The mate, crouched below, tried his new steering device as Gates sang up an order, and swore a jovial oath at the ease with which the Whim responded. Within his reach was an automatic, and he looked the very picture of contentment.

Along the side of my rifle barrel now resting in the crease I took a good look at the Orchid sailing with apparent unconcern but a short way out from us, but I could picture the activity and hatred seething below her deck. I wondered what Sylvia might be thinking about all this; if she associated our pursuit by the slightest imaginative thread with a fellow who impolitely stared at her in a Havana cafe, yet to whom she had been willing to cry: "I am in danger!" Presumptuous fallacy! Then other thoughts began to race through my brain. Now that we were face to face with action, how were we going to come out? Had I a right to imperil those who were sailing with me? Was it not my duty, even at this eleventh hour, to order the Whim back?

I turned to Tommy, saying:

"You didn't ship for this kind of thing, old man. If anything happens to you I'll feel like the devil."

"So'll I," he grinned. "Don't bother about how you'll feel if anything happens to me; keep those regrets for the moment a hot pill investigates your own honorable insides, Mr. Jackass! I wouldn't miss this party for a million dollar bill. Settle down, now. Gates is pointing closer." Then, peeping along his rifle, he crooned one of our regimental paraphrases: "Stick your head up, Fritzy-Fritz, while I plug you in the gizzard," adding: "I don't see anyone at their wheel!"

I took another squint and, just as he had said, their deck was deserted—not a man in sight.

"What d'you make of it?" I asked.

"Get down," he warned. "Don't forget that anyone who could center our searchlight, as some crafty boy did last night, won't have much trouble peeling a scalp at three hundred yards! They've probably made a steering rig like ours, that's all. The first thing we know bally hell will spit out of those portholes, if my guess counts! Beats a trench raid, doesn't it, old man?"

"All hollow," I agreed. "We've got 'em this trip!"

"We have unless they carry a ten-pounder—in which case we'll take a bath. Freeze close, buddie!"

Nearer and nearer we drew, but no bally hell came from her. She showed absolutely no sign of anyone, not even a pile of canvas or a box that might hide a sharp-shooter. That, then, was the old counterfeiter's ruse: to tempt us into taking the initiative when, more than likely, he was ready with the probable ten-pounder to sink us. Still, it felt rather snug to be lying there elbow to elbow with Tommy.

Gates had steered so close by this time that any skipper on the other yacht, not endowed with stupendous nerve, would certainly have gone about; for we had maneuvered to get the right of way, and a collision would have been entirely the Orchid's fault. But no one ran out, nor did her course change, and at the very last minute Gates called an order that brought us off a few points.

We were now sailing parallel, not more than ten fathoms apart, and could have thrown a biscuit on her deck. I glanced out the corner of my eye at Tommy. His cheek rested snugly against the stock of his rifle and his finger stroked the trigger, I thought affectionately.

Had either of us been more conversant with nautical matters we would have noticed something that Gates now came crawling up to tell us. He did this without being much exposed, by creeping along until abreast of us and then projecting himself, headfirst or any other way, into our midst. It was an active accomplishment for one of Gates's years.

"D'you see what they've done?" he excitedly asked. "That wheel, there, is lashed over; they've paid out the mains'l enough to starboard, and set the jib properly to port. That's why the fores'l isn't up!"

"What of it?"

"Why, sir, she'll sail that way all day in a wind like this, and nobody have to touch her! They knew we'd be popping at their helmsman, and they fixed it so we carn't! Now it's our turn to start something!"

"Then start it," Tommy said. "Run alongside and we'll climb over!"

"Mr. Thomas," he demurred, "that's rank piracy, unless we're the law. I wouldn't say no, understand, if there warn't some other way. But if we try it they'll have every right to shoot us down—which they can easy do, being hid and ready!"

"You forget, Gates, they haven't a right on earth. They don't want to face the law with the best justification ever known—they'd be mortally afraid to!"

"Then they wouldn't be any less particular about shooting us," the old skipper replied.

There was no denying that Tommy had impaled himself upon his own point; not that he cared a hang whether they began shooting or not, but the anxiety of Gates caused him to temporize, and he said:

"Bluff it! Sing across that we're the U. S. A. ordering 'em to stop. Say it strong enough to make us believe it, too, Gates—so we'll feel self-righteous when the scrap comes!"

Gates grinned and, cupping his hands, shouted:

"Orchid, ahoy! This yacht's chartered by the U. S. Secret Service, and you're ordered to come about! Delay one minute and we blow you out of the water!"

"Accomplished old liar," Tommy chuckled. "See anything?"

Gates, so earnest was he in this role of Uncle Sam, had his watch out, marking off the seconds. When the sixtieth had ticked he called again, in a more ferocious tone:

"Time's up, but I'll give you harf a minute longer! This is the larst word!"

"Now," said Tommy, having waited the thirty seconds which brought no response, "let's see you make good! Will you fire a torpedo, or one of the fifteen-inch guns?"

But Gates was seeing no humor in the situation; neither was I; neither was Tommy, if the truth were known. Our position was in a sense desperate. We had bluffed and the bluff had been called. Five minutes ago we might have turned back, but such a course now would make us laughing-stocks even to ourselves. And there was Sylvia. What sort of a quitter would she think me!

I saw that someone had to board that yacht, even though such a course, almost to a certainty, meant a test of the professor's surgical skill—a skill we knew he possessed along with his other attainments. But I could not—I simply would not—risk any of our fellows on an undertaking so hazardous. Conscious, however, of Tommy's utter pig-headedness I saw the futility of merely asking him to stay behind; so my mind became instantly made up and, turning to Gates, I sharply asked:

"Who commands here?"

"Why, I'm the captain, sir," he answered, surprised at my tone.

"But whose orders are absolute?"

"Yours, Mr. Jack, sir."

"Then take this man below and keep him there while you run your rail alongside the Orchid. Nobody follows me until I call, or shoot. Be lively, Captain!"

He looked his horror, but stiffly saluted, saying "Come" to Tommy who had turned white with anger and murderously glared at me.

"Do you mean this dirty trick?" he asked, and I did not meet his eyes when admitting it.

In a few minutes he and Gates were safely in the cabin—Gates having dived nimbly out of our canvas fort; while Tommy, oozing rage, had walked erect, shaking his fist at the Orchid and calling me pretty much every kind of a lizard that crawls the earth.

Perhaps the mad that this aroused was good for me. I had charged into an enemy's face once or twice under a certain amount of unpleasant fire and most uncomfortable sensations. A fellow's savoir faire is far from being faultless on such occasions, but if he's mad—damn mad—he gets along rather well, and Tommy's insulting words turned the trick for me.

We had luffed a bit to let the Orchid draw out ahead, and now all I seemed to see was her slowly nearing rail; twenty feet away, fifteen, ten. My rifle had been laid aside, and I felt to see that my automatic was snugly nested in its holster. Five feet, four, three—we were about to touch! With a bound I cleared my shelter just as the rails were within spanning distance, and vaulted over.



CHAPTER XI

A STRANGE FIND

My feet had no more than touched the new deck when I became electrified with a glorious feeling of possession, of mastery. Immediately I seemed to know just what to do, where to go; and my first move was another headlong rush at the companionway door, bursting it in with a kick and springing quickly aside—ready, listening; being for the time shielded from a fusillade of expected shots. And, because these were not forthcoming, I felt momentarily confused.

Yet in times of white hot action it is impulse that succeeds. This door ahead of me was the only way below, except perhaps a hatch, offering greater danger, somewhere forward; it was the only way, therefore, through which Sylvia might be brought up to safety. She was now below, and I would reach her if it were my last journey! Three bounds down the stairs took me into the cabin, my pistol forward, my nerves on hair-trigger, ready for anything that moved.

Silence!—that sickish silence which permeates places of death! No human sound could be detected—no sound of any kind, except an uncanny creaking beneath the floor where the old masts rested in their steps, and a gentle swish of water outside the hull.

There were two doors from the cabin, each opening into a separate, though parallel, passageway that doubtless led forward to about the same general arrangements we had on the Whim—one past three staterooms, through a galley and into the sailors' quarters; the other, also past a stateroom or two, but opening to the ice-box room and galley. Both of these doors now swung slightly ajar, at a suspicious angle that almost without doubt told me where the men were crouched, and this rendered my position so inexcusably exposed that swift and vigorous action was the only choice. With finger tightening on the trigger I dashed at the nearer of these, giving it a kick that sent it banging against the wall. The passageway was empty, and thus encouraged I rushed the other door. Here, again, no foe had lain in ambush.

I was crouched now, sheltered by a strip of paneled wall between the two doorways. The staterooms on one side must come next, and after them the galley, with the forecastle beyond, and even beyond this, perhaps, some kind of a cuddy.

