THE BOOK OF THE TARPON 



and bar, key and oyster reef, otter slide and alli- 

 gator bed. I had a personal acquaintance with 

 the feathered inhabitants and could have called 

 many of the animals by their first names, but 

 lacking the sailor instinct I should have bumped 

 every point of land between the mouth of Broad 

 River and Tussock Key where we anchored, if I 

 had tried to make the run in the dark. We left 

 Tussock at daylight the next morning with sails 

 furled and our auxiliary power in play. Our 

 course lay through narrow channels, over shallow 

 watercourses choked by eel and manatee grass, 

 past open meadows and blind leads that beckoned 

 us into little bayous that led nowhere. A small, 

 unpromising stream opened into a river three 

 hundred feet wide which narrowed for two miles 

 till its banks closed in on us. 



At the last moment an opening in the bushes 

 on our right disclosed a brook less than twenty 

 yards wide through which Everglade water came 

 tumbling in a torrent. Our motor could have 

 overcome its swiftness but the sudden turns were 

 too much for the rudder and we had to stand in 

 the bow with poles to help the Irene around the 

 corners and keep it off the banks. It was like 



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