At noon on the second day I disembarked from the train at Citron City
with all paraphernalia--cage, chemicals, arsenal, and stenographer; an
accumulation of very dusty impedimenta--all but the stenographer. By
three o'clock our hotel livery-rig was speeding along the beach at
False Cape towards the tall lighthouse looming above the dunes.
The abode of a gentleman named Slunk was my goal. I sat brooding in
the rickety carriage, still dazed by the rapidity of my flight from
New York; the stenographer sat beside me, blue eyes bright with
excitement, fair hair blowing in the sea-wind.
Our railway companionship had been of the slightest, also absolutely
formal; for I was too absorbed in conjecturing the meaning of this
journey to be more than absent-mindedly civil; and she, I fancy, had
had time for repentance and perhaps for a little fright, though I
could discover traces of neither.
I remember she left the train at some city or other where we were held
for an hour; and out of the car-window I saw her returning with a
brand-new grip sack.
She must have bought clothes, for she continued to remain cool and
fresh in her summer shirt-waists and short outing skirt; and she
looked immaculate now, sitting there beside me, the trace of a smile
curving her red mouth.
"I'm looking for a personage named Slunk," I observed.
After a moment's silent consideration of the Atlantic Ocean she said,
"When do my duties begin, Mr. Gilland?"
"The Lord alone knows," I replied, grimly. "Are you repenting of your
bargain?"
"I am quite happy," she said, serenely.
Remorse smote me that I had consented to engage this frail,
pink-and-ivory biped for an enterprise which lay outside the suburbs
of Manhattan. I glanced guiltily at my victim; she sat there, the
incarnation of New York piquancy--a translated denizen of the
metropolis--a slender spirit of the back offices of sky-scrapers. Why
had I lured her hither?--here where the heavy, lavender-tinted
breakers thundered on a lost coast; here where above the dune-jungles
vultures soared, and snowy-headed eagles, hulking along the sands,
tore dead fish and yelped at us as we passed.
Strange waters, strange skies--a strange, lost land aquiver under an
exotic sun; and there she sat with her wise eyes of a child,
unconcerned, watching the world in perfect confidence.
"May I pay a little compliment to your pluck?" I asked, amused.
"Certainly," she said, smiling as the maid of Manhattan alone knows
how to smile--shyly, inquiringly--with a lingering hint of laughter in
the curled lips' corners. Then her sensitive features fell a trifle.
"Not pluck," she said, "but necessity; I had no chance to choose, no
time to wait. My last dollar, Mr. Gilland, is in my purse!"
With a gay little gesture she drew it from her shirt-front, then,
smiling, sat turning it over and over in her lap.
The sun fell on her hands, gilding the smooth skin with the first tint
of sunburn. Under the corners of her eyes above the rounded cheeks a
pink stain lay like the first ripening flush on a wild strawberry.
That, too, was the mark left by the caress of wind and sun. I had had
no idea she was so pretty.
"I think we'll enjoy this adventure," I said; "don't you?"
"I try to make the best of things," she said, gazing off into the
horizon haze. "Look," she added; "is that a man?"
A spot far away on the beach caught my eye. At first I thought it was
a pelican--and small wonder, too, for the dumpy, waddling,
goose-necked individual who loomed up resembled a heavy bottomed bird
more than a human being.
"Do you suppose that could be Mr. Slunk?" asked the stenographer, as
our vehicle drew nearer.
He looked as though his name ought to be Slunk; he was digging coquina
clams, and he dug with a pecking motion like a water-turkey mastering
a mullet too big for it.
His name was Slunk; he admitted it when I accused him. Our negro
driver drew rein, and I descended to the sand and gazed on Mr. Slunk.
He was, as I have said, not impressive, even with the tremendous
background of sky and ocean.
"I've come something over a thousand miles to see you," I said,
reluctant to admit that I had come as far to see such a specimen of
human architecture.
A weather-beaten grin stretched the skin that covered his face, and he
shoved a hairy paw into the pockets of his overalls, digging deeply
into profound depths. First he brought to light a twist of South
Carolina tobacco, which he leisurely inserted in his mouth--not,
apparently, for pleasure, but merely to get rid of it.
The second object excavated from the overalls was a small packet
addressed to me. This he handed to me; I gravely handed him a silver
dollar; he went back to his clam-digging, and I entered the carriage
and drove on. All had been carried out according to the letter of my
instructions so far, and my spirits brightened.
"If you don't mind I'll read my instructions," I said, in high
good-humor.
"Pray do not hesitate," she said, smiling in sympathy.
So I opened the little packet and read:
"Drive to Cape Canaveral along the beach. You will find a gang
of men at work on a government breakwater. The superintendent
is Mr. Rowan. Show him this letter.
"FARRAGO."
Rather disappointed--for I had been expecting to find in the packet
some key to the interesting mystery which had sent Professor Farrago
into the Everglades--I thrust the missive into my pocket and resumed a
study of the immediate landscape. It had not changed as we progressed:
ocean, sand, low dunes crowned with impenetrable tangles of wild bay,
sparkleberry, and live-oak, with here and there a weather-twisted
palmetto sprawling, and here and there the battered blades of cactus
and Spanish-bayonet thrust menacingly forward; and over all the
vultures, sailing, sailing--some mere circling motes lost in the blue
above, some sheering the earth so close that their swiftly sweeping
shadows slanted continually across our road.
