Chapter I: Preface

Dick in the Everglades is a true story. All that imagination had to do with it was to find names for the boys and arrange a sequence of events. Other characters, white and Indian, appear under names similar to, or identical with their own. Any old alligator hunter, familiar with the swamps and the Ten Thousand Islands, can follow the course of the explorers from the text of the story. It would be possible for two fearless boys, imbued with a love of Nature and the wilderness, to repeat, incident by incident, the feats of the explorers in the identical places mentioned in the story.

Many of the stories are understatements, seldom is one exaggerated. I have been asked if it were possible for a boy to handle a manatee in the water as one of the boys was represented as doing. I have done it myself three times with manatees three times the size of these in the story. In the story the manatees escaped. Two of those which I captured were sent to the New York Aquarium, where one of them lived for twenty months. The crocodiles which the boys sent to the Zoological Park may be seen to-day, alive and well in the reptile house. The frequent swamping of canoes and skiffs by porpoises, or dolphins, tarpon and manatees are all experiences of my own.

Aside from the Government charts which give the coast line only, the existing maps of the scene of the story are worse than useless. In them a hundred square miles are given to Ponce de Leon Bay, which doesn't exist, unless the little depression in the coast which is called Shark River Bight is accounted a bay. Rivers are omitted; one with a mouth fifty feet wide is represented as a mile broad. A little stream four miles long is sent wandering over a hundred and forty miles of imaginary territory. I have sailed and paddled for days at a time over the watercourses of South Florida, with a compass before me and a pad at hand on which every change of course was noted and distances estimated, and although no attempt at accurate charting has ever been made, I am quite sure that none of the natural features or products of the country traversed by the young explorers have been misrepresented in the book.

The pictures are from photographs taken on the scene of the incidents they illustrate. They show more conclusively than can any words of mine, how beautiful is the region traversed by the boy explorers and what interesting and exciting adventures they enjoyed.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I THE CHUMS

II DICK GOES TO SEA

III LIFE ON A SPONGER

IV CAUGHT IN A WATERSPOUT

V OUTFITTING FOR THE HUNT

VI DICK'S HUNT FOR HIS CHUM

VII THE MEETING IN THE GLADES

VIII OLD DREAMS REALIZED

IX THE CAPTURE OF THE MANATEE

X HARPOONING FROM A CANOE

XI GHOSTS AND ALLIGATORS

XII HUNTING IN HARNEY'S RIVER

XIII EDUCATING AN ALLIGATOR

XIV ENCOUNTER WITH OUTLAWS

XV DICK AND THE BEAR

XVI IN THE CROCODILE COUNTRY

XVII AMONG THE SEMINOLES

XVIII DICK'S WILDCAT AND OTHER WILD THINGS

XIX A PRAIRIE ON FIRE

XX DICK'S FIGHT WITH A PANTHER

XXI CONVALESCENCE AND CATASTROPHE

XXII THE RESCUE

XXIII MOLLY AND THE MANATEE

XXIV TO THE GLADES IN THE "IRENE"

XXV IN FLORIDA BAY

XXVI MADEIRA HAMMOCK AND--THE END

ILLUSTRATIONS

"THERE GOES YOUR PET. THAT'S THE LAST OF HIM,"

"DICK HUNTED ALL THE TURTLES HE SAW"

"A SILVERY, TWISTING BODY SHOT TEN FEET IN THE AIR"

"THE EVERGLADES AT LAST"

"WE'VE GOTTER HAVE ONE OF THEM YOUNG TURKS IF IT TAKES ALL NIGHT"

"THE SEMINOLE WAS STANDING IN HIS CANOE, LOOKING FIXEDLY AT US"

"HE FOUND DICK STANDING IN WATER SHOULDER DEEP, HANGING ON TO THE FLIPPER OF THE MANATEE"

"THE STRICKEN TARPON LEAPED SIX FEET IN THE AIR"

"THE TARPON BEGAN A SERIES OF LEAPS"

"GROUPS OF TALL PALMETTOES, OR MAGNIFICENT TALL PALMS"

"HE HELD THE JAWS OF THE 'GATOR SHUT WHILE DICK SEIZED THE HIND LEGS OF THE REPTILE"

"THE TARPON LEAPED AGAINST NED WITH FURY"

"OUT CAME THE REPTILE'S HEAD FROM THE CAVE"

"SEE THE BABY 'GATOR SIT UP, NED!"

"A FEW OF THE HOMELESS BEES LIT ON THE COMB"

"ALL BEYOND THE DARK MEADOW WAS A LIVID MASS"

"THE BARB CAUGHT IN THE REPTILE'S LOWER JAW"

"THE COON SCRAMBLED TO THE TOP OF A LITTLE TREE"

"HE SAW THE GENTLY SWAYING HEAD AND THE LIGHTNING PLAY OF THE FORKED TONGUE"

"NED FOUND A GOOD CAMPING SITE MARKED BY A FREAK PALMETTO"

"THE LYNX SPRANG INTO THE CANOE AND SEIZED ONE OF THE FISH"

"PORPOISES ROLLED THEIR BACKS OUT OF THE WATER"

"THE HARD, POINTED HEAD OF THE BIG TARPON TORE THROUGH THE BOTTOM OF THE FRAGILE CANOE"

"THE INDIGNANT BIRD PUNCHED HOLES THROUGH HIS HAT"

"THE LIGHT FROM THE BULL'S-EYE SHOWED THE HEAD AND BODY OF THE REPTILE"

"SLOWLY LIFTING HIS HUGE HEAD OVER THE SIDE OF THE SKIFF"

"YOUNG HERONS SPREAD WINGS AND STRETCHED LONG LEGS AS THEY FLED"

"THEY SAW A CROCODILE SWIMMING UNDER WATER NEAR THEM"

"THE HARPOON STRUCK THE FISH IN THE MIDDLE OF HIS BROAD BACK"

"SIXTEEN FEET OF FIERCENESS LAY STRANDED ON THE BANK"

"THEY HAULED THE HEAD OF THE BRUTE OVER THE SIDE OF THE BOAT"

"HE TOOK THE BABY CROCODILE IN HIS ARMS"

DICK IN THE EVERGLADES

DICK IN THE EVERGLADES