On the way back to camp Dick had several fits of laughter that made him stop paddling for a minute at a time and caused Ned to say:

“It’s all right to laugh now, but that was my tarpon. I had him safe in the canoe and if you hadn’t tipped us all into the river I’d have hung on to him.”

“I’m awful sorry, Ned, but if only you could have seen yourself, you’d have had to laugh or bust. Besides, you had your fun. You caught your tarpon and you wouldn’t have done any more if you had lain in the bottom of the canoe and let it spank you all night.”