"I detest a buzzard," I said, aloud.
"I thought they were crows," she confessed.
"Carrion-crows--yes.
"'The carrion-crows
Sing, Caw! caw!'
--only they don't," I added, my song putting me in good-humor once
more. And I glanced askance at the pretty stenographer.
"It is a pleasure to be employed by agreeable people," she said,
innocently.
"Oh, I can be much more agreeable than that," I said.
"Is Professor Farrago--amusing?" she asked.
"Well--oh, certainly--but not in--in the way I am."
Suddenly it flashed upon me that my superior was a confirmed hater of
unmarried women. I had clean forgotten it; and now the full import of
what I had done scared me silent.
"Is anything the matter?" asked Miss Barrison.
"No--not yet," I said, ominously.
How on earth could I have overlooked that well-known fact. The hurry
and anxiety, the stress of instant preparation and departure, had
clean driven it from my absent-minded head.
Jogging on over the sand, I sat silent, cudgelling my brains for a
solution of the disastrous predicament I had gotten into. I pictured
the astonished rage of my superior--my probable dismissal from
employment--perhaps the general overturning and smash-up of the entire
expedition.
A distant, dark object on the beach concentrated my distracted
thoughts; it must be the breakwater at Cape Canaveral. And it was the
breakwater, swarming with negro workmen, who were swinging great
blocks of coquina into cemented beds, singing and whistling at their
labor.
I forgot my predicament when I saw a thin white man in sun-helmet and
khaki directing the work from the beach; and as our horses plodded up,
I stepped out and hailed him by name.
"Yes, my name is Rowan," he said, instantly, turning to meet me. His
sharp, clear eyes included the vehicle and the stenographer, and he
lifted his helmet, then looked squarely at me.
"My name is Gilland," I said, dropping my voice and stepping nearer.
"I have just come from Bronx Park, New York."
He bowed, waiting for something more from me; so I presented my
credentials.
His formal manner changed at once. "Come over here and let us talk a
bit," he said, cordially--then hesitated, glancing at Miss
Barrison--"if your wife would excuse us--"
The pretty stenographer colored, and I dryly set Mr. Rowan
right--which appeared to disturb him more than his mistake.
"Pardon me, Mr. Gilland, but you do not propose to take this young
girl into the Everglades, do you?"
"That's what I had proposed to do," I said, brusquely.
Perfectly aware that I resented his inquiry, he cast a perplexed and
troubled glance at her, then slowly led the way to a great block of
sun-warmed coquina, where he sat down, motioning me to do the same.
"I see," he said, "that you don't know just where you are going or
just what you are expected to do."
"No, I don't," I said.
"Well, I'll tell you, then. You are going into the devil's own country
to look for something that I fled five hundred miles to avoid."
"Is that so?" I said, uneasily.
"That is so, Mr. Gilland."
"Oh! And what is this object that I am to look for and from which you
fled five hundred miles?"
"I don't know."
"You don't know what you ran away from?"
"No, sir. Perhaps if I had known I should have run a thousand miles."
We eyed one another.
"You think, then, that I'd better send Miss Barrison back to New
York?" I asked.
"I certainly do. It may be murder to take her."
"Then I'll do it!" I said, nervously. "Back she goes from the first
railroad station."
In a flash the thought came to me that here was a way to avoid the
wrath of Professor Farrago--and a good excuse, too. He might forgive
my not bringing a man as stenographer in view of my limited time; he
never would forgive my presenting him with a woman.
"She must go back," I repeated; and it rather surprised me to find
myself already anticipating loneliness--something that never in all my
travels had I experienced before.
"By the first train," I added, firmly, disliking Mr. Rowan without any
reason except that he had suddenly deprived me of my stenographer.
"What I have to tell you," he began, lighting a cigarette, the mate to
which I declined, "is this: Three years ago, before I entered this
contracting business, I was in the government employ as officer in the
Coast Survey. Our duties took us into Florida waters; we were months
at a time working on shore."
He pulled thoughtfully at his cigarette and blew a light cloud into
the air.
"I had leave for a month once; and like an ass I prepared to spend it
in a hunting-trip among the Everglades."
He crossed his lean legs and gazed meditatively at his cigarette.
"I believe," he went on, "that we penetrated the Everglades farther
than any white man who ever lived to return. There's nothing very
dismal about the Everglades--the greater part, I mean. You get high
and low hummock, marshes, creeks, lakes, and all that. If you get
lost, you're a goner. If you acquire fever, you're as well off as the
seraphim--and not a whit better. There are the usual animals
there--bears (little black fellows) lynxes, deer, panthers,
alligators, and a few stray crocodiles. As for snakes, of course
they're there, moccasins a-plenty, some rattlers, but, after all, not
as many snakes as one finds in Alabama, or even northern Florida and
Georgia.
"The Seminoles won't help you--won't even talk to you. They're a
sullen pack--but not murderous, as far as I know. Beyond their inner
limits lie the unknown regions."
He bit the wet end from his cigarette.
"I went there," he said; "I came out as soon as I could."
"Why?"
"Well--for one thing, my companion died of fright."
"Fright? What at?"
"Well, there's something in there."
"What?"