t half a biscuit
in his mouth and took a long drink of coffee. "I have been thinking
since; I have been on deck, and observed. There is wind, and we are
catching up. Off there," he pointed toward something the cabin walls
prevented us from seeing, "is land; low, gray-blue land. Now it can be
done with cattle, but can it be done with yachts?"

"Can what be done?" we asked.

"We shall sail out, head her back, and drive her into the land until she
sticks!"

Never having heard of such a silly idea I looked at Gates, who was
chuckling.

"Oh, it might be done, sir," he laughed, "if she stood close enough to
the islands. We might jockey her that way, foul her a bit, and make her
go aground--or fight. But, Lor' bless you, she's sailing straight west
across the Gulf, with nothing but a thousand miles of good water between
her and the mouth of the Rio Grande!"

"Get in front--butt her around," Monsieur cried. "If she does not like
it, then let her, as you suggest, fight!"

"Well, you've said something at last," Tommy grinned. "How about it,
Gates? And, by the way, what are those islands you spoke of? We're
looking for a certain

'----one of many, many islands
Set like emerald jewels in an ever changing sea.'"

Though with his sincerity there was also the bantering tone of the
unbeliever here.

"It's the Ponce de Leon Bay, sir, with the Ten Thousand Islands--and I'd
say there're all of ten thousand, or quite harf, anyway."

With his fork he quickly drew on the tablecloth a sketch of southwestern
Florida, outlining the waters northeast of Cape Sable and with little
jabs indicating the island area which extends up and down the coast, as
well as into Whitewater Bay. Gates was used to doing this kind of thing
and he did it well, with the result that we got a very clear idea of
what he meant. No one knew the exact number of islands, he said, because
they had never been charted. Government surveys had been considered
useless, in all probability; and, of private interests, there were none.
No boat, except perhaps at rare intervals a very small craft of
adventurous spirit, ever tried to enter--but, as to that, twenty small
boats might spend a month's playing in that maze and never meet. The
mainland, for many miles in all directions, was without habitation, and
these conditions had isolated this entire section as completely as
though it were in the heart of a South American jungle.

Difficult as it was to believe th