h flashed in sight for a moment. A line of great swirls,
like those made by the propeller of a steamboat, led out in the bay
and marked the course of the fleeing creature. Ned and Dick forgot
that they were tired, and paddled furiously on the trail until they
reached the end of it. Another line of swirls showed where the
creature had gone, and once more they followed him. Again and again
they were led on until they had traveled a couple of miles, when
they lost the trail completely. While they were trying to find it
Dick saw the head of the thing lifted for an instant, some two
hundred yards away, at the mouth of a little cove. When they reached
the cove they found the water clear and deep, and while drifting
quietly on its surface they saw resting on the bottom near them a
curious creature about ten feet long, with flippers like a seal and
a big, powerful tail set crosswise like that of a dolphin.

"I know what that is," said Ned excitedly. "I've been reading about
the fauna of Florida lately, and this isn't a fish. It's a very rare
mammal, a manatee, or sea-cow. It's perfectly harmless. I wonder if
we could catch it. Let's try it. I'll fix a lasso and throw it over
the manatee's head when it comes up to breathe."

"S'pose you get your rope over its head, what will happen next to
the canoe--and to us?"

"That's what I want to find out. Please paddle a little nearer very
quietly. He is beginning to rise," said Ned, who had made a noose in
the end of a harpoon line and was standing in the bow of the canoe,
ready to throw it the instant the creature's nose reached the
surface.

"I see our finish," said Dick as he held his paddle ready to steady
the canoe, which was already endangered by Ned's standing up in it.
The next instant the manatee came to the surface, and as the
creature lifted its head Ned threw his lasso over it. An upward
stroke of the big tail of the manatee sent a column of water in the
air which half filled the canoe and nearly capsized it, in spite of
Dick's best efforts. When the commotion subsided Ned had
disappeared. Dick looked wildly over the surface and then into the
water, and was just going overboard to search the bottom when Ned's
head appeared on the surface. At first the boy seemed confused and
swam away from the canoe, but turned when Dick called to him. The
canoe was half full of water, and as it would have been difficult
for Ned to get aboard without capsizing it, he swam to the nearest