Where the men were hiding God only knew, but hiding they were with cocked weapons, firmly gripped knives at some point of vantage that had been carefully chosen—as they expected nothing less than half our crew. I could almost feel their nearness; so alert were my senses that I fancied I could smell their sweaty clothes.

Again action spelled success and, marking the first stateroom, I bounded into it covering the interior with a quick sweep of my automatic. Nothing! From this I sprang to the second room, showing myself in the passageway only long enough to cover the space. This, also, was empty.

A third was on this side before the galley should be reached. By my tactics of quick rushes I had doubtless made too fleeting a target to draw their fire, so I dashed at this third door. It was closed but yielded to my shoulder. As I entered, and became instantaneously aware that it contained no foe, my nerves were fired by the sound of rushing feet behind me.

Trapped! At such a time a man will ask an awful price for his life—when he is trapped by merciless villains to whom quarter is an unknown tongue! Springing behind the door, keeping only my pistol hand and eye beyond its thin partition, I waited with leveled weapon, ready to drop the first man who came in sight. He did not keep me long in suspense. It was Gates, while behind him pressed several anxious faces.

"Thank God, sir, you're not killed," he shouted.

I was glad to see him, there's no denying it!

"Mr. Thomas said he heard you call, so we came a-biling, sir!"

My mind was working rather fast; indeed, it seemed to be thinking at the rate of a thousand miles a minute—clear thinking, too—so even before Gates spoke the second time I had seen through Tommy's ruse. Bless his old scalp, I was a dog not to have taken him in the first place, now that things were nearer equal. But I said hastily:

"Look sharp, Gates, I haven't been farther than here! They're in the galley!—I'm rushing it!"

So I splintered the door and charged through, with the others tripping over my heels. Then my revolver swung across and covered a crouching form.

"Hands up," I commanded.

Although darker here, we could see a huge, partially clothed figure on the floor, reclining very much as The Wounded Gladiator. Leaning above him, with an arm passed beneath his shoulders, was another man.

"Hands up, you fool," I called again, ready to fire at the first suspicious move. The man lowered his burden and turned. It was Tommy.

"You'll forgive me, Jack," he grinned. "We thought I heard you call—and that was to be the signal, you know!"

We thought I heard you call!

"I know about that, you prince of liars. Who's this? But hold him!—we're going on through!"

"You needn't," he said. "I took a speedy trip down the other passageway while Gates went to you. There isn't a soul on board, except this poor devil who's got a crack on the bean."

"It isn't possible," I cried. For, indeed, it was not possible, and we hurried forward, leaving him as he was.

But a two-minute search revealed the truth of Tommy's words. There was not a sign of anyone. The yacht was as absolutely deserted as if it had been sailed by spirits—except, of course, the wretch in Tommy's charge.

"You're sure we've looked everywhere, Gates?" I asked, stunned at the disappearance of Sylvia and mystified by the whole affair.

"Everywhere, sir. To tell the truth, Mr. Jack, a minute ago it was as complete a mystery as I ever saw. But I understand it now. They've taken to the small boats and escaped, sir. They've just sailed in close to shore and done that during the night, sir; and all morning we've been chasing a boat with nobody on it. I should have noticed the small boats gone, if I hadn't been so sure the people were here."

I leaned against the wall too utterly disappointed to move, vaguely wondering if this were another dream from which I should awake and find the Orchid sailing out ahead of us. But it was no dream. In dreams one can not always know that one is dreaming, but there is never a doubt of knowing when one is awake.

"They couldn't be under the floor?" I asked, absurdly clinging to a straw of hope that Sylvia might be there.

"Lor' bless you, no, sir! I tell you, Mr. Jack, they just sailed as close as they dared to those islands, and skipped—the hull pack of 'em; first having headed the Orchid out as we found her. That's why everything was so quiet the larst part of the night—there warn't anyone here to make a noise!"

Passing back to the galley we saw half our crew, in a circle, looking down at the wounded man.

"Who is it, Tommy?" I asked. "Not the old scoundrel himself, by any good luck?"

"Stranger yet," he said, waving the others back and standing up, "It's your black giant of the Key West docks!"

"How the devil did he get here?" I cried, pushing between the men and also looking down at him. "How did he get here?" I asked again, but Tommy had gone.

Someone had put a cushion under his head. His eyes were open, gazing up with their former gentle expression; more sad now, I fancied, since the great human machine he had controlled was wounded.

"How did he get here?" I repeated my general question, this time straight at him.

His lips moved with a curious, rather horrible, inarticulate sound, and his glance swept our crew as though in search of a face. Then he seemed to give it up, and passed a hand slowly over his forehead. I was about to order him carried on deck when Tommy called through the galley portlight:

"Fetch your wounded, Jack! The professor's here with his outfit!"

As our men stooped to obey the big fellow surprised us by quietly arising; and, when cushions had been arranged in a shaded place above, he laid on them as obediently as a docile mastiff. Monsieur, very much in his element, became busy at once.

The Whim and the Orchid were still at grips—or rather were it more correct to say the Orchid was in the Whim's grip. Lines had been passed through the chocks of each, sails had been hauled down, and both yachts rode inertly side by side.

The part of our crew that had stayed behind to attend these matters now came over the rail like monkeys, grinning broadly and crowding up to shake hands with me—a wholly uncalled for proceeding which charmed me, nevertheless.

"Lie on your face," I heard Monsieur saying to the big black. He had become excessively busy and his fingers were feeling everywhere over the man's cranium, yet as tenderly as a woman's. "What struck you?" he asked.

"I've told you he can't talk," Tommy, who was also kneeling by him, explained.

"And I did not ask you," the professor snapped. "What if he can not! May I not see him make the effort?"

"But what's the use of having the poor beggar make the effort when you know he can't put it over? Why not get down to cases and cure him, instead of monkeying?"

"Down to cases! Cure him!" Monsieur sputtered. "How great a surgeon are you to direct me in this impertinent manner?"

Really, he was quite a great deal put out.

"You fellows cut it," I interposed. "While you're squabbling the chap might click it, and then what?"

"I'm not squabbling," Tommy looked up earnestly. "I'm only saying it's a rotten shame to put a blesse through a lot of unnecessary paces that hurt him, and I stick to it! But go ahead, professor!"

"I shall go ahead, have no fear of it! You think me cruel—but see: if I am aware something is wrong with a machine, how better to find out what than by trying to make it run?"

He turned again to his examination, while Tommy lit a cigarette and sat nearby, looking on. At last Monsieur gave a sigh, indicating that his diagnosis was ready. I waited until he, too, had lit a cigarette, then asked:

"Well, doctor, how serious?"

"Perhaps not serious, as there is no fracture. He has suffered a concussion over the third frontal convolution, resulting in an aphasia—aphemia we are sure of, and doubtless also agraphia——"

"Hold on! This isn't the University of Bucharest," Tommy cried. "If you insist on telling us, instead of putting this man to bed where he ought to be, tell it nursery-fashion!"

"Already I have said it for children," he witheringly replied.

"Then God help 'em!" This in a whisper from Gates, but with no thought of levity.

"Go ahead and cure the man," I implored. "We couldn't understand you, anyhow."

"But, yes, you will understand—I desire it! This blow has produced the aphemia. If he were not illiterate we could, by asking him to write, say if agraphia also is present. But he can not write, therefore we do not know whether he can or not; so, therefore, we only know that he can not speak."

"You know he can't write, too—you just said so!"

"Exactly, my boy Tommy, you have the correct idea. Yet we do not know it by the test."

"I begin to see what he's driving at, Jack. He knows he can't write because it's a known fact, but he doesn't know it by the scientifically known test known to him—and that's agraphia. If it isn't, it's near enough. Now, he knows he can talk because we all know he can, but no one knows it at present because he can't—and that's aphemia. Do I get you, Professor?"

"Yes, as you say, you get me. The motor area has suffered a concussion; perhaps a slight hemorrhage, perhaps not. It may pass in a few days, or longer. We will keep him quiet, with ice bags to the head and blood pressure low, and see what we shall see. A hundred years ago they would have bled him and made him well. But we shall see!"

"If he'd got well a hundred years ago by being bled, why not now?" I asked.

"He'd be too old now," Tommy whispered; but the professor, not hearing this, looked at me as though I had committed an unpardonable breach of etiquette, and again witheringly replied:

"We have more advanced methods."

Having thus been put in my place, he ordered his patient taken aboard the Whim and ran ahead to superintend the construction of a bed. Scientists are a curious lot, Tommy says, but I doubt if there is another like the professor. I hope not, for the sake of the sciences. But let that pass. In half an hour the big black was resting easily in the midst of paraphernalia especially designed, and Bilkins had been assigned the place as nurse.

I fancied, when this latter suggestion came up, that our old servant might not readily take to it. With twenty years of his life spent as major domo and general valet in my father's household, a sudden transformation into trained nurse for a dusky African must, peradventure, have been a shock.

