CHAPTER XXVI.

Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Keith M. Eckrich, and the Project

Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team

LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE

OF

_POPULAR LITERATURE AND SCIENCE._

SEPTEMBER, 1880.

EKONIAH SCRUB: AMONG FLORIDA LAKES

[Illustration: THE FORD.]

[Note: Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1880, by J.B.

LIPPINCOTT & Co., in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at

Washington.]

"And if you do get lost after that, it's no great matter," said the

county clerk, folding up his map, "for then all you've got to do is to

find William Townsend and inquire."

He had been giving us the itinerary for our "cross-country" journey, by

way of the Lakes, to Ekoniah Scrub. How many of all the Florida

tourists know where that is? I wonder. Or even _what_ it is--the

strange amphibious land which goes on from year to year

"developing"--the solid ground into marshy "parrairas," the prairies

into lakes, bright, sparkling sapphires which Nature is threading, one

by one, year by year, upon her emerald chaplet of forest borderland?

How many of them all have guessed that close at hand, hidden away amid

the shadows of the scrub-oaks, lies her laboratory, where any day they

may steal in upon her at her work and catch a world a-making?

There are three individuals who know a little more about it now than

they did a few weeks since--three, or shall we not rather say four? For

who shall say that Barney gained less from the excursion than the

Artist, the Scribe and the Small Boy who were his fellow-travellers?

That Barney became a party to the expedition in the character, so to

speak, of a lay-brother, expected to perform the servile labor of the

establishment while his superiors were worshipping at Nature's shrines,

in nowise detracted from his improvement of the bright spring holiday.

It was, indeed, upon the Small Boy who beat the mule, rather than upon

the mule that drew the wagon, that the fatigues of the expedition fell.

"He just glimpses around at me with his old eyeball," says the Small

Boy, exasperate, throwing away his broken cudgel, "and that's all the

good it does."

We knew nothing more of Ekoniah when we set out upon our journey than

that it was the old home of an Indian tribe in the long-ago days before

primeval forest had given place to the second growth of "scrub," and

that it was a region unknown to the Northern tourist. It lies to the

south-west of Magnolia, our point of departure on the St. John's River,

but at first our route lay westerly, that it might include the

lake-country of the Ridge.

"It's a pretty kentry," said a friendly "Cracker," of whom, despite the

county clerk's itinerary, we were fain to ask the way within two hours

after starting--"a right pretty kentry, but it's all alike. You'll be

tired of it afore you're done gone halfway."

Is he blind, our friend the Cracker? Already, in the very outset of our

journey, we have beheld such varied beauties as have steeped our souls

in joy. After weeks of rainless weather the morning had been showery,

and on our setting forth at noon we had found the world new washed and

decked for our coming. Birds were singing, rainbows glancing, in

quivering, water-laden trees; flowers were shimmering in the sunshine;

the young growth was springing up glorious from the blackness of

desolating winter fires. Such tender tones of pink and gray! such

fiery-hearted reds and browns and olive-greens! such misty vagueness in

the shadows! such brilliance in the sunlight that melted through the

openings of the woods! "All alike," indeed! No "accidents" of rock or

hill are here, but oh the grandeur of those far-sweeping curves of

undulating surface! the mystery of those endless aisles of

solemn-whispering pines! the glory of color, intense and fiery, which

breathes into every object a throbbing, living soul!

For hours we journeyed through the forest, always in the centre of a

vast circle of scattered pines, upon the outer edge of which the trees

grew dense and dark, stretching away into infinity. Our road wandered

in and out among the prostrate victims of many a summer tempest: now we

were winding around dark "bays" of sweet-gum and magnolia; now skirting

circular ponds of delicate young cypress; now crossing narrow

"branches" sunk deep in impenetrable "hummocks" of close-crowded oak

and ash and maple, thick-matted with vines and undergrowth; now pausing

to gather orchis and pitcher-plants and sun-kisses and andromeda; now

fording the broad bend of Peter's Creek where it flows, sapphire in the

sunshine, out from the moss-draped live-oaks between high banks of red

and yellow clays and soft gray sand, to lose itself in a tangle of

flowering shrubs; now losing and finding our way among the intricate

cross-roads that lead by Bradley's Creek and Darbin Savage's tramway

and the "new-blazed road" of the county clerk's itinerary. Suddenly the

sky grew dark: thunder began to roll, and--were we in the right road?

It seemed suspiciously well travelled, for now we called to mind that

Middleburg was nigh at hand, and thither we had been warned _not_ to

go.

