T.C. Bridges

The Golden Key

Warsaw 2019

Contents

CHAPTER I. THE SHARK

CHAPTER II. CRAY ON THE JOB

CHAPTER III. THE ISLAND

CHAPTER IV. HIDDEN BAY

CHAPTER V. A DOLLAR A MINUTE

CHAPTER VI. UP AGAINST IT!

CHAPTER VII. THE WHITE FLAG

CHAPTER VIII. THE MUD PIT

CHAPTER IX. THE BOGEY-MAN

CHAPTER X. WHEN THE ROCKS FELL

CHAPTER XI. BARRACUDA!

CHAPTER XII. THE BATTLE ON THE BEACH

CHAPTER XIII. THE MYSTERY OF THE PAPER PACKET

CHAPTER XIV. THE RED FLARE

CHAPTER XV. TRAPPED!

CHAPTER XVI. IN THE DARK

CHAPTER XVII. RAIDED!

CHAPTER XVIII. THE WARNING

CHAPTER XIX. A LUCKY FIND

CHAPTER XX. CHASED!

CHAPTER XXI. DISASTER!

CHAPTER XXII. CRAY'S THREAT

CHAPTER XXIII. AT BAY

CHAPTER XXIV. TERMS

CHAPTER XXV. THE FILE

CHAPTER XXVI. THE TUNNEL

CHAPTER XXVII. BACK TO THE SALT WATER

CHAPTER XXVIII. THE GOPHER.THE GOPHER

CHAPTER XXIX. A RUDE AWAKENING

CHAPTER XXX. DUDLEY DOUBLES BACK

CHAPTER XXXI. AN AWKWARD SITUATION

CHAPTER XXXII. THE SWIM

CHAPTER XXXIII. ONE MYSTERY SOLVED

CHAPTER XXXIV. THE GLIMMERING LIGHT

CHAPTER XXXV. THE HIDDEN REFUGE

CHAPTER XXXVI. PREPARATIONS

CHAPTER XXXVII. THE EXPLOSION—AND WHAT FOLLOWED

CHAPTER XXXVIII. THE DUMMY

CHAPTER XXXIX. "WE'RE TOO LATE!"

CHAPTER XL. SHORT RATIONS

CHAPTER XLI. THE WRECK

CHAPTER XLII. SAFE AND SOUND!

CHAPTER I. THE SHARK

“NOTHING but catfish!” growled Dick Daunt, as he jerked the hook out of the mouth of another of the black, slimy, hideous-looking fish, and, knocking its head against the gunwale, flung it overboard.

“Say, I guess that must be about the forty-seventh you’ve caught, Dick,” responded the other occupant of the boat–a lean young American, with a face as clean-cut as a Red Indian’s, and a complexion so burnt by wind and sun that it resembled well- tanned saddle-leather. “Ain’t it about time we got the hook up and shifted?”

“What’s the use?” retorted Dick, whose rather thin face bore an expression of weariness and disgust such as Dudley Drew had rarely seen upon his partner’s features. “It’s the same everywhere else in this beastly creek. The only thing is to get out to sea and try for sheep’s head or crevalle.”

Drew looked doubtful.

“I reckon we’ll have to pull a mighty long way,” he answered. “There isn’t a mite of wind.”

“Oh. I’ll pull!” said Dick. “We’ve simply got to have some fish for supper. ‘Pon my Sam, I can’t look a tin of bully-beef in the face any longer!”

Drew’s reply was to begin pulling up the anchor.

As soon as he got it home the tide took hold of the clumsy boat and began to set her up on the creek. Dick got a grip of the oars, and, turning her, set to pulling the other way.

The water was like brown glass and although it was late October, the sun beat down mercilessly. If there was any breeze, the lofty walls of cypress and cabbage-palmetto which rose on either side cut it off. Perspiration streamed down Dick’s face as he wielded the heavy oars.

Dudley shifted up on to the thwart behind him.

“You give me one of ‘em,” he said quietly; and though Dick objected, he insisted. Under the double drive the boat moved much more rapidly.

Presently the creek widened, and the trees grew thinner. A number of them, torn from their roots or broken short off, lay in the water.

“Say, but that hurricane has played thunder down here!” observed Dudley.

“I wouldn’t have minded that if it had left our place alone,” said Dick Daunt bitterly. “It makes me fairly sick to look at the wreck it’s made of everything! I was round again this morning and counted. There are only thirty-seven cocoa-palms left out of the whole three hundred; and as for the orange-trees, it will be all of three years before we get a crop again.”