But in this I was mistaken. The last forty hours of common peril, of a central interest, had lifted Bilkins from that pettiness usually burdensome in servants of his type. He was, as a matter of fact, cheerfully alert to take the job, accepting it with the same enthusiasm that Gates, and later the mate, had straddled the bowsprit. So I realized that Bilkins had doffed the uniform of servitude to put on one that fit a man. True, indeed, there is no such potent melting-pot as common peril! It had been the same in France—banker, lawyer, merchant, beggar-man, thief, perhaps—all one. Common peril, common necessity!—O thou molders of men!

When everything had been arranged, and a sailor put at our ice machine to supply packs for the wounded man's head, Tommy, the professor and I climbed back aboard the Orchid, this time to give her a thorough search. We held to the hope that there might be a note, or little clue, from the girl whose extremity had once led her to send the other message. Monsieur thought this most probable, and our hopes ran high.

Beginning with a writing desk in the cabin, we examined the book shelves and every nook and corner, then passed to the staterooms. These gave the same impression of having been swept clean—cupboards, presses, all were empty. Only in one drawer, delicately scented, was there a single item—a hairpin. Here, then, must be Sylvia's room, but otherwise it was devoid of any article. Equally unproductive did we find the galley, the crew's quarters, and a small cuddy forward.

Monsieur sat down and pursed his lips.

"They have anticipated our intention," he said, thoughtfully. "Doubtless the things were emptied into sheets, then either weighted and sunk, or taken in the boats. But she must have exerted her ingenuity. There absolutely must be some word left for us. Wait!"

Hurrying to the Whim he returned with his lens, while from the mate he had borrowed a caliper, a two-foot rule and a sail needle.

"Now we shall search scientifically," he cried. "Remember, that as no personal belonging remains, even the books being gone, we must infer they made a great effort to destroy everything that would leave a clue. They suspected the girl, too, and that made them doubly careful. What would she do then? Exactly as we would do—hide her message so the others could not discover it! Now, my boy Jack, you take the sail needle and probe cushions, pillows and mattresses! My boy Tommy, take my lens and look for places where the glue has been disturbed on furniture joints; I will measure the desk, piano, panels—everything—for a secret hiding place!"

"Well, I'll be darned," Tommy grinned. "You're some cop, professor!"

When each of us had finished and reported failure, Monsieur did not seem at all discouraged.

"Now we go to the second phase," he said. "Keep in mind, whenever you search for anything, that it may be under your nose. That is the place to look, not off at the clouds—and nothing is too insignificant to escape investigation. For see: I can write on a very thin piece of paper, roll it into a string, thread it into a bodkin, and weave it into a rug, curtain, quilt, and so forth; or press it lengthwise into a crack in the floor. A favorite way is to tie it to a real piece of string, and throw them carelessly into a wastebasket, thus making them appear to have been cut from a bundle. But there are a thousand ways! Now we proceed with this. Later we probe down gas jets, water spouts and outlets, empty lamp reservoirs, unscrew the backs of mirrors, search key holes, unravel carpets——"

"Heavens," I cried, seeing that in his zeal for doing this professionally he was making himself absurd; and Tommy burst into a hearty laugh, saying:

"Gezabo, there isn't a girl in a million who'd think of those places, and if she did she wouldn't credit us with enough sense to find 'em. Call off your bloodhounds! There's no message for us, that's a cinch! Let's get busy at once on something practical!"

"That's what I say," I chipped in. "It's only eleven o'clock, and we have eight good hours of daylight. Let's go back and call Gates for a conference, without losing a minute!"

"You may be right," he sighed, "but—well, let us go, as you say. With eight hours of light we can accomplish everything. Today may bring success!"



CHAPTER XII

THE HURRICANE

Tommy's spirits were sky high. While treating our situation seriously he found in every phase of it some new sense of humor, whereas the professor looked on with grim purpose. Gates occupied rather a neutral ground, I think, perhaps alternately leaning one way and the other. But I was gripped by a single idea, a deep and growing love for this fugitive girl to whom I had never spoken, who I did not know, but had sworn to rescue.

As we climbed back to the Whim and summoned Gates it was understood that haste meant everything. Yet we could not very well move before knowing whither the outlaw crew had gone. That they made for Florida was, of course, self-evident, but where upon that vast stretch of coast? Would they entrench and wait? Were they even now watching with binoculars from a pine tree top to discover our next move, or had they set out at once for the security of the Everglades, the prairies, or the forests? Any of those trackless vastnesses to the eastward might hide a battalion of men for months; therefore, in case they had run, what hope of finding them?

These and other facts I put before my friends while they listened in glum silence—indeed, with hardly a move except the pipes carried mechanically to their lips or down. Tommy's brier was empty, but his teeth were tight upon the stem and I saw the muscles of his jaws working, as though grinding up my conclusions.

"So that's how it stands," I said, at last. "Personally I lean to the Ten Thousand Islands. Gates tells us the location is unexplored; it offers ten thousand hiding places and, in the circumstances, they couldn't ask for anything better."

Monsieur stretched back in his chair and blew out a volume of smoke, adding:

"It is the Islands, of course. And I think there is little doubt what they did after landing. They did not start inland. They feel secure where they are, and there they will remain to watch us. It may also be their lair, their home, for they must have a home ashore somewhere! Mon Capitaine, you know with certainty there is not a channel deep enough for our yacht?"

"I never heard of one," Gates answered. "Of course, there might be; only I never heard of it."

"If there were, why did they abandon the Orchid?" Tommy asked.

"It will bear looking into," the professor mused. "Now, that paper with the dots and rambling line! Could it represent a chart to their stronghold?"

"From what I saw in it, as a sea-faring man," Gates answered, "the bearings on that paper didn't tell enough. No one could sail in new water without a plainer chart than that. No, sir, if it means anything at all, I'd say it meant something else."

"We're wasting a lot of golden time here," I said. "What if there is a channel, and what if the paper does mark the entrance to it! That doesn't get us anywhere. How could we tell which were the right two islands to go between, when there're thousands of 'em on the water and less than fifty on the paper, and not even a landmark of any kind indicated! As Gates says, it isn't plain enough."

Monsieur seemed to be unconvinced, and Tommy began to laugh at him, saying:

"Gates would be an idiot to sail into a lot of treacherous oyster bars guided by that poor excuse of a thing! Sylvia drew it for a subterfuge, anyhow, not a chart. I've got the right dope, so listen: Those crooks are ashore watching us right now—it's a cinch they are, because any of us, placed in their position, would be doing the same. Now if we sail in and push things, they'll run off and we couldn't find 'em again—probably never. So let's divide our crew and sail both yachts straight out across the Gulf—like we're going home. Then they'll think we've given up the chase and be off their guard. But when we get over the horizon we'll make a circle back, and after dark anchor in some cove north of this island area—if Gates knows a good one. From that point, being well hid and unsuspected, we'll conduct operations by land as we think best. How about it?"

It was the most sensible thing I could see, and said so. The others quite enthusiastically agreed, and in a few minutes the two yachts were sailing prettily westward. Lower and lower sank the Ten Thousand Islands, and sometime after we finished luncheon a sailor aloft reported them gone. Then with a will we changed our course and began the big circle back.

Gates had been making observations. His chart showed a cove about ten miles north of the island area, but too shallow for the Whim. Yet ten miles farther north of that was another inlet with fairly good water. Some thought this would be the logical place to anchor, while others insisted it was too far from operations.

"We might establish an outpost in the little cove," I said, at last, "making a camp there and keeping the launch with us, while the Whim stays in the larger cove as a base to fall back on in case of necessity."

"The launch won't do," Tommy corrected. "In a quiet place like that its put-put could be heard for miles. Paddles, oars or sails for these still waters, Jack!"

He was right. Moreover, one of our small boats did have a center-board, thwart and portable mast, so that obstacle was easily crossed.

"Now," he continued, "I approve of Jack's plan, and suggest that tonight we slip into Big Cove—hereinafter to be so called—and anchor the Orchid. Then with a whole crew we'll sail down outside of Little Cove, land provisions, ammunition, and stuff like that for the scouting party. After this the Whim goes back and waits alongside the Orchid. The thing now is to decide on signals. Who knows the Morse?"

Gates answered promptly that he did; but I did not, so Tommy wrote the alphabet on a card, saying:

"You've this afternoon to memorize it, and tonight I'll drill you. It'll do between ourselves, Jack, if we get separated. But how shall we reach you, Gates? Have you any black powder for smoke balls?"

"Lor' bless you, sir, we've only what's in a few shells belonging to Miss Nancy. It would take a fair sized keg to signal that far, sir!"

I will not recount the hours I walked back and forth along the deck, with a flag in one hand and Tommy's card in the other, making what to the uninitiated would have seemed a perfectly ridiculous spectacle. But I had got quite well along, and was standing near the foremast wig-wagging a message to an imaginary pair of violet eyes—for man can be silly and serious at one and the same time—when a little puff of hot air struck my face. It was the second puff of this kind I had noticed. Gates now came up and joined me.