There was a house in the distance, the second we had seen since leaving

the "settle_ments_" near the river. And there we learned that we were

right and wrong: it _was_ the Middleburg road. After receiving sundry

lucid directions respecting a "blind road" and an "old field," we

turned away. How dark it was growing! how weirdly soughed the wind

among the pine tops! how bodingly the thunder growled afar! There came

a great slow drop: another, and suddenly, with swiftly-rushing sound,

the rain was upon us, drenching us all at once before waterproofs and

umbrellas could be made available.

[Illustration: "NOT ALL THE BLANDISHMENTS OF THE SMALL BOY AVAILED."]

It was then that Barney showed the greatness of his soul. In the

confusion of the moment we had run afoul of a stout young oak, which

obstinately menaced the integrity of our axle. It was only possible to

back out of the predicament, but Barney scorned the thought of retreat.

Not all the blandishments of the Small Boy, whether brought to bear in

the form of entreaties, remonstrances, jerks or threats, availed:

Barney stood unmoved, and the hatchet was our only resource. How that

mule's eye twinkled as from time to time he cast a backward glance upon

the Small Boy wrestling with a dull hatchet and a sturdy young

scrub-oak under the pelting rain, amid lightning-flash and

thunder-peal, needs a more graphic pen than mine to describe. A

better-drenched biped than climbed into the wagon at the close of this

episode, or a more thoroughly-satisfied quadruped than jogged along

before him, it would be difficult to find.

As suddenly as they had come up the clouds rolled away, and sunlight

flamed out from the west--so suddenly that it caught the rain halfway

and filled the air with tremulous rainbow hues. Then burst out afresh

the songs of birds, sweet scents thrilled up from flower and shrub, the

very earth was fragrant, and fresh, resinous odors exhaled from every

tree. The sun sank down in gold and purple glory and night swept over

the dark woods. Myriad fireflies flitted round, insects chirped in

every hollow, the whippoorwill called from the distant thicket, the

night-hawk circled in the open glade. A cheerful sound of cow-bells

broke the noisy stillness, the forest opened upon a row of dark

buildings and darker orange trees, and barking of dogs and kindly

voices told us that rest was at hand.

No words can do justice to the hospitality of Floridians, whether

native or foreign. We were now to begin an experience which was to last

us through our entire journey. Here we were, a wandering company of

who-knows-what, arriving hungry, drenched and unexpected long after the

supper-hour, and our mere appearance was the "open sesame" to all the

treasures of house and barn. Not knowing what our hap might be, we had

gone provided with blankets and food, but both proved to be superfluous

wherever we could find a house. Bad might be the best it afforded, but

the best was at our service. At K----'s Ferry it was decidedly _not_

bad. Abundance reigned there, though in a quaint old fashion, and very

soon after our arrival we were warming and drying ourselves before a

cheerful fire, while from the kitchen came most heartening sounds and

smells, as of fizzling ham and bubbling coffee.

Never was seen a prettier place than this as we beheld it by the

morrow's light. The house stands on a high bluff, worthy the name of

hill, which slopes steeply but greenly down to the South Prong of Black

Creek, better deserving the name of river than many a stream which

boasts the designation. We crossed it upon a boom, pausing midway in

sudden astonishment at the lovely view. A long reach of exquisitely

pure water, bordered by the dense overhanging foliage of its high

banks, stretched away to where, a mile below us, a sudden bend hid its

lower course from view, and on the high green bluff which closed the

vista were seen the white house and venerable overarching trees of some

old estate. The morning air was crisp and pure; every leaf and twig

stood out with clean-cut distinctness, to be mirrored with startling

clearness in the stream; the sky was cloudless: no greater contrast

could be imagined from the tender sweetness of yesterday. The birds,

exhilarated by the sparkle in the air, sang with a rollicking

abandonment quite contagious: the very kids and goats on the crags

above the road caught the infection and frisked about, tinkling their

bells and joining most unmelodiously in the song; while Barney,

crossing the creek upon a flatboat, lifted up a tuneful voice in the

chorus.

We turned aside from our route to visit Whitesville, the beautiful old

home of Judge B----. It is a noble great mansion, with broad double

doors opening from every side of a wide hall, and standing in the midst

of a wild garden luxuriant with flowers and shrubs and vines, and with

a magnificent ivy climbing to the top of a tall blasted tree at the

gate. "I came to this place from New Haven in '29," its owner told

us--"sailed from New York to Darien, Georgia, in a sloop, and from

there in a sail-boat to this very spot. I prospected all about: bought

a little pony, and rode him--well, five thousand miles after I began to

keep count. Finally, I came back and settled here."

"Were you never troubled by Indians?" we asked.

"Well, they put a fort here in the Indian war, the government

did--right here, where you see the china trees." It was a beautiful

green slope beside the house, with five great pride-of-Indias in a row

and a glimpse of the creek through the thickets at the foot. "There

never was any engagement here, though. The Indians had a camp over

there at K----'s, where you came from, but they all went away to the

Nation after a while."