“It’s pretty bad,” assented the other gravely.

“What I want to know,” continued Dick, “is what we are going to do about it? You know jolly well, Dudley, that it will cost us a matter of three hundred dollars to replant and put things to rights. Then we’ve got to live for the next three years until we get a crop. And we haven’t more than sixty dollars between us. What’s to be done?”

“I reckon that’s just what I’ve been saying to myself ever since the day it happened, Dick. We’re up against it. That’s a sure thing.”

“But see here,” he continued, “this isn’t any time to be chewing the rag. After supper we’ll have it out, and if you’ve a mind to let go and set to some fresh job–why, I’m not going to do any kicking.”

Dick was silent. He realised that Dudley was right. Also he felt somewhat ashamed. It was true that he had put money into the neat little place which lay near the shore of Lemon Bay, but it was Dudley who had made it. Four years’ hard work under the tropic sun the young American had put into the place. He, Dick, had only been on it a year. He knew how Dudley loved it, and fully realised what a wrench it would be for him to give it up. What business had he got to grouse when Dudley took it all so quietly?

By this time the boat had crossed the bar, and was out on the placid surface of Lemon Bay There was hardly a ripple on the mirror-like blue. It was difficult to believe that only four days earlier this same pond-like sea had been thundering on the white beach in breakers as high as houses, while the foam-flakes had been driven hundreds of yards inland through the forest.

A sudden tremendous splash made him start, and he was just in time to see something resembling a six-foot bar of silver rise out of the sea, hang poised an instant in mid-air, and disappear again with a sullen plunge.

“Tarpon!” he shouted. “Great luck, Dudley! Mullet must be in the bay.”

“That’s so!” replied Dudley quietly. “I guess we’ll anchor right here and try our luck.”

He flung over the anchor, and the boat swung to it with her bow pointing seawards.

Her crew hastily baited the hand-lines and flung them out; and inside two minutes were pulling in bright-scaled mullet as fast as they could handle the lines. The fish averaged about a pound in weight, and were in splendid condition.

The shining pile grew rapidly.

“We’ll have plenty to take over to Port Lemon,” said Dick. “Old Ladd, the storekeeper, ought to give us a good trade in exchange for these.”

At this moment there came a tremendous jerk at Dudley’s line. He pulled hard; then, all of a sudden, the line went slack, and when he hauled it in hook, snood, and all were gone.

“Blame the luck!” he exclaimed, in a tone of deep annoyance. “It’s a shark! I guess that’s finished our sport this journey.”

“No; by Jove, I’m not going to stick that!” returned Dick emphatically. “The shark-line’s aboard, and if we bait with one of the bigger fish the chances are we’ll have the beggar!”

“And be towed all around the bay!” returned Dudley drily.

“Never mind! The mullet will come again. Besides, I want a shark. We’re in need of some oil for our boots and harness.”

As he spoke he was baiting a thing the size of a meat-hook. There was three foot of steel chain attached to it, and to that again a long coil of stout line.

In a minute or two all was ready, and he threw it out. Dudley had got in his mullet-line. It is no use fishing when sharks are about.

Five minutes or more passed slowly; then the shark-line began to move slowly and jerkily over the gunwale. Dick watched the line with eager eyes. Dudley was quietly raising the anchor.

Foot by foot it stole away, then suddenly began to run out rapidly. Dick, who had risen to his feet, got tight hold of the line with both hands and gave a fierce jerk.

“Got him!” he roared triumphantly, and, springing forward, made the line fast with a couple of turns around a cleat in the bow.

Instantly the line was taut as a fiddle-string, and the boat, pulled by the unseen monster below, began to forge rapidly ahead.

“A big one!” said Dudley briefly, as he slipped into the stern sheets and took the tiller.

The pace of the boat increased. She was heading straight out to sea. A great black triangular fin showed up on the surface and went cutting through the water at a furious rate.

For nearly half an hour this went on, and still the great brute showed no signs of tiring. Dudley glanced back towards the shore, now quite three miles away.

“Looks like we were bound for Cuba,” he observed, in his dry way.

Almost as he spoke the shark turned southwards, parallel with the coast.

“Don’t worry!” Dick replied. “He’s going to give us a free ride to Port Lemon.”

Another ten minutes and the pace slackened perceptible. Dick began to haul on the line; but this started his shark-ship up afresh, and he spurted hard for nearly a mile.

Then he slacked up again.

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