THE FRIENDLY SEMINOLES.
About noon of the next day they arrived at the Seminole town which was
their destination.
As they approached the village, which was located on a broad triangle of
land slightly higher than the surrounding expanses, they noticed a
little wharf along one side, and close to this wharf a number of canoes
of different sizes. Standing in one of these canoes, a large one, was an
Indian, who was working hard with a curious piece of mechanism. It was a
sheet of tin roofing about three feet square, into which holes had been
driven, with the rough side up like a nutmeg grater. Across this sheet,
back and forth, the Indian was violently rubbing the roots of the coonti
plant.
“What on earth is he making?” asked Billy.
“Starch,” replied Mark promptly. “The Indians eat coonti starch like
pudding, and it tastes mighty good, when you’re hungry. I’ve been told
that it’s very nourishing and healthful, but I’ve never eaten much of
it.”
Having landed, the party stood watching the starch-maker, while the two
guides made the canoes fast to the wharf. Then Dave and Jim led the way
in search of friends in the village.
A few braves were standing around, gazing at the young strangers, or now
and then exchanging a few mumbled words of greeting with Jim and Dave,
whom they addressed by their true Seminole names. All the other men of
the little village were absent, perhaps out fishing or hunting.
Not a woman or a child was in sight; they had run away to hide behind
trees or within their palmetto huts. It was only when they were assured
that the visitors were of the most friendly nature that they came out,
eying the strangers curiously and distrustfully. One small boy whom Jim
called to him was disposed to be friendly with Billy, who bought of him
a bow and arrows. Norton had brought several boxes of colored beads, and
he scattered handfuls of these among the children, who scrambled and
scampered away for them in every direction with joyous cries.
After a while the hunters began to return in canoes, singly or in twos
or threes. Beyond greeting the two guides briefly, they paid very little
attention to the strangers, but continued their occupations serenely
undisturbed.
On a platform close to the water’s edge, two Indians were skinning some
freshly killed otters. In a hut nearby, an old man, a silversmith, was
making earrings and crescents of hammered silver. Further on, an Indian
boy was hollowing out a log for a canoe; and three squaws were drawing
water from a spring on the island, using big gourds to carry it.
Old canoe trails led from this island in all directions through the salt
marshes, and the boys would have greatly enjoyed following a few of
them, had time permitted. But the hours were flying, and soon the scouts
would have to return to the settlement where Captain Vinton and the
_Arrow_ awaited them.
Accordingly they left the main part of the Seminole camp, and retracing
their steps to the crude little wharf, embarked once more in their
canoes. The friendly Seminoles gathered in a body on the wharf, to see
them off; and soon the two canoes were headed down stream, following
very nearly the same course over which they had come.
By dint of hard and rapid poling, the guides managed to reach the
lean-to island before nightfall. Aided by the slow currents of the water
trails, travel down stream was more rapid than it had been;
nevertheless, it was a thoroughly tired and sleepy company of explorers
who rolled into their sleeping-bags in the shelter of the lean-to that
night.
Next morning, however, all were early astir, for Dave had suggested an
alligator hunt. After breakfast they started off in the canoes,
resolving to run up any small creeks they might find in search of these
reptiles.
It was still very early. A light mist was rising from the countless
acres of saw-grass, and the sun was shining through a veil of fleecy
clouds. Slowly, almost noiselessly, the canoes glided along the
water-courses, while their eager occupants hardly dared to speak, lest
breaking the vast silence should alarm the hidden game.
The canoes were moving slowly around a point of land, when Dave, raising
his hand, whispered:
“See big one—over there.”
At a distance the object which he pointed out appeared to be the trunk
of a fallen tree, half in water, half on the mud bank of the stream. It
was motionless, and they stared at it without recognizing its shape and
color. Expecting to see the glossy black back of an alligator, they
observed that this creature was of an ashen gray, the color of an old
sun-dried stump.
“Where? What is it?” whispered Chester.
“S-sh!” came the low, sibilant warning from Dave. “Heap big
’gator,—_aal-pa-tah_. You not want to wake him, scare him.”
“Huh!” grunted Jim. “No ’gator.”
“What? That old log is a——”
“Crocodile!”
