Captain Ted Part 20

In the early morning they were awakened by the rain falling on their faces, and found their once dry and cosy retreat now thoroughly wet and uncomfortable. Not only did water percolate through the hastily constructed palmetto thatch, but, the wind having changed, the rain now beat in from the front. A slow, steady downfall evidently had continued throughout the night.

"It's a set-in rain, and we're goin' to have a hard time," Hubert complained.

It was only with great difficulty and after long effort that they succeeded in building a fire, and by the time the remainder of the turkey, which had been hung out of reach of marauding animals the night before, had been broiled and eaten, it was late in the morning.

What to do next was the puzzling question. Even the night before Ted had been troubled to answer. To turn back might invite an encounter with a pursuing party of slackers, yet the marsh barred further progress, unless the boys were willing to take the risks involved in wading through mud, slime, mosses, rushes, "bonnets," and what not, the water being no doubt over their heads in many places.

"Let's try it," Ted proposed at last. "We are wet to the skin anyhow, and if we can't do it, we can come back here. If we can get across, I don't think it will take us long to find our way out of the swamp."

Hubert shrank from but agreed to the undertaking, preferring almost anything whatsoever to turning back with the prospect of falling into the hands of a pursuing party of slackers. Both boys were good swimmers, but Ted thought it unwise to venture on a flooded marsh of unknown depth without some safeguard. As they had no boat and probably would be unable to float a raft, even if one could be constructed, he decided to take with them a section of a tree to which they might cling, in case they should advance beyond their depth and be unable to swim on account of the mosses and sedge crowding the marsh water at so many points.

After considerable search Ted found a dead cypress which had broken into parts in its fall before a wind storm. A section of this about twelve feet long and about a foot in diameter, was chosen. Having provided themselves with light slender poles some ten feet long, and tied the gun and hatchet between two short up-reaching branches of the log, the boys succeeded in launching what Ted termed their "life-preserver."

While they were accomplishing this task Hubert made his first acquaintance with a curiosity of the Okefinokee, more noticeable in times past than now along the sh.o.r.es of islands within or bordering the marshes. Stepping off from the island sh.o.r.e, Hubert walked forward upon a seeming continuation of land--a ma.s.s of floating vegetable forms, intermingled with moss, drift and slime, forming a compact floor capable of sustaining his weight, which, although it did not at once break through beneath him, could be seen to sink and rise at every step for several feet around.

"Why this ground moves!" cried Hubert, astonished.

"You'd better look out," said Ted. "It won't hold you up much longer.

It's not ground; it's floating moss and stuff----"

He paused, smiling, as Hubert broke through and stood in mud and water above his knees.

"I heard one of the slackers speak of that moving stuff as 'floating batteries,'" Ted added. "Uncle Walter said the Indians, in old times, called it 'Okefinokee' or 'trembling earth,' and that was how the swamp got its name."

Once they had dragged their "life preserver" over the "trembling earth,"

the boys made better progress, although they still had to contend with a submerged slimy moss of a green color and a great variety of crowding rushes. As they staggered along, dragging the log, now only up to their knees in water, now sinking in the yielding ooze until the water rose above their waists, they were for a time much annoyed by a little black fly or bug haunting the sedge which stung like a mosquito.

The clouds still dropped a slow drizzle, and a mist lay upon the great marsh, in which the many little islands, clothed in dun-colored vegetation, loomed up in dim, uncertain outlines. Ted remarked that he had heard the slackers call these islets "houses," but that to him they now rather suggested huge phantom ships. Many cranes, herons and "poor-jobs" had already risen at their approach; and as they advanced farther out on the marsh, where the water deepened, the sedge began to thin and to be succeeded by "bonnets" or water lilies, large flocks of ducks flew up, and occasionally a curlew skimmed across their course.

Pa.s.sing not far from one of the little islands, they noted that it was grown up at the edges with low ca.s.sina bushes, and that other vegetation sloped gradually up to two or three tall cypresses in the center, the whole being drearily decorated with long trailing drifts of Spanish moss.

"It looks like a big circus tent," said Hubert.

The water still deepened, and soon they were obliged to swim--Ted with his left arm thrown over the forward end of the cypress log, and Hubert with his right resting on the rear end. A couple of hundred yards or so further on they entered an open and perceptible current flowing almost at right angles to their course.

"Let's follow this," proposed Ted. "It will be so much easier to carry the log."

So they swam on, floating their log with the gentle current which flowed narrowly between the bordering "bonnets," little dreaming that they were on the head-waters of the famed Suwanee River.

How far they traveled, floating on this current, they hardly knew, being unable to see any great distance or keep anything like landmarks in view. As soon as one of the ghostly little islands floated past and disappeared in the mist, another would be outlined in their front, and, all of them being more or less alike, the effect was confusing. They lost count, as it were, of both distance and time.

Finally Hubert protested that he was cold as well as tired and hungry, and demanded that they land on the next "house." Ted thought longingly of a rest, too, and as soon as they were opposite another islet, he struck out toward it through the "bonnets" and sedge, forcing the log along with Hubert's help.

In this way they floated into a round open pool which the mist had concealed from view. Ted had no sooner sighted several dark floating objects a short distance ahead than the water about him became curiously agitated, and, with a cry of alarm, he glanced back at Hubert.