"There's a howl of something coming, sir," he said. "I've had suspicions of it all day, but now the barometer's touched bottom."

"The sky's clear," I suggested.

He laughed, though without humor.

"A sky isn't always clear because there're no clouds in it, Mr. Jack."

"But what do you expect, Gates? We don't have storms at this season!"

"You're right, sir. But once in a long while there'll be a howler, and that's what the barometer is trying to tell us now. As we have only harf a crew on each yacht I think we'd better make a bee-line in. 'Twill take us twenty miles north of where we were, and those fellows carn't see us."

I never disputed conditions of weather with Gates, so the course was changed and we started on our run to land, which he thought might be reached by dark. In this he was right, for as the sun, like a strangely weird greenish ball, touched the horizon our prow, leading the Orchid by half a mile, entered the protecting waters of Big Cove.

Just at this moment Bilkins dashed up from the cabin, looking scared and yelling:

"He won't stay quiet, sirs; I can't make him!"

We would have thought a delirium had seized the big black had not he then appeared from the same doorway, regarding us with an air of rationality. I have never seen a smile more broad, or more expressive of relief. It simply radiated happiness, and Tommy, staring at him, began to hum a song that had cheered us many a time in the trenches.

"By Jingo, Tommy," I cried, "we'll name him that!"

And thus he was christened Smiles—which, however, through some fatuous process of fabrication so soon grew to Smilax, that as Smilax he shall henceforth be known.

The frown of displeasure that had gathered on Monsieur's brow fled as the fellow spoke. For he did speak, telling in his own style that the concussion had been a mere bagatelle, that his faculties had returned quite unimpaired after their brief absence, and that he was hungry but ready to serve us. What he did actually say to express this—to which the professor would have devoted five whole minutes of scientific phrasing—was:

"Me well."

Monsieur sprang forward and imperiously commanded him to sit facing the western glow. He then proceeded to squint closely into the patient fellow's eyes, he felt of his head, his pulse, and looked at his tongue. At last he stood back, pondering with an air of deep solemnity.

"It is true," he sighed. "The man is well."

"You look like we ought to put the flag at half-mast," I said. "What's the objection to a little snicker?"

"I do not understand," he murmured, ignoring this flippancy, "how he got well so soon."

"Of all the funereal old bugs!" Tommy began to laugh at him. "If you ever doctored me, gezabo, and I happened to recover, darned if I wouldn't turn around and die out of pity for you! Come here, Smilax, I want to ask some questions!"

The result of Tommy's probing showed that late the previous afternoon, while this negro was fishing sponges, the Orchid deliberately ran him down. She would not have stopped, but luckily he grasped the bowsprit stays and climbed aboard of her. Here he was met and roundly cursed by angry men who were, for a while, at least, in favor of throwing him back. He had seen the Whim following. No, he had not seen a lady. Yes, he had heard strange music that, with our shooting at them, decided him to swim off to us during the night.

To Tommy's further questioning we learned that he knew nothing of the Ten Thousand Islands except through hearsay. As to his wound the recital was brief: he had been put to work wrapping up many things in old sails; two men came into the galley and stood by while he finished the last bundle, then one of them who wore a cap like—he pointed to Gates—stepped behind him, something crashed upon his head, and that was all.

Tommy drew in his breath with a sharp hiss, saying:

"That's a cold blooded bunch!"

"They're on those islands, sir," Gates cried. "I just feel it!"

The mate and his half of the crew had come aboard after making the Orchid snug for whatever weather the increasing sultriness portended, while Tommy took Smilax forward to coach him in the manipulation of an automatic revolver—for this modern arm puzzled the big negro who was, however, nicely skilled in the use of older models.

That something brewed in the way of a storm did not require a barometer or the eye of a seaman to determine, so I insisted upon speeding up preparations for the landing force. This met the approval of all, since the skipper thought it likely that we could be put ashore and the Whim get well on her way back to Big Cove before the disturbance came.

While we ate a hasty supper, therefore, Bilkins saw that the things we should want were stored in the small boat: food, ammunition, canvas for a lean-to, matches, utensils of sundry kinds—in fact, the necessaries. He had attended to my camping outfits before, and possessed a genius for knowing what to include. Only when this was under way, and the mate had thrice assured Gates of his ability to navigate the Whim on her ticklish course down the coast, did the old captain feel satisfied to join us at table.

He brought with him a large chart that he pinned to the wall and, nodding to it as he tucked a napkin under his chin, said:

"You should take that, sir. It shows scarce more'n the shore line, but the shore's where you'll be, and not far inland. Here's Little Cove," he touched the spot with his fork. "In harf an hour we'll lay outside it, not being able to get in, and there we'll anchor to put you off. Who'll you be taking with you, sir?"

"Tommy and I thought we'd make a sort of reconnoissance first, and Bilkins says he wants to go as cook," I answered. "In a day or two, weather permitting, we'll sail the small boat up to Big Cove for a council of war."

"Well, sir," he said, shaking his head, "just go slow, that's all I arsk. Don't start anything. There's no use two young fellows kicking up a racket without their friends, that's what I say. So just poke around, but keep out of sight; learn all you want, but don't start anything. If you carn't learn it all, be satisfied with harf; then the rest of us will take that and make a whole of it in no time. Am I right, Professor?"

"You are right, mon Capitaine, if they will mind you. But will they? A chance comes for to—what my boy Tommy calls plug—that old sinner, and so they will jump to a fight. Fight! Bah! How many fools give a life for one who cannot give a reason!"

"There's reason enough here," Tommy laughed. "But we'll promise to be careful, if that satisfies you."

When at last we dropped anchor half a mile outside the entrance of Little Cove our deck became active. I went off first with the supplies to choose a spot where they should be stored, although in such a black night this might have been left haphazard to the men. But one never believes, on occasions so momentous as pitching camp, that others know a jot about it but oneself—to this there are practically no exceptions.

While being rowed shoreward I noticed that the wind had quite died down, leaving a suffocation in the air that is difficult to explain; but I've felt something like it on a sultry summer day when the sky is black with slowly advancing clouds, when the birds have become too awed to chirp and every leaf in the trees hangs motionless. It is in these suspenses of unpleasant expectation, when at any moment the heavens will open with a hissing smash of fire and nature be turned to fury, that one breathes heavily. There is no other feeling like it, except the drag of torturing minutes before being called to make a speech, or to be whistled over the top into No Man's Land.

Our prow grated on the sand and in silence we began to unload. Back from the sloping beach grew a fringe of small machineel trees and palms; the beach and they, as well as I could judge, forming a kind of amphitheater to the water.

My men wanted to raise the canvas into a make-shift tent before returning for the second load, but I thought better of this and had them leave it as it was, wrapped about our guns and stowed with the other things beneath the palms. Until daylight showed how well our position might be screened from the islands, it were a short sighted business to stretch a tell-tale piece of white duck that could be seen for miles.

Already there were eerie whisperings of some disturbance in the sky. From the black forest far behind us could be detected faint restless noises, as if a myriad agitated spirits were scurrying hither and thither whipping their wings against the branches. Something more than an ordinary man's size blow was coming out of the southeast, so I tumbled the crew into their boat, charging them to pull right heartily and bring back Tommy, at least, before too late.

They must have got close to the Whim when a force, as sudden as it was at the moment unexpected, almost lifted me off my feet. Indeed, had I not possessed the presence of mind to fall flat upon the beach I should have gone kittering. In half a second the heavens were cluttered not only with screaming and tumbling winds but branches of large trees driven along as straws. I dug my toes and fingers into the sand, flattening out for dear life. Close upon the head of this hurricane came the deluge of rain, cloudburst after cloudburst. Then lightning was unchained, veritable shocks of fire, and no thunder out of hell could have been more appalling.

For perhaps a minute I had not been given a chance to think of the small boat, or the Whim, but struggling to raise my head I stared through the inky space eagerly awaiting the next flash. It came almost at once, bringing into image the Cove as if a million green calcium lights were focused there. This was but for an instant, yet such is the peculiar effect of lightning that in the following blackness each detail of the scene remained photographed upon my retinae. I saw the turbulent waters apparently sweeping, as a mill race, out to sea; I saw a lone palm, that had formerly stood in dignified solitude upon a nearby point of land, now bent in the wildest agony, its leafy top resembling an umbrella turned inside out. I saw the Whim, greenish white in a greenish foam, heeled over till her masts were all but on the waves and her mainsail, half torn from its boom, snapping in the wind. In this fashion she was being driven at breakneck speed across the Gulf. I thought—I tried to think—that I had seen a small boat being dragged behind. Surely my men had reached her!

But another flash, and still another, brought no greater assurance of this. Each showed the yacht farther away, more blurred by rain, until the distance became too great for me to make her out at all.