Even as he spoke, Jim lowered his pole and took a paddle, with which he
guided the dug-out forward without noise or splash. Dave followed his
example. Together, almost side by side, the canoes with their breathless
crews approached the crocodile. But unfortunately, as the hideous
creature was to leeward of the canoes, there was no way for them to get
the wind of it; and this fact accounted for a sudden startled movement
of the beast. It turned its head, opened its huge jaws with a curious
loud hiss, and then, straightening itself halfway on its short legs,
began to slide backward into the water.
However, at the very instant that it began to move,—and it moved with
astonishing rapidity, for so ungainly a brute,—a sharp sound broke the
silence. Jim’s rifle spoke, and the report rang out startlingly.
With a gentle slide, the huge reptile had disappeared into the water.
Anxiously they waited for him to rise to the surface again and show
whether he had been fatally wounded. Jim could not tell whether or not
his shot had taken effect.
But he was not kept long in doubt. After a few minutes, the water was
violently churned by the dying struggles of the crocodile, and the
canoes, tossing up and down on the wavelets, were nearly upset more than
once. Perilous moments for the hunters! Had either of the canoes, or
both, “turned turtle,” the vicious and frantic reptile might have
avenged its own death!
Instead, it presently lay inert and lifeless in the shallower part of
the stream, whence Jim, springing out of the canoe, dragged the heavy
body ashore and began at once to skin it, assisted by Dave.
There were many miles still to be traveled, and so Norton decided not to
spend any more time in that locality, but to return to the river station
by nightfall, if possible.
“Cap’n Vinton will think we’re lost, strayed, or stolen, never coming
back to civilization,” he said laughingly.
“I almost wish we were!” said Hugh with a sigh. “I love the wilds. I’d
like to spend a whole year down here among the Glades, if I could.
Wouldn’t you, Bill?”
“You bet!—if there was some reason, some purpose in our doing it,” Billy
answered. “I’d get tired of just loafing, though.”
“So would I.”
“I know you would.”
“Well, _I_ wouldn’t!” declared Alec, smiling. “Hunting, fishing,
exploring, taking photos—that would be enough for me.”
“I guess you’d change your mind, Alec, before long,” said Norton. “At
any rate, we must return to civilization now. I dare say your parents
will be anxious for a telegram from us within a day or two, assuring
them that we’re all well. Remember, it’s many days since you last wrote
about your adventures, and they’ll want to know that we’re not
shipwrecked, lost at sea, or adrift in the Glades.”
“Oh, they’ll soon have all the news.”
“Besides, we’ve a long cruise up the coast, back to Santario, still
ahead of us,” continued Roy Norton. “And Mark is looking forward to
seeing his family and friends at Red Key.”
There was a brief silence. The Seminole guides had resumed their poling,
keeping the canoes almost abreast. A light breeze, warm and pungent with
the tang of the marshes and the scent of scrubby pines, passed over the
ocean of grass.
Chester broke the silence. “It’s been a great trip,” he said with quiet
enthusiasm. “We’ve all enjoyed it immensely. I wish those fellows at Red
Key could have come along with us; they’d have liked the run.”
“I guess they have plenty of adventures,” Billy added. “I’ll never
forget our experiences at Red Key and later at the lighthouse.”
Hugh agreed with this statement. Somehow, he felt that the slight part
he and his comrades had played in sharing the labors of those brave
surfmen and guardians of the coast would linger in his memory longer
than any other experience of their visit. It meant to them all much more
than their brief sojourn at the Seminole village, with the stalwart
braves returning from the chase, the squaws busying themselves with
household cares, the romping children, the air of contented aloofness
that pervaded the scene.
“Yes, it’s been a great trip.” He echoed Chet’s words with sincerity.
“It’s not over yet, thank fortune!” said Chester.
“It has hardly begun!” Alec rejoined briskly.
And, as later events showed, he was a true prophet; for the boys were
destined to add many further adventures to their list of exploits before
they returned to Santario and to Alec’s home.
These adventures will be related in “The Boy Scouts on Picket Duty.”
THE END.
Transcriber’s Notes
--Copyright notice provided as in the original—this e-text is public
domain in the country of publication.
--Silently corrected palpable typos; left non-standard spellings and
dialect unchanged.
--In the text versions, delimited italics text in _underscores_ (the
HTML version reproduces the font form of the printed book.)