Dick in the Everglades Part 7

You'll be lost from the start, but you don't want to think of that.

Just make your course average southeast for the first fifty miles, which you ought to cover in three days. Then hunt for some creek coming from the east. It will be a little one, you will have to drag your canoe, perhaps for miles, under branches that close over the creek and you may have to carry your canoe and pack your dunnage over prairie land. In a day you ought to strike the Everglades. Then turn to the north and look for Indian trails, which you want to follow whenever they lead anywhere near where you are trying to go.

They will help you to dodge the worst of the saw-gra.s.s which is likely to be your greatest trouble.

"Keep along the border line between the Everglades and the cypress country and you will probably hit Osceola's camp. He's about the whitest Seminole in the State and he'll help you all he can.

Remember, when in an Indian camp, that their brand of politeness is different from a white man's, though it may be just as sincere. If you're hungry, and don't see a spoon lying around, just dip your hand in the family pot, if you can eat that way. If you want to sleep lie down on the nearest unoccupied bunk. If you make a mistake they won't tell you of it.

"Now, remember above all things, that you mustn't get rattled.

That's the biggest risk you'll run in this country. If you get separated from Johnny and think about being lost and get excited and begin to walk fast, or run, stop right there and sit down and don't go on till you're perfectly cool, not if you have to camp right where you are for a night, or a day, or both. Just as soon as you have taught yourself that when you get excited you have got to sit still for an hour or two, you'll stop getting excited. There is mighty little real danger where you are going. There are bear and panther, but the only thing on earth that's a bigger coward than a bear is a panther. People from your country think the alligator is a dangerous brute. I have lived among them, killed them, dealt in their hides, of which I have shipped north the biggest consignments sent from this coast, since before you were born, and I never knew of a human being having been harmed by one. This deep river running in front of my door used to be full of them, and there are some there now, but my whole family of children swim in it almost every day without thought of danger. Only two weeks ago Johnny killed a ten-foot 'gator right in front of my house and within a hundred feet of it. Any of our hunters will wade into a pond where there are fifty alligators, to drag out one they have shot; many of them will tackle, with nothing but a stick, any 'gator under six feet that they can catch on a prairie or asleep on a bank, and a few of the boys will wade bare-footed and bare-handed into a pond on the prairie and bring out little alligators. Johnny is a dabster at that. Likely you'll see him do it before many days.

"Of course rattlesnakes are bad, but they always give warning, usually a good long one. I've killed hundreds, perhaps thousands of them and never been bitten. Cotton-mouth moccasins are poisonous, but they are sluggish and not so very plenty. You'll have to get used to the smaller moccasins. You will find lots of them. I've kicked them out of my path on the prairies and in the marshes for a good many years without having been bitten by one.

"Sharks have a bad name, and Florida waters are full of them, but there is no authentic instance on record of their having killed a man, woman, or child in this country. There are convicts and other outlaws in the Ten Thousand Islands. They may steal something from your camp, but they won't harm you. Some of them are bad men, and when they kill their own kind, people here don't mind it, but the outlaws know that the community wouldn't stand for their hurting any of you boys."

d.i.c.k was ashamed when he got up to breakfast to find that Mr.

Streeter and Johnny had been at work for an hour and had got everything ready for a start, even to the mosquito-bar, which one of the family had already made.

The outfit consisted of a fly-rod, with reel, line and flies; rifle and shot-gun, with fifty cartridges for each; pair grains, harpoon, line and pole; cast-net, fish hooks and lines; forks, tin-cups and plates, two each; light axe, saucepan and frying-pan; piece of waterproofed canvas, six by eight feet; lantern, kerosene, and bag of salt; white bacon, hominy and corn meal, five lbs. each; canoe, two paddles and one long oar; five gallon can of water, and bucket; waterproof box filled with matches.

Each of the boys carried a clasp knife and a pocket, watertight match safe.

Nothing had been loaded on the canoe, as Mr. Streeter wanted to be sure that d.i.c.k could stay in it, before he filled it with goods that water might harm. He was soon satisfied on this point, for although d.i.c.k got into the canoe with exceeding care, he kept his balance perfectly, and after the first few strokes appeared perfectly at home in the craft. He paddled for a few minutes kneeling on the bottom of the boat, then sitting on a thwart, and finally came back to the dock sitting on the stern, while the bow of the canoe tilted up in the air. Then Johnny got in with him and the boys maneuvered the craft until Mr. Streeter called out to them:

"You kids are all right and don't need to waste any more time.

Better pack up and be off, and save half a day." They loaded the canoe carefully and took their positions, d.i.c.k in the stern and Johnny in the bow. Then lifting their caps to the family, who had come down to the dock to see them off, the boys dipped their paddles together in the river and began d.i.c.k's hunt for his chum.

