The distance from the mainland to the island of Catalina is only about twenty miles, and the steamer from San Pedro makes the trip in something like two hours and a half.
At ten o'clock in the morning Clancy and Hill went aboard, at ten-fifteen the boat got under way, and promptly at ten-seventeen Hiram became seasick. There wasn't anything halfway about it, either, he was sick all through and all over. For an hour he was afraid he was going to die, and for an hour and a half he was afraid he wasn't.
Clancy was so busy with Hill that he had no time to enjoy the trip. As soon as the boat tied up at the Avalon pier and the gangplank was run out, Hill galloped ashore and sank down on the dock with a groan of thanksgiving. Clancy hurried after him, picked him up. and supported him to solid earth.
"I thought you were a better sailor than that, Hiram," chuckled Clancy.
"Me—a sailor?" whimpered Hill. "Say, it always makes my stomach do a hornpipe just to look at a picture of the sea. I can't cross a creek on a bridge without getting separated from my last meal. Darn it! This is why I wanted to find my lost dad in San Diego—I could go there by land. Clancy, I'm goin' to stay on this island, and live and die here. I won't never go back. Let's find a restaurant somewhere and fill up, I never was so empty in all my life."
Finding a restaurant was not difficult, for the little town was full of them. A rattling good fish dinner put Hill in a pleasanter mood, so that his wretchedness of the morning survived as only a faint and far-off memory.
Señor Jack Lopez had a curio store on the main street of the town. The investigators were directed to his place of business, but to their disappointment, Lopez was away on the other side of the island and would not be back until evening. As they came out of the curio store, a man approached them and sounded the praises of the glass-bottom boats.
"Ugh!" said Hiram, trying to get away, "no boats for mine!"
"But you don't want to leave the island without seeing the marine gardens!" exclaimed the man.
"There are enough gardens on shore to do me," answered Hill.
"My friend is afraid he'll get seasick," observed Clancy, with a wink.
"You can't get seasick in one o' my boats any more'n you could on land," averred the runner. "We jest go out around by the Sugarloaf—we're close inshore all the time."
"It's makin' me feel faint just to talk about it," said Hill. "Come on, Clancy!"
He caught the motor wizard's arm and tried to drag him off. Clancy, however, held back.
"I've heard a lot about these glass-bottom boats," said he, "and I'll have to take a trip in one. If you don't want to go, Hiram, you can sit on the dock and wait till I come back."
"No; you don't!" growled Hiram. "You and me don't get separated this trip, if I can help it. If you're going, Clancy, I'll go, too, even if it kills me."
"You won't be the least mite sick, friend," the runner insisted. "If you are, I'll give up your fare."
"That won't be a patchin' to what I'll give up—if you have to give up my fare," commented Hill. "I only hope I don't step so hard on the glass bottom that 1 go through."
"You can't do that," the man laughed. "This way, gents "
He led them out on a pier and down a flight of steps to a float alongside of which a boat was moored. The boat was a flat-bottom affair, rigged with a canopy top, and having seats along the sides.
Extending down the middle of the craft was something which looked like a long box, open at the top. The lower side of the box was covered with glass. Passengers on the seats could look into the box, through the glass bottom, and see objects on the ocean's bed with wonderful clearness. A man up near the prow did the rowing.
"I claim," said the runner, "that this here's the only kind of a boat to use in seein' the marine gardens. We can go places in these little boats that they can't get to in the big ones."
That must have been a particularly slack day for the glass-bottom boats, for Clancy and Hill were the only passengers on this particular craft.
"I reckon that's all, Ike," said the man who had brought the two youths to the boat: "let 'er go!"
Ike proceeded to use the oars, and, while the boat rounded the end of the pier, Hiram hung to his seat with both hands, and looked wildly and expectantly at Clancy.
"Beginnin' to feel squeamish," mumbled Hiram.
"Don't think about it," returned the motor wizard. "Look down at the marine gardens, Hiram."