And then another sky-splitting flame photographed a sight that made my blood congeal. I got but an instantaneous glimpse of it from the corner of my eye before the world became wrapped again in darkness—but something had been there, some huge, horrible monster was rising out of the water and waddling toward me. I had seen two long dripping arms, or feelers, extending in my direction. Crouched, with my nerves on fire, I waited. The rifles and revolvers were wrapped in the canvas and could not be reached in time; there was nothing to do but wait till this thing touched me.

It seemed an age before the heavens split again, and then I gave a yell wilder than the lashing rain, a yell of joy; for, staggering up the beach was Smilax, true to his name with a grin so broad that the greenish glare flickered on his teeth.

His sense of direction was either extremely acute or he possessed the eyes of a cat, for in the following darkness I felt a hand grasp my shoulder and push me toward the trees. Obediently I yielded. Then above the storm I heard him tearing leaves from the smaller palms until, by overlapping them against some bushes so they would be held by the wind, he constructed a lean-to—in the circumstances a most creditable achievement—beneath which I crawled.

The rain drumming upon this shelter made conversation an effort, but in half an hour the storm had all but blown itself to pieces and then I let fly a string of questions—the first being of our small boat.

He told me, in his taciturn way, that her crew had made safe just in time. As they scrambled aboard the hurricane struck. The mate, knowing with laudatory foresight that the masts were in danger of destruction, had rushed forward and chopped the anchor cable. Even that had not saved the mainsail from being torn away.

As to the fate of our yacht neither he nor I felt much concern. I knew her to be a staunch craft, handled by able seamen, and felt that she would come out on top even if upon the coast of Mexico. Then, with a simplicity that deeply touched me, he added that as she was about to be blown off for an absence of, perhaps, some days, and he realized that I would be in need of help, he dived overboard.

"But," I cried, remembering the anger of that seething water, "you took your life in your hands!"

"Me swim all over," came his quiet reply; but whether he meant all over the world, or all over as might apply to his personal self, was left in doubt.

Anyway, I do not believe there is another man living who could have breasted that hurricane-lashed sea for such a distance. I could judge something of what it cost him by the way he had gasped for breath—and since then I have seen him finish a fifteen-mile run, breathing little faster than normally. This gives an idea of his task that night, and the risk he took—and the indifference with which he took it; yet about his stupendous strength I can not write, but only marvel.

Wet clothes are not conducive to sleep, but I was thoroughly tired, healthily drowsy. There were more questions to be asked, plans to be discussed, but my gods descended; and, lo, when I looked again the sun was shining in all its glory.



CHAPTER XIII

ON TO DEATH RIVER!

Some day I shall write an ode, not to sleep but to the pleasure of awaking when the sleep has been deep and dreamless, when the day is ushered in by smiling skies, a laughing earth, and a forest of joyous songsters. More especially beautiful is the face of nature after a storm-swept night, for then, indeed, the blinking dawn itself reflects the gratitude of mundane things for their deliverance. In the forest one hears a water-drip—aftermath of rains; a gentle, almost noiseless fall of crystal drop on crystal drop tapping the loamy soil, and imagination sings in whatsoever key the soul is tuned.

But with what reaches of farther imaginings do we greet the day, and how variously! Our eyes do not require a visual picture of the lone wild turkey on his cypress roost to know that he is ruffling his feathers, craning his neck inquisitively downward in all directions, before chancing to descend to earth and breakfast; nor need we see the panther skulking from his lair to know that he has stopped to lick his paw and pass it over his face—the feline morning ablution. Each creature has a particular mode of resurrection after its hours of mimic death; and so I, on a bed of whatsoever it may be, yawn hideously and stretch my arms and grumble: O, Lord, how I hate to get up! Indeed, how variously do we greet the day!

Smilax had opened our duffle and hung out several things to air. But the provisions, ammunition, matches and—glory be!—my tobacco, had been packed in tins and were dry. I could not say as much for the clothes I wore, and quickly stripped them off to hang before the fire he was building.

As these and the coffee pot were steaming I walked to the beach and followed it to a westernmost point, being curious to see if from there we could get a glimpse of the islands, and also if our camp were securely hidden from anyone passing the entrance of the Cove. Most of all, of course, did I want to search the horizon, and for several minutes stood beneath the solitary palm that had resumed its majesty. So white was the sand, sloping from a violet-tinted fringe of sea-grape stalks to the lapping waves, so green and sparkling, yet so drowsy, was the Gulf, that I could not realize, were my present nudeness less constantly a reminder, that since the setting sun these peaceful things had been lashed with a devil's fury. No sail showed anywhere; only the palm and I seemed to be alone in this balmy wilderness. But my faith in Gates whispered that the Whim was safe. Looking back, I realized also that our camp lay well concealed; to the south the islands were cut off by an opposite strip of land; eastward and northward stretched primeval forests, swamps and prairies for half a hundred miles. I seemed to be the only human animal upon the earth.

A hungry osprey circling in the sky dropped as a plummet, struck the water and, after a momentary struggle, arose with his fish, ingeniously holding it head-foremost to facilitate flight. From another point now came a scream, well known to me, and I turned to see an eagle approaching with tremendous speed. Here before my eyes was to be committed "an overt act of piracy" that has for untold centuries caused a strained relationship between these birds. By feints at darting, but with no real intention to harm, he drove the osprey upward—for in aerial combats amongst the feathered tribes advantage lies in the higher altitude, and the hawk excitedly strove for this while the eagle coolly permitted it. In such a manner the fight was carried skyward until the combatants looked small. Then it entered its second, and last, phase.

Quite master of the situation the eagle now rose to the upper plane and began his attack from above, whereupon to save itself the hawk released its fish and took to flight—which was, of course, exactly what the eagle wished. Here was his opportunity for the spectacular. Diving straight downward—first, however, increasing his speed with two swift strokes of his powerful wings which then became set in a half curve—he overtook the falling breakfast in mid air, seized it, swung gracefully outward and disappeared over the forest.

Shame, thought I, that our National Bird, secure from discovery at Washington, should be practising this thoroughly un-American might-makes-right business! Yet through my being came a sympathetic whisper. I had never felt it while in contact with other people, but here I was stripped as a savage—alone with the woods and the ocean. If the Florida peninsula had been formed when my ancestors went naked, one of them might have loitered near this very spot, and I smiled as I wondered if he, too, had been planning to carry off some female from her watchful tribe!

It was good to be in the wilderness, good to be savage, good to be unclothed beneath God's high heaven and know that by my muscle and my cunning I was king. No ordinary king who went about with a jeweled crown upon his head could ever feel this exuberance of being, and in pure delight I plunged into the water.

Out, out and out I swam, joyously diving for handsfull of shells that I held aloft as a pagan offering to the gods. I put in bursts of speed, then rested on my back upon the cradling waves, watching the streaks of feathery clouds that stretched across the sky—streamers, flying far behind the tempest. And then, with tingling blood, I would flip my body and swim down, down for more shells. I was King of the great out-of-doors; a reincarnated primordial monster, holding high carnival with the elements!

Smilax, having come in search of me and seeing my head far from shore, followed at once. It was then, as he approached, that I received my first disillusionment of being king by the right of muscle, because he sped through the water as an oiled torpedo, putting to shame my skill that had been somewhat thought of in the Athletic Club tank at home. Almost immediately followed my second jolt, as he glanced over his shoulder, saying:

"Lookout, maybe whole lot shark!"

King or no king, I went shoreward like a scared cat. Anyone could have had my crown then for the mere trouble of picking it up. Curiously, there flashed into my mind a game I used to play as a youngster: What-Would-You-Rather-Be-Eaten-Up-By! We boys would pompously answer lions, puffing ourselves out bravely and pretending we didn't care, but I remembered one little girl who aroused our contemptuous laughter by answering "goldfish." And now, after all these years, for the first time I found myself marveling at her sagacity. Indeed, she was off and on in my thoughts until I had clothed myself in dry garments and partaken of a grown man's breakfast; after which I dropped into a state of retrospective contentment, divided between the annoyances that beset kings, Azurian princesses, and the culinary skill of Smilax.

That ebony giant of strength was not aware of my mission here, nor, indeed, of anything that had passed aboard the Whim, so when he had cleaned the dishes I lit my pipe and called to him. It seemed but fair that he should know the dangers of our expedition before joining it. His perception was quicker than his speech, and more than once he anticipated my narrative with some word suitable to its climax.

"We get lady," he said, at last.

"After a while," I corrected. "Just now we're to see where she is, how she's guarded, and how many guards there are. But we're not to start anything till the others get back. You don't happen to know this country, I suppose?"

"Not right here; but two day walk there," he pointed a little east of north, "yes, good. Mother live with Seminole one time, over there."

"I thought you were from Jamaica," I said; for, indeed, we had got that impression.

"No, me nigger raised by Seminoles. Been to Jamaica on ship, heap time."

"Then you speak Seminole?"

"Some," he answered, modestly.

I should have recognized in his way of talking, which was neither Jamaica nor American negro, the Seminole influence. Now this further light upon his past accounted for the many ways he had shown himself a woodsman; things that had astonished and pleased me, since I had not looked for them in a seafaring man who later became a fisher of sponges. It brought me a feeling of greater assurance for the task ahead of us, because Smilax, with an Indian training added to his stupendous strength, would be scout, warrior, pack-horse, all in one; really, an invaluable asset.

The chart that should have come in the second boat—with Tommy, alas, and Bilkins—was missing, but I remembered pretty well the lay of the land and knew that the island area began only a short distance south of our Cove. This I discussed with Smilax, who added light by his general knowledge—hearsay, for the most part. Yet when I suggested leaving our things cached where they were while we made a reconnoissance, he strenuously objected.

"Lady maybe fifteen, twenty, mile 'way," he said. "We take camp 'long."

"That's very well if you take it," I laughed, "but I've no idea of lugging that stuff half over Florida. Why not carry the things we need?"

"Maybe need all," he answered, then smiled: "Camp light."

At this he arose with a subtle power that reminded me of a huge black leopard and began making our things into a pack. Never had I seen, anywhere from Newfoundland to the Rockies, a bundle of duffle more skillfully arranged, and I said with no small degree of admiration:

"I'd take off my hat to you, Smilax, if the storm hadn't blown it away!"

He grinned, feeling the praise if not understanding its medium; then asked:

"We go now?"

"Let's wait half an hour to see if the Whim comes in sight," I told him. "There's a lot to talk over, anyway, before we start. For one thing, if we get separated how shall we find each other?"

"If you lose me, you hunt good place to wait, and wait. Me find you."

For some time we discussed other details. Finally I asked:

"How far down in those islands do you think they are?"

He was sitting with his knees drawn up, his arms crossed upon them, and now let his forehead, too, rest there in meditation.

"One place," he slowly answered, "no white hunter ever get. Injuns know it, but 'fraid to go 'cause evil spirit live there—near mouth of river Seminole call Il-lit; in white man tongue, mean Death. Me think maybe find 'em there."

"Death river's a good place for that old scoundrel to hang out," I agreed. "How far?"

"Maybe fifteen mile, maybe ten, maybe twenty; no can say. We see."

"By the way, Smilax, how do you say 'damn old scoundrel' in Seminole?"

He raised his head and appreciatively grinned, answering:

"Hal-wak esta-had-kee, mean 'bad white man.'"

"That's neither bad nor short enough. What else?"

"Host-cope-e-taw, mean thief."

"Good but too long. I want something I can remember; to christen him, understand? What's your shortest word?"

"Shee."

"That's more like it. What's 'shee' mean?"

"Feathers."

"But, hell, Smilax," I burst out laughing, "there'd be no sense in calling him feathers!"

"Efaw," he said again, "mean dog; kotee, toad; chesshe, rat. Maybe him dog-toad-rat!"

"That only begins to be him," I declared, with the same glorious contempt for pronouns. "In the prospective waters of Death river I christen him Efaw Kotee, the dog-toad!"—But in my heart I offered an apology to the canine family, many of whose sons and daughters have been among my most loyal friends.

"We go; maybe find him," the black giant grinned again, bending backward to get his shoulders beneath the ropes and then straightening up as though two, and not two hundred, pounds of weight came with him.

I walked quickly out to the point and took one more look, a searching, lingering look across the green water. Nowhere was the Whim, nowhere even a speck of sail or any other craft. Except for a pelican of sober mien, rising and falling with the waves, the Gulf seemed barren of any life. But something told me that the yacht was safe.

A scrub jay, in a near-by thicket of mangroves, mocked my solitude with a raucous note; yet it gave me heart, for I saw in it the call of the land and knew that thoughts of the Whim must be put aside. So I went back to Smilax, and together we strode through the fringe of palms into a shadowy jungle; our faces set toward a mysterious place, unknown to us, where Death river meets the sea.



CHAPTER XIV

SMILAX BRINGS NEWS

Intuitively I dropped behind and walked at the heels of Smilax who, as if he were treading a well-defined trail instead of unknown jungle land, moved with a free stride that challenged my endurance. Clinging vines pulled at my clothes as things alive, causing both noise and annoyance. Silence was a virtue on our present expedition.

After an hour of this we came to a cypress swamp, and for several miles waded through water ankle-deep although on a bottom of firm sand. Hardly any undergrowth was here, but in all directions stood gray, dismal cypress trees, coarsely buttressed at the water's edge and tapering to slender tips. Draped in long streamers of Spanish moss which were delicately swayed by an almost imperceptible current of air, this was a ghoulish place—suggesting a rookery for shrouded spirits which perched along the bonelike branches awaiting their resurrection. Here, too, upon some convenient root of these gray ancients—perhaps the longest lived of our southern trees—lay coiled the dozing moccasin. And from this grim place we merged once more into the jungle where my clothes again became the prey of clawing things.

But Smilax, never faltering, moved with the ease of a shadow. At last, by watching him I, too, came to learn his secret and was charmed to find that it made my pace both quiet and swift. Indeed, I took great care to practice this silent trail walking—a knack that can be acquired only by the closest observation; for a hundred books could not teach a hundredth part as much as a ten-mile hike at the heels of a trained woodsman when he is trying to go noiselessly. Finally he turned and looked at me, saying:

"You do good now."

Noon brought us to a higher country whose beauty could not be surpassed. Dark and cool it was, even dismal without bringing depression. The mid-day suns of a hundred years must have been tempered to the aisles of this wild cathedral by venerable specimens of mahogany and black olive trees; and, where the branches of these did not touch, rose the slenderer red ironwood. The mahoganies, alone, stood as a proof that we were entering a region which had escaped the eyes of white man for—how long? It was even seventy years ago that bands of wood pirates, known as "the mahogany cutters," invaded southern Florida from the Bahamas and ruthlessly pillaged this desirable wood for foreign markets; so here, at least, was a spot that had remained undiscovered, where perhaps a white foot had never trod.

Charmed as I was, a greater enchantment awaited, when the next few steps brought me to a pool; a pool of crystal transparency, though dark for reflecting the black bowl of earth in which it lay. Without a ripple it nestled close against the roots of a golden-fig tree—an unfruitful parasitic giant of squat stature and tremendous girth; while, pendant from one gnarled out-reaching branch, and almost touching the mirror-like surface into which it looked, hung a solitary streamer of Spanish moss.

One might have fancied that this pure water slept in the tranquillity of being forever blessed by a gaunt old friar, the gray sleeve of whose cowl hung from an arm perpetually outstretched in silent benediction. Around the bank, and leaning their purple flowers above the more purple depths, grew a fringe of wild iris; while sprinkled at random farther out were a few blooms of "bonnet"—the yellow water-lily of southern ponds. And then, in a darker nook, erect and motionless upon one leg, a pink flamingo stood. I caught my breath in amazement at the beauty of this place!

To me it possessed a soul; and the soul, arms, that were amorously held out, inviting, pleading. This was the spot, and not by the green waves, to strip my mind of culture, to tear a club from nature's forest and do battle for existence! Here, in the very birthplace of silence where I could smell the loam of untouched wilderness, would be the haunt of my re-created, or pre-created, self. Throughout the days I would hunt—and slay; in the nights I would sleep among the branches. But there would come dawns and sunsets when in some corner of this wild temple I would raise a pagan altar, light a tiny wish-wood flame, and conjure the forest's soul of many arms to reach across the earth, bringing me a living, breathing Psyche with iris-colored eyes to gaze into the limpid pool!

In the contemplation of such an Eden I had forgotten Smilax, who now shattered my illusion by swinging down the pack and saying, as he turned to me:

"We eat."

O, mundane worm, that he could think of food while my spirit was communing with our common ancestor! However, without much reluctance, I arrived at his point of view when, filling my pipe, I stretched out to watch his savory preparations. And now to my surprise, but increasing admiration for his woodcraft, he raised a hand as I was about to strike the match.

"Wait," he said. "Wind wrong; maybe some one smell; me go see."

"Never mind," I protested, wanting to spare him additional work after the amount he had already accomplished. "I don't care about smoking."

"Cook fire smell," he said, rather pityingly that I should have overlooked this obvious fact. "Me go see; get good wood." Then, grinning broadly, he added: "Maybe Efaw Kotee somewhere."

I knew that if he went for wood he must mean buttonwood, because there was no end of other kinds about; but buttonwood is the only fuel in Florida—dry mangrove being a close second—that, burning slowly like charcoal, is both very hot and smokeless, and he was evidently taking no chances. I knew, too, that he would have to go far toward the coast for it, since only on tidewater shores may it be found; and with a pleasant feeling of excitement I wondered if he would also bring back news of—her; some sign, a thin line of smoke above the trees! It was not the excitement of battle, or a skirmish; no, it was the approaching reality of a dream that had gripped me with soft fingers since the moment I entered this forest. Since my eyes had rested on that pool, my heart had called afresh for her. The arms of the place were about me.

Softly I arose and went back to it. The pink flamingo was there, but as I approached, nearer this time, he gave signs of uneasiness and at last clumsily took wing for some other sanctuary where his solitude might be untroubled by strange beings.

Standing on the flowery bank, I looked deep into the water. No fish, nor life of any kind, disturbed its sweet serenity. So like her soul, I thought, was the soul of this! Yet could her soul be undisturbed? Was it not, indeed, turbulent with apprehensions? Did it—I asked the question eagerly—did it sometimes hope that I would come? And something in the water answered yes. So I picked a blossom of the iris—that had taken its color from her eyes—and put it carefully away. By the spirit of her glance, by the unspoken message of this place, I swore—oh, why put down here all I swore? Men have stood beside solemn pools before, and women, too. Those who commune in the woods think more sublimely than they speak, so I can not speak now, in written words, my immeasurable longing.

Soon Smilax, grinning broadly, emerged from the shadows.

"All right," he said. "You smoke; me cook."

"Did you see anything? How far did you go?" I asked, and he answered in the curious way he had of dealing with one question at a time.

"No see signs of Efaw Kotee. Long way."

While the combined aroma of bacon and coffee was for the moment throwing its cloak of materialism about the romance of my forest, I asked again:

"Why are we heading so far inland, when they must be somewhere along the coast?"

"Best go this way. All right; you smoke."

I was smoking, but that seemed to be his way of telling me to put my mind at rest. Yet I persisted with another question:

"How do you know we haven't passed them already?"

"Me know," he grinned. "All right; you smoke."

He was a funny cuss, but I let it go at that.

Biscuits, bacon and coffee might properly be called the Woodsmen's Ambrosia, but it is not a feast over which man is inclined to loiter, and Smilax was soon re-wrapping the pack.

Up to this time I had walked practically empty handed, yet now I conscientiously rebelled, insisting that a share of the load must rest upon my shoulders. But here he showed himself as obdurate as a mule until, arbitrarily, I strapped on our second automatic, took out our second rifle, and filled my pockets with extra cartridges. He raised no objection to this; he even approved it. We were getting down into the Death river country and ready fire-arms made agreeable companions. Furthermore, at his direction I tied the rather goodly supply of buttonwood into a bundle and swung it to my back.

Toward evening we saw on our left evidences of open country and bore in that direction, for when one has walked many hours in the shadows of interlocking branches it is as natural to be drawn toward a spot of sunlight as it would be to approach an open window after having been confined in a dismal room. So we bore in that direction and came to the edge of a vast prairie stretching before us as a sea of lifeless grass.

Except for a gray line on its horizon, marking, I afterward learned, the boundary of the Great Cypress Swamp, there was but a single break on this expansive waste. That was a rich growth of trees about two miles out, to the southeast of us; an oasis, it would have been called in the Sahara, but in the Florida prairies known as an "island." Whether this term of "island" finds origin in the similarity of these verdant places to real islands, seeming as they do to float upon an inland sea of grass, or whether because, being of higher ground, they actually become islands during rainy seasons when much of the prairie land is inundated, the native "cracker" is unable to explain. At any rate, fanned by the prairie breeze, they afford agreeable shelter where, in perfect seclusion, one may look out upon the surrounding country for great distances.

"We camp there," Smilax nodded.

"A good place," I affirmed.

"You stay hide," he said again. "Me find out if nobody 'round to see us go."

"Why can't I look with you?" I asked, wanting to study more of his methods, but he squelched me by answering:

"You look whole lot; no see anything."

I would have given him a good piece of my mind had he not suddenly disappeared; returning soon with his usual smile and saying:

"Come."

Single file, as before, we pushed into the breast-high grass, and the walking was easy. Once we crossed a patch of oozy turf from which arose a score of jack-snipe; again we skirted a drying pond whose boggy edges were the hunting ground of marsh hens. Yet other trails could be read here: deer, wildcat, raccoon, and innumerable wee things. And here, too, around the "bonnet" leaves, the silent moccasin lay coiled, so it was well to step with caution in a place like this.

A wound by the cotton-mouth moccasin, if treated properly, may not result in death. Like other viperine bites, however, it so affects the surrounding flesh that blood poisoning may follow days after the first crisis has been passed. Yet, even with this two-fold menace lurking in its fangs, it is not the most feared of Florida snakes. Preeminent in that capacity stands the diamond-back rattler, largest of the world's venomous species and second to none in point of deadliness. Smilax insisted—on I do not know what authority—that more dangerous than either of these is the beautiful little coral snake, elaps fulvius, whose victim becomes ravingly insane and invariably dies. That he possessed some uncanny knowledge of the creature must be admitted because of its close relationship to the Cobra-de-Capello, of Asiatic fame, whose poison, we know, flies directly to the nerve centers and almost entirely ignores the tissue. Four days later I had good reason to remember this.

"Are there many snakes hereabouts?" I asked.

"Winter, not much; summer, heap."

However, at that very moment he held his hand back to stop me, then beckoned me forward.

"Look!" He was pointing tensely ahead of us, moving his arm leftward and indicating a circle of perhaps thirty feet in diameter.

Whatever it was, I could see the tops of the grass shake as their stems were slightly jostled by this unknown creature's progress, which continued with incredible speed and was circling back toward us. Then, with a slightly swishing sound as its body glided through the dry grass, that friend of Florida woodsmen—the king snake—passed before our feet like a brownish-green streak.

"Rattler! You watch!" Smilax whispered. His eyes were wide with interest, for it is not permitted many men to see a duel between these mortal enemies.

Somewhere directly ahead of us a diamond-back rattlesnake must have awaited the attack he sensed, though we could not yet see him. Time after time the king snake swept by in front of us, decreasing the circles and, I thought, increasing his speed. After each revolution we stepped in a little nearer, being careful not to interfere with his course nor distract his attention from the serious business at hand.

Soon the viper became visible. His flat head, elevated a few inches above his heavy coil, turned anxiously with the sounds in the grass. He knew what was coming, I think, but did not rattle until the king had reduced the circles about him to a diameter of six or seven feet. Then he became electrified. The rattles sounded viciously, and his head began an ominous swaying motion, out and in, as he searched for a vital spot at which to strike.

The king, although keeping just outside the danger line, was also watching for an opportunity. He may have realized his immunity to poisons, yet did not care unnecessarily to suffer the laceration of fangs. Rather did he choose to rely upon the further protective gifts that nature had given him: length and strength, speed and agility, and a skin that blended elusively with the ground colors; therefore, revolving in these smaller circles, he seemed to make almost a continuous line, without beginning or end, and the rattler was at a loss to act. Now, profiting by a moment when the venomous eyes were turned away, he darted in and caught the viper close up behind its head. Wrapping himself about the squirming body he ruthlessly straightened out. We heard the vertebrae being torn until his victim lay crushed and stretched into a helpless mass.

For several minutes the sleek avenger remained perfectly quiet. Then, uncoiling warily but not releasing the hold with his teeth, he worked his body aside. Last of all he dropped the head and drew suspiciously back as if alert for a sign of life. Of course, there was none, and soon he glided into the grass, not seeming to have noticed us at all.

"Whew!" I said, taking a deep breath. "I wish we had king snakes around us all the time!"

"Heap good friend," Smilax grinned, stooping to cut off the rattles that were large and perfect.

"I thought you said there weren't any snakes out in winter!"

"Not much; maybe no see any for long time."

He told me now as we proceeded across the prairie that the Seminole Reservation lay about fifty miles north of us, and I wondered what our chances would be of getting a squad of "braves," should the Whim not show up and we found ourselves on the eve of a fight against rather big odds. It was worth keeping in mind.

The "island," when we reached it, was by far the largest I had ever seen, and proved to be an ideal place to camp. High pines and stately palms grew here in great profusion, while there also might be found a sprinkling of hardwoods; and yet in some parts there was enough sunlight to permit the growth of really luxurious grass, as trim as if it had been cut by the hand of man. Smilax, pointing to a number of tracks I had not observed, said the deer kept it short by grazing. One's first impression here was of a well-kept park, intersected by green avenues that stretched beneath the best specimens of trees which a landscape architect had carefully planned to leave standing. But there were wilder portions; perhaps three acres of heavy jungle. About midway, festooned with vines, was the pool I had hoped to find, of quite good size and cool. It, like the other that had entranced me, nourished a few stalks of iris, but there was no "bonnet" or other place on its closely cropped bank for the wily moccasin.

"My private bath," I declared, feeling at this sundown hour the call strong within me.

Smilax had remained behind. His reconnoissance as we entered the prairie must be completed by another as we emerged from it; and I had left him standing behind the trees looking back across our trail, searching for any distant movement. At last he came up, saying:

"All right; you smoke."