CHAPTER VI

d.i.c.k'S HUNT FOR HIS CHUM

An hour's paddling brought d.i.c.k and Johnny to the mouth of Turner's River, up which they headed the canoe. A strong tide setting up the river nearly doubled their speed.

"Lucky for us that the tide is running our way," said d.i.c.k.

"Not much luck about it. Mr. Streeter knew about the tide. That's why he hurried us off 'fore dinner. Tide'll be other way this evenin'," replied Johnny.

"Isn't Mr. Streeter a brick?"

"He's all that. Lots o' people 'd have hard times 'f he moved away.

He helps th' Injuns, too, when they're in hard luck."

The first fork in the river was a mile from its mouth and d.i.c.k, who was steering, took the right branch, which led southeast, although it was much the smaller stream. At the next parting of the stream one branch led to the east and the other due south. Fortunately Johnny knew which fork to take, and for a mile or two there was no trouble. Then the river opened out into a broad shallow bay, filled with little keys, but nothing to tell d.i.c.k which way to steer. He tried to keep to a southeast course, but ran into shallows which soon ended in a pocket from which they had to back out. Often they followed a good channel for a mile, only to have it end in an oyster reef, and again they had to turn back. A pair of dolphins lifted their heads above the surface in front of the canoe and with a sniff of fright started away across the bay like an express train. They were great creatures, nearly nine feet long, and were followed in their flight by a baby dolphin less than half their size, which rose within reach of d.i.c.k's paddle, sniffed impertinently in his face and skittered away after his mother as fast as he could wiggle his funny flat tail.

"Better foller them porpoises," said Johnny; "they know the channel."

The dolphin is so uniformly miscalled porpoise, on the west coast and everywhere else, that the creature will soon come to think that it really is a porpoise.

d.i.c.k followed the dolphins as long as he could see them and was led into a deep channel which opened out into a series of broad bays through which they paddled until, among the sunken lands of the flooded mangrove keys, they came upon a sh.e.l.l mound, the site of an old abandoned plantation. d.i.c.k's aching muscles and Johnny's clamorous stomach had long been pleading for a rest, and the boys landed on the mound for a picnic dinner. They opened a box which Mrs. Streeter had given them as they started from her home, and found a bountiful lunch of cold venison, baked sweet potatoes, boiled eggs, bread, b.u.t.ter, orange marmalade and two pineapples.

"Gee!" said d.i.c.k. "Are we going to live this way, Johnny?" but Johnny only grinned.

After the boys had eaten, as only boys can eat, they crawled through the vines and among the thorns of the overgrown plantation. They found stalks of sugar-cane and bunches of bananas; wide-spreading guava and lime trees, loaded with fruit; and tall Avocado pear trees from which hung purpling globes of that great, creamy, most delicious fruit, commonly called alligator pear. They filled with fruit the shirts they wore, till they bulged like St. Nicholas, and made many trips between the trees and their canoe. As d.i.c.k was standing beside a lime tree, he heard a sound near him like the whirring of a big locust. d.i.c.k had never before heard the angry jarring of the rattles of the great king of snakes, but he didn't need to be told the meaning of the blood-curdling sound, which seemed to come from all directions at once. He gazed about him for a moment, with every muscle tense, until he caught sight of the head of the reptile waving slowly to and fro above the irregular coils of his body. The snake seemed to be within striking distance and the unnerved boy sprang suddenly away from it, landing among the thorn-bearing branches of a big lime tree. d.i.c.k soon recovered his nerve, and hunting up a big stick, went cautiously in search of the reptile, which he found still coiled. He broke the creature's back with his first blow and had struck several more when Johnny came crawling through the undergrowth, and called out:

"Want to save his skin?"

"Sure," replied d.i.c.k, who hadn't thought of it before.

"Then don't smash him any more and I'll show you how to round-skin him. He's dead enough, now. A feller from New York showed me how. He skinned 'em for a livin'. Birds, too. Said he'd give me ten dollars if I'd get him the skin of one of these fork-tailed kites. He wanted the nest and eggs, too. Say, but he could skin things. Skin a bird without losin' a feather or gettin' a drop o' blood on it. Said the best way to skin snakes was 'fore they was dead."

As Johnny began cutting the skin free from the jaws of the reptile, the long, needle-like fangs dripped yellow venom and d.i.c.k, looking on with a white face, half whispered:

"Suppose you happened to touch those fangs?"

"Ain't a-goin' to touch 'em. Wish I had my pliers here, to pull 'em out. You oughter save 'em, and the skull, too. The feller I was tellin' yer about always did."