"Jump on the log!" he shouted. "We're in a 'gator hole."

Neither boy could afterward have told how he did it, but almost in a twinkling both stood upright on the log, maintaining a precarious balance by dipping their long sticks in the water, first on one side and then on the other. Under their combined weight the log sank so low that it was almost entirely submerged, and this added to the alarm of both when they saw that the pool seemed to be alive with alligators large and small, for a hundred feet around. Some of the huge scaly saurians swam about rather lazily, while others lay quiet on the water and gazed at the intruders with their black, l.u.s.terless eyes. As yet they exhibited no signs of either fear or anger, and even seemed lacking in curiosity.

But it was Hubert's first experience with the alligator of Florida and southern Georgia, which, in his ignorance, he a.s.sociated with the crocodile of the far East, and the boy was terrified.

"They are going to eat us up!" he gasped, after he had tottered, swayed, and very nearly lost his balance beyond recovery.

"I don't think they'll do anything to us, if we are careful not to run into them," said Ted, rea.s.suringly, though not without some real apprehension of trouble.

But this is precisely what happened. Hubert's desperate struggles to regain his balance caused the log to depart from the course Ted was trying to maintain, and, before it could be prevented, they floated between two motionless alligators, almost touching them, and then the forward end of the log ran aground on the back of a third.

There followed a great stir and splashing. Hubert went overboard with the first shock, and the powerful flirt of a frightened or enraged alligator's tail sent Ted, slightly stunned, into the water three or four feet from the log.

Both boys swam desperately back to their one refuge, conscious of the plunging of the excited amphibians as they did so, and fearing every moment that an arm or a leg would be bitten off. But when they again stood upright on their log, balancing themselves once more with the long sticks to which they had persisted in clinging, they saw with some measure of relief that the nearest of the alligators now visible were some yards distant. In their stupid astonishment or lazy indifference, the creatures had allowed an easy prey to escape them.

With all possible speed, yet cautiously, the boys paddled their log away from the undesirable neighborhood, breathing more freely only after they were out of the pool and well on their way through the sedge toward the "house."

"Maybe they didn't think we were good to eat," said Hubert, wondering, and then joining nervously in Ted's merry laugh.

"I've heard that they eat animals sometimes, but they live on fish mostly," said Ted. "It was lucky, though, that we had the log to get up on."

"Would they have eaten us if we hadn't had it?"

Ted laughed again before he answered:

"I don't think so, but I shouldn't care to risk it a second time.

Hunters say alligators don't attack man except in self-defense."

"But I've heard of their catching pigs and even little n.i.g.g.e.rs,"

persisted Hubert.

"Well," admitted Ted, still smiling, "you never can tell when such creatures may want a change of diet. That place back there--a breeding place, I think--is like one I heard Mr. Hardy speak of. He called it an 'alligator heaven.'"

"Deliver me from an 'alligator heaven,' if that's one," said Hubert, so solemnly that Ted was amused and laughed once more.

Entering shallower water, they dared to step into it and wade toward the little island. Leaving their log safely lodged on the "trembling earth"

formation, and having struggled through and over this, they landed on firm but damp ground. The island was circular in form and hardly two hundred yards in diameter. Ca.s.sina bushes fringed the sh.o.r.es, the vegetation rising thence to a few tall cypress trees in the center.

Everywhere the funereal Spanish moss fluttered in the gentle breeze.

It had now ceased raining, but a dense mist still floated upon the great marsh. The raw atmosphere seemed as cold as the water had been and the boys moved about shivering, bitterly regretting their attempt to cross the flooded wilderness. The wildness and desolation of the scene seemed to be intensified by the presence of two small gray eagles, which screamed in a harsh shrill way as they hovered about a large nest in the top of the tallest tree on the island.

Their weariness and sharp hunger were the only certain indications of the flight of time, but as the light began to wane the boys realized that they had been on the marsh for hours and had not landed on the island till late in the afternoon. It was now necessary to make some sort of preparation for the night, and that speedily. An attempt to build a fire had failed, the wet matches refusing even to ignite, and as the gun was also wet and the sh.e.l.ls soaked, there appeared to be no hope of obtaining even the raw flesh of a bird for supper, supposing they could have eaten it.

Tears appeared in shivering Hubert's eyes and rolled slowly down his cheeks, seeing which Ted smiled and tried hard to make merry with a little jest.

"Now, Hu, we've had enough water for one day without pumping up any more," he said, patting his cousin affectionately on the shoulder.

"Well, you know," said Hubert, trying to smile in response, "I never did have a good grip on my what-you-may-call-'em ducts, and this is pretty tough, as you know. I really am trying hard to stand it and not be a baby. I'm glad we didn't have such a dose as this the first day in the swamp--I'd have boo-hooed sure enough. I'm not quite the baby that I was."

"No, you are not, Hu; you are getting to be quite a man," said Ted gently, and Hubert, struggling hard to sit on the lid of his lachrymal ducts, so to speak, was very grateful.

A few moments later he smilingly announced that he had succeeded in "turning off the water," but he feared that he had spoken too soon when suddenly Ted, moving about, very nearly stepped on a large moccasin and found some difficulty in killing it with his long stick. Hubert suffered from an instinctive horror of snakes and the episode almost upset him.