Milo had unlocked the boat-house, and was at work over a
fifteen-foot steel motorboat which was slung on chains above
the water. A winch and well-constructed pulleys-and-chains
made simple the labor of launching it in so quiet a sea.

Out they fared into the gleaming sunlit waters of the bay.
Far to eastward gleamed the white city of Miami, and nearer,
across the bay from it the emerald stretch of key with Cape
Florida and the old Spanish Light on its southern point and
the exquisite "golden house" of Mashta shining midway down its
shoreline. Miles to eastward gleamed the gray viaduct, the
grain elevator outlines of the Flamingo rising yellow above a
fire-blue sea.

"I used to hear great stories about this region years ago,"
volunteered Brice as the launch danced over the transparent
water past Ragged Keys and bore southward. "I heard them from
a chap who used to winter hereabouts. It was he who first
interested me in Florida. He says these keys and inlets and
changing channels used to be the haunts of Spanish Main
pirates."

"They were," said Milo. "The pirates knew these waters. The
average merchant skipper didn't. They'd build signal flares
on the keys to lure ships onto the rocks, and then loot them.
At least that was the everyday (or everynight) amusement of
their less venturesome members and their women and children.
The more adventurous used to overhaul vessels skirting the
coast to and from Cuba and Central America. They'd sally out
from their hiding-places among the keys and lie in wait for