"I don't want them; makes me sick to look at them," said d.i.c.k, who looked mightily relieved when, the head having been skinned, it was cut off and thrown into the bay. After that he became interested and helped Johnny with his work until he held in his hand the beautiful skin of a diamondback rattlesnake, over six feet long.

In the afternoon the boys entered a big bay that seemed to have no other outlet. They followed its sh.o.r.e for an hour, exploring every little bay that looked big enough to hide the smallest creek. They sounded the depth of the water with their paddles and traced a little channel to a clump of bushes that overhung the water from the sh.o.r.e. Johnny pulled the bow of the canoe under the overhanging branches and found a little creek through which the water was flowing. They dragged the canoe into the stream and found water deep enough to float it, but branches and vines obstructed them above, while logs and snags troubled them below. They used their knives and the axe more than they did their paddles. At times they lay down in the canoe and dragged it under branches and at others got overboard, and standing in water and mud, lifted it over logs. They were in the deep gloom of a jungle from which the thick growth above shut out nearly all the light. As they pushed the canoe forward, unseen vines seized their throats in a garroting clutch, while solid ma.s.ses of spider-webs stuck to their faces and spiders the size of a saucer ran over them. As Johnny sat in the bow, he collected the most spiders, since d.i.c.k only got those which his companion managed to dodge, but then Johnny was used to the critters and didn't mind them, while d.i.c.k wasn't, and did.

"What kind of snakes are these swimming round my legs?" asked d.i.c.k, as he stood nearly waist-deep in mud and water and helped lift the canoe over the biggest log they had struck.

"Speckle-belly moccasins. Mustn't get scared o' them, if you're goin' to hunt in this country. They ain't likely to bite if yer don't step on 'em and they won't kill yer, nohow," said Johnny.

The stream was so crooked that the boys had to travel three miles to gain one and as the troubles in their path seemed to increase they talked of turning back. But as it was already too late to get out of the creek before dark, they decided to keep on. As it was, darkness overtook them while they were yet in the creek. Among their stores was a lantern, by the light of which they progressed for a little while, when Johnny proposed making camp.

"But we can't camp here. I'm not a merman, to sleep in the water,"

said d.i.c.k.

"You can stretch out in the canoe, if we tie it so it won't tip over, and I'll build a brush bed good enough for me in ten minutes,"

said Johnny, who took the axe, and cut a short pole, which he rested on the branches of two trees which grew side by side, so that the stick lay parallel to a fallen tree trunk which lay about five feet distant. Then he cut a number of inch saplings into six-foot lengths, with which he made a platform from the pole to the tree, and spreading his blanket on this elastic couch announced that his bed was ready. The boys made a hearty supper from the fragments that were left from the bountiful provision that Mrs. Streeter had made for their dinner. d.i.c.k's bed in the canoe was probably softer than Johnny's bed, but he didn't sleep as well. The sides of his canoe were only five inches above the water which contained the moccasins, and d.i.c.k was sure he could feel their tongues touch his face as the reptiles searched for a soft place to strike. Then the snarling from a tree beside him would have been less terrifying if he had known that instead of being, as he supposed, two wildcats quarreling for the first bite at him, it was merely a friendly family discussion between two 'c.o.o.ns.

Things looked more cheerful by daylight, and when Johnny asked whether they should go on or turn back, d.i.c.k replied:

"Go on just as long as the creek runs." But the creek became choked with brush and turned back on its course, until Johnny said:

"If this crik gits any crookeder it'll fetch us back home."

The boys had to cut away two trees which had fallen across the creek where the growth was so thick that to cut a path around would have been more work than to clear away the logs. The trees were large, their axe a little one, and when the boys came to three trees lying near together across the stream d.i.c.k was so dismayed that he said to Johnny:

"Let's get back out of this creek. We must be on the wrong track, Mr. Streeter said Indians and hunters got through this country, but they never got through this way. What do you think?"

"Hate to go back, but s'pose we've got ter."

d.i.c.k's spirits ran low during the return trip through the creek.

They were going in the wrong direction, and each hour was taking him farther away from where he supposed Ned was. Many times he wished they had kept on and fought their way through the creek. After reaching the bay they had left the day before they turned to the east and north as they followed labyrinthic channels that led around big and little keys in that part of the ten times Ten Thousand Islands. The work became confusing, the waterways they followed led them toward every point in the compa.s.s. Sometimes a narrowing stream made them think they had struck a creek which flowed from the mainland, but always it opened into some small bay filled with little keys. Late in the afternoon they found a point of land high enough for a camp, where they spent the night. After they had eaten their supper, d.i.c.k said: