"Wonderful!" Bess exclaimed.
The girls clapped and laughed, and Joe said he would have the flamingo put on an act next. When he spoke to the beautiful pink-legged bird, it went over to him and touched the Indian's lips.
"Thank you for my morning kiss," Joe said. "Now suppose you do your war dance."
The flamingo flapped its wings up and down furiously while running around the lawn. At one point the bird soared off and the girls were worried that it might not return. In a few moments it came back and strode about in a circle. Every few feet the bird jumped high into the air and landed neatly a few yards away. When the flamingo became tired of showing off, it walked back to Joe.
"That's great!" George exclaimed. "You must have a lot of patience to train these creatures."
The Indian said he loved animals and did not find it hard to work with any of them. "Now let's go over and call on Lord and Lady Charming," he added.
On the way Joe stopped at a large toolshed. He opened the door and the girls noticed a refrigerator inside. Joe took out a large chunk of meat that he wrapped in paper. He rejoined the girls and said to Nancy, "I want you to feed this to Lord Charming when I tell you."
"Is this breakfast or lunch?" George asked, grinning.
Joe smiled. "It's just a snack. Watch how fast it disappears!"
When they arrived at the concrete wall that surrounded the crocodile pen, he picked up a pole from the edge, then jumped over the fence and walked up to the reptile who was resting on the sand.
"Lady Charming," he said, "you'd better flip over and not give us any trouble."
He prodded her with the spiked pole until he was able to flip her over. Now she would take a few minutes to get back on her feet.
Lord Charming was lying in the water at one end of the pen, under the shade of the mangrove trees that hid the wall of the pen at this point. As Joe approached him, he said to the girls, "Notice his eyeteeth and see how they protrude below the gums? That's one way you can tell the difference between an alligator and a crocodile. The alligator's teeth are more even and do not show below the jaw when it's tightly closed."
He went on to say that Nancy was to throw the meat after he got the crocodile to open his jaws. She figured that from the angle where she stood, her aim would be poor, so she vaulted the fence and stood at the edge of the water.
Joe looked worried. "I wanted you to throw it over the fence!" he said. "But maybe Lord Charming will behave if you don't make a fuss."
He tossed a little stone, which hit the crocodile lightly on the snout. At once his jaws opened. Instantly Nancy threw the chunk of beef. Her aim was perfect and the meat disappeared within a second.
Nancy was so fascinated as she watched the reptile that she failed to retreat. Suddenly the crocodile moved its great tail. In a moment it would hit Nancy hard and injure her!
"Look out!" George shouted.
CHAPTER IXHurricane Legend
With a leap Nancy cleared the top of the concrete wall surrounding the crocodile pen. She avoided the swishing tail by inches!
Joe shouted at the reptile in the Seminole language and prodded him with his heavy wooden pole. Finally the creature became quiet and the Indian hurried out of the pen.
Nancy jumped to the ground, still trembling slightly. She looked over the wall and said, "Lord Charming, your manners are pretty bad. That was no way to thank me for the meat."
Joe grinned. "Crocodiles aren't house pets, you know. I'm glad nothing happened."
Bess spoke up. "You almost gave me a heart attack, Nancy. I'm sure I would have been too terrified to jump over that wall."
George chuckled. "I'll bet you would have. But then, I doubt that you'd have gone into the pit in the first place."
Joe stood shaking his head. "You're some girl," he said to Nancy.
She smiled, then changed the subject. "Just before I threw that chunk of meat, I saw a man peering at me from among the trees. He didn't look one bit friendly."
"That's strange," Joe said. "The only other person who works here is Eric, and he's not around this morning."
"It wasn't Eric," Nancy said, "We met him the Other day."
"What did this guy look like?" George asked.
"He had long black hair, small eyes, and looked like an Indian," Nancy whispered, not wishing to hurt Joe's feelings.
"I'll search for him," Danny offered and ran in the direction Nancy had indicated.
Joe joined in the hunt, but both of them returned a little while later without having seen the stranger.
"I noticed footprints along the shore," Danny reported. "They led toward the water. Whoever the man was, he wore a small-sized shoe with a rippled sole. When I reached the spot where the prints stopped, I saw a man in a small motorboat too far away to recognize. If he was the fellow who was watching us, Nancy, he's gone."
Joe promised to look out for the stranger in case he should return, then the young people thanked him for the tour of the zoo and went home. After a quick lunch, they set out in the skiff for Crocodile Island.
"Do you think that man was spying on us this morning?" Bess asked while they were gliding along in the water.
"Maybe he was a sneak thief who was trying to make off with something from the estate," Danny suggested. "When he saw us, he ran."
"It's possible," Nancy agreed. "But it's more likely that Bess is right. He could have followed us from your house to see what we were doing."
George looked behind them. "No one is following us now. Let's stop worrying about him."
The young people once again passed the stilts with cottages built on top of them, and it occurred to Nancy that they might pick up a clue to Crocodile Island from one of the inhabitants.
"After all, they live close to the place," she said. "Danny, do you think we might stop and call on the owners?
"Why not?" he replied, and paused at each, cottage. He received no answer to his "Hello? Anybody home?" Finally he laughed. "There aren't any boats tied up at the posts. Obviously no one is here."
As they passed a group of posts with nothing on them, Bess shivered "Every time I think about a cottage being blown away in a hurricane, I worry about whether people were in it or not."
"I never heard of any," Danny said. "But did you know that crocodiles were blown here by hurricanes?"
The girls laughed and George said, "Don't kid us!"
"I'm not kidding," Danny replied. "The story comes from the Indians. They say that when the Seminoles arrived here many, many years ago, there were plenty of alligators, but no crocodiles. Then, after a terrific hurricane, crocodiles were seen along the shore of Key Biscayne."
Nancy, curious, asked, "Where did the crocodiles come from?
"Supposedly from Cuba," Danny answered. "But they might even have traveled all the way from Africa."
"Oh, yes?" George said. "If I see that in a science book I'll believe it, but not from hearsay."
"Well, they got here somehow," Danny defended himself. "And certainly no one brought them. You figure it out."
He sent his boat past the houses on stilts. The Pirate had not gone far when he pointed out an uninhabited key. "That's a good picnic spot," he said. "Friends of mine and I sometimes come here."
George asked if he could go closer. "I see a green bottle floating toward shore. Let's pick it up!"
Bess saw a good chance to tease her cousin. She rarely got the opportunity. "Are you collecting old bottles?" she asked. "From here that doesn't look very valuable."
"Possibly not," George retorted, "but it's corked. Maybe there's something valuable inside."
When Danny reached the spot, George got down from her chair, leaned over the gunwale, and grabbed the bottle out of the water. It was dark green and had no markings. She tried to uncork it, but at first the stopper would not budge.