argo, or the small merchant who takes a few boxes of pines,
oranges, grape-fruit, or tomatoes, to the housewife who wants a
watermelon or a bunch of bananas. On the day following their arrival
at Key West Captain Wilson handed Dick a roll of bills containing a
hundred dollars, saying to him:

"That's about your share in the cruise, Dick. The sponge hasn't been
sold yet, but you are in a hurry to get off and I reckon that's
about right."

Dick was dazed as he took the roll, but a moment later he handed it
back to the captain, saying:

"I can't take that, Captain Wilson. It is ten times as much as I
have earned. You took me on as a boy and I want you to pay me just
what you would have paid any other boy."

"Put that money in your pocket, Dick. You've done a man's work and
now you've got a man's pay and that's all there is to it. Lucky for
you, though, that the weather was good at the Lake. If it hadn't
been you wouldn't have got anything but your board. Now come ashore
and we'll hunt up a boat for Marco or Chokoloskee."

They stopped at an auction room in Key West for a minute, when
Captain Wilson sang out to a boy who was passing:

"Hi, Johnny! Where's the _Etta_?"

"Same old place, off the end of the dock."

"Thought yesterday was your sailing day."

"So it was, but Cap'n's in the calaboose. Got drunk yest'd'y and
had a fight. I got ter raise th' cash ter git him out."

"Why don't the boss bounce him? He's drunk most of the time."

"Boss says Cap'n Tom's a better sailor when he's drunk than any of
th' others when they're sober."

"Well, I'll get Tom out of limbo for you and charge it to the boss.
Only you must take this friend of mine with you to Chokoloskee."

"Sure! What's his name?"

"Name's Dick. Can you make an alligator-hunter of him?"

"Reckon I kin, or kill him tryin'."

CHAPTER IV

CAUGHT IN A WATERSPOUT

The next morning the _Etta_, with Dick on board, started for
Chokoloskee. The weather was bad, with a succession of squalls from
the southwest, and the captain kept in the lee of the line of keys
instead of taking the straight course across the Gulf. But he
carried all sail till the rotten main-sheet parted at the boom, and
when he came up in the wind to lower the sail the main throat
halyard refused to unreeve. Before an order was given Dick was half
way up the mast and soon came riding down to the deck on the gaff.
When reefs had been taken in the sails, the sheet replaced, an