"I don't want to smoke," I laughed. "I want to get in that pool, if we can find another supply of drinking water."

"No need um," he grinned. "Big spring come up there," he pointed toward the farther end. "Me know island now; been here one time."

I afterwards saw that he referred to one of those unique springs, occasionally to be found in Florida—a transparent water of bluish tinge, bubbling up through the bottom of its deep, self-made reservoir; keeping the sand in a subdued state of agitation, and bringing pleasure to the eye of man.

By the spirit of Pan, my pool felt good after the long day's hike!

The wind had changed with the waning afternoon and now blew gently from the southwest, promising a period of fair weather. It gave us, also, the advantage of greater freedom in noises; for, when living in the wild, one comes to realize how potent a carrier, or muffler, of noises is the wind. A fire at night, or smoke by day, may be tempered with human ingenuity, but nature bandies the sound waves with her breath.

I dined in the elegance of simplicity, and Smilax extinguished our small fire of buttonwood. Leaning my back against a stalwart pine, I watched the shadows stealing through our avenue of trees. Somewhere above my head a whistling owl, one of those lovable little feathered cavaliers that showers his mate with unstinted adulation, fluttered and courted. Later the mournful call of a whooping crane floated across the prairie.

I heard these things in a lazy, contented way, but my thoughts were on another island—a real island surrounded by water, where waves lapped the beach and two eyes, that had given color to the iris, watched for deliverance. Then with a jerk I sat up. Smilax had turned his head to listen, and in his attitude dwelt a note of agitation.

"What is it?" I whispered; for surely I had heard a sound that did not belong to these creatures living in the forest about us.

He raised his hand to caution silence. Then came the sound again, slowly: one—two—three—four—

"Axe," he said, his eyes shining as beads and his finger pointing into the southwest from where the breeze was coming. "You wait; me go see."

"I'll go, too," I announced.

"No; maybe make too much noise. Smilax go."

"Who d'you suppose it is that close to us?" I excitedly asked. "Not them, surely?"

He looked at me with grave eyes and answered:

"No can say; maybe hunters find way in here. You smoke; me go see."

Yet his sudden gravity left little doubt in my mind of what, at least, he suspected; for he well knew that hunters did not find their way into this unsurveyed wilderness! Then, too, there was something in the stillness of the night that seemed to portend great things. The leaves transmitted their restlessness to my yawning nerves, as iron dust springs to a magnet.

Intending to wave good luck as he melted into the darkness, without being observed I walked silently behind him to the prairie's edge; but there he stopped, opened his arms, raised his face to the sky, standing motionless. And a great peace came over me, for I saw that, in the simple way of the old-time Seminoles who invariably turned to their Great Spirit on the eve of hopes or fears or dangers, Smilax was praying.

Religion is the poetry of the savages' existence. Alas, that we are civilized! He does not spend his nights poring over The Laws and The Prophets, and his days peppering a neighbor across the head with a new-born creed. No, he puts an abiding faith in some Great Spirit, be it the sun, the moon, the stars; or fashioned of stone, or clay, or wood. But his soul looks into the Infinite as his physical sight, less far reaching, feasts upon the Symbol. And what does he lose? He loses the privilege of bickering with evangelists; he loses the acid frequently to be found in church organization—the feeling of pity or contempt of one denomination for another, each of which stands upon the Holy Rock searching for motes and waving a princely disregard to beams. And, because he remains benighted and in darkness, he also loses doubt; wherefore, as a trusting child, he touches the hand of God.

I had long since finished my second pipe when Smilax returned. He came out of the darkness as he had gone into it, with the stealth of a panther, and was close to me before I knew it. But a striking change had taken place in him. His breathing was fast, though not from exertion, and pointing back he hurriedly whispered:

"Efaw Kotee there! Lady, too! Me see!"



CHAPTER XV

EFAW KOTEE'S DEN

Sylvia there! I bounded up as though some one had sent a galvanic current through my body, exclaiming:

"Good Lord! How far, Smilax? Come quick, let's go!"

He answered each of my exclamations in sequence, a peculiarity he had:

"Yes, Lord good. Two mile, maybe some more. Plenty time, we go back soon."

"But we couldn't have heard that axe two miles," I said incredulously.

"Still night, when wind on prairie right; yes, sometime."

"How are they camped? How many are there? Come, man, don't keep me waiting!"

He drew himself up to full height and, with one arm pointing toward the southwest, spoke deliberately as if realizing his importance, seeming to choose his words—seeming, rather, to grope for them.

"Over there forest is little strip thick, maybe half mile; then come water—Gulf. Me know um is Gulf; taste and find um salt. Close by shore big island, close by um little island. More island all 'round. Too dark to see much, but Efaw Kotee live on big island. Many cabin. On little island Lady live. One cabin. She come to door and me get good look, for light in cabin. Old woman live with her; Injun squaw; me know by way she walk. Before day we go hide in good place on shore. Watch all day and see. Must watch all day, or they see us if we leave 'fore dark. Now you smoke; then we go 'sleep l'il while."

Sleep! How could I sleep while she was within three miles of me, surrounded by ten or a dozen devils the combined virtues of whom would not fill a gnat's eye! Of course, she had lived in this situation for years, but I had not heard of it until very recently, and that makes a world of difference.

But after we got back to camp and I had stretched out on my blanket to let the telescope of my fancies pierce the realm of hopes, sleep did come. I would not have believed it, but it did; for soon I realized that some one was shaking my arm, while a voice said over and over:

"Time we go; time we go!"

It was yet night when I opened my eyes, but Smilax had lit a small buttonwood fire and breakfast was waiting. While I stumbled to the pool to drive the cobwebs from my brain he took the canteens and filled them at the spring; for, in the all-day strain ahead of us—and few things are more trying than to lie concealed and watch from the gray of dawn till the black of night—we should need a liberal supply of water.

"Shall we take rifles?" I asked, when everything was ready and each of us had our snack of food.

"No," he answered. "Too hard to crawl like snake. They no see us to-day. We take l'il crack-crack."

"Little crack-crack" meant an automatic revolver, greatly admired by Smilax and, since Tommy's coaching, handled by him with no mean skill. So I swung one of these to the small of my back, into position when we should begin crawling, and handed him the other; whereupon, without further ado, we traversed the "island" and melted into the prairie. Forty minutes later Smilax moving slowly and cautiously ahead, entered the narrow strip of forest. Another ten minutes, and we got to our hands and knees. In this way we proceeded perhaps a hundred yards when, putting his lips close to my ear, he whispered:

"We hide here; come still like snake."

I put out my hand and felt the ragged edge of saw-palmetto, then slipped in behind him, moving scarcely more than a yard a minute. Heaven help us, I thought, if we had to lie on that torturous stuff for fifteen hours! But Smilax was equal to every occasion. When we reached the far side of the patch, leaving only a fringe of leaves to shield us from those we came to watch, he worked a while with his hands, then whispered: "Now lay down." Lo, the uncomfortable roots had been pressed in other directions and the soft sand received my body. He remained, however, long enough on his knees to make sure that none of the fronds had been twisted out of line, else uncompromising daylight might show our enemy that all here was not right.

The night remained very still and impenetrably black, though I think that Smilax could see a little with his extraordinary catlike sight. Then came a first sleepy bird note. The day, at last, was on the wing!

When from obscurity the saw-tooth stems took shape before my eyes and the distance receded farther, I saw that we were near the edge of a steep bank. Perhaps twelve feet below us lay the water, as a mirror on which some one has breathed. A mist hung over it—and in that gossamer shroud a little island floated whereon my Sylvia dwelt—where now she slept.

A minute later the forest awoke with bird life; dawn came rapidly. Islands took shape, trees stepped out from their obscurity and small details drew into focus. First I sought her home and could hardly take my eyes from it. Low and rambling, it stood two hundred feet away, nestled in a most inviting shade of splendid trees. Flowers and climbing vines were everywhere, touched with the rich coloring of poinsettia and bougainvillea—although this very approach of day began to close the fragrant moon-flowers and spelled death to the night-blooming cereus. The walls of her bungalow seemed to be tinted red, varying to purple, which gave a strange yet most pleasing effect in the setting of blossoms. Not till later did I learn that this was the rare Cat's Claw wood, nowhere to be found but in southern Florida.

On the larger island, not over a hundred feet from us, were perhaps ten buildings of about the same size and plan, and presumably sleeping quarters. But in their midst stood a structure of some pretensions that we afterwards knew to be a dining hall. Quite off in the background were two small bungalows whose air denoted quality, but the roof of one had been fitted with a skylight which gave me the impression that here Efaw Kotee worked his trade at counterfeiting. Still beyond this was a tower rising above the low trees, perhaps intended for a lighthouse, although there had been no light burning when we came. But these were at best surmises that arranged themselves in my mind while noting everything in sight and awaiting a further sign of life.