"Did you stay here through the civil war?"

"Oh yes. I never took any part in the troubles, but the folks all

suspected and watched me. They knew I was a Union man. One day a

Federal regiment came along and wanted to buy corn and fodder. The men

drew up on the green, and the colonel rode up to the door. 'Colonel,'

says I, 'I can't _sell_ you anything, but I believe the keys are in the

corn-barn and stable doors: I can't hinder your taking anything by

force.' He understood, and took pretty well what he wanted. Afterward

he came and urged me to take a voucher, but I wouldn't do that. By and

by the Confederates came around and accused me of selling to the

Federals, but they couldn't prove anything against me."

"There used to be Confederate head-quarters up there at K----'s?" we

asked.

"Oh yes, and the Federals had it too. General Birney was there for a

while. One day, just after he came, a lot of 'em came over here. One of

my boys was lying very sick in that front chamber just then--the one

you know, the county clerk. Well, an orderly rode up to the door and

called out, 'Here, you damned old rebel, the general wants you.'--'I

don't answer to that name,' said I.--'You don't?'--'No, I

don't.'--'What! ain't you a rebel?'--' I don't answer to that name,'

said I.--'Well, consider yourself my prisoner,' says he; so I walked up

there with him. Judge Price was at head-quarters just then, and he knew

me well. It seems that the general had heard that I kept a regular

rebel commissariat, sending stores to them secretly. Well, when the

judge had told him who I was, the general wrote me a pass at once, and

then asked, 'Is there anything I can do for you?'--'General,' said I,

'my son lies very sick. I should like to see the last of him, and beg

to be permitted to retire.'--'Is that so?' said the general. 'Would you

like me to send you a doctor?' I accepted, and he sent me two. He came

up afterward, and found that his men had torn down the fences, broken

open the store and dragged out goods, set the oil and molasses running,

and done great damage--about four thousand dollars' worth, we

estimated. You see, they thought it was a rebel commissariat. When he

came into the house he asked my wife if she could give him supper.

'General,' said she, 'you have taken away my cooks: if you will send

for your own, I shall be very happy to get supper for you.' He did so,

and spent the night here, sleeping in one of the chambers while his

officers lay all over the piazzas. Next day they all rode away, quite

satisfied, I guess. There were several skirmishes about here afterward,

and we have some pieces of bombs in the house now that fell in the

yard."

[Illustration: LAKE BEDFORD.]

The judge pressed us to stay and dine, but we had arranged for a gypsy

dinner in the woods and were anxious to push on. Push on! How Barney

would smile could he hear the word! He never did anything half so

energetic as to push: he did not even pull.

So we bade farewell to our genial host and started westwardly again. We

were now upon the high land of the Ridge, the backbone of the State,

and though, perhaps, hardly ninety feet above the sea, the air had all

the exhilarating freshness of great altitudes. All through the week

which followed we felt its tonic inspiration and seemed to drink in

intoxicating draughts of health and spirits, and never more than during

the fifteen-mile drive between Black Creek and Kingsley's Pond.

Kingsley's Pond, the highest body of water in the State, is the first

of a long succession of lakes which, lying between the St. John's and

the railway, have only lately been, as it were, discovered by the

Northerner. It is perfectly circular in form, being precisely two miles

across in every direction. Like all the lakes of Florida, it is of

immense depth, and its waters are so transparent that the white sand at

the bottom may be seen glistening like stars. In common with the other

waters of this region, it is surrounded by a hard beach of white sand,

rising gradually up to a beautifully-wooded slope, being quite free

from the marshes which too often render the lakes of Florida

unapproachable.

One of the Northern colonies which within the last two years have

discovered this delightful region has settled on the shores of

Kingsley's Pond. Although an infant of only twenty months, the village

has made excellent growth and gives promise of a bright future. Farming

is not largely followed, the principal industry of these and the other

Northern colonists being orange-culture--a business to which the

climate is wonderfully propitious, the dry, pure air of this district

being alike free from excessive summer heats and from the frosts which

are occasionally disastrous to groves situated on lower ground in the

same latitude.

Though there are few native Floridians in this part of the country, the

neighborhood of the lake rejoices in the possession of a Cracker

doctress of wondrous powers. Who but her knows that chapter in the book

of Daniel the reading of which stays the flowing of blood, or that

other chapter potent to extinguish forest-fires? One does not need a

long residence in the State to learn to appreciate the good-fortune of

the Lakers in this particular.

Not far from the village, on the western shore of the pond, lives the

one "old settler." He met us with the hearty welcome which we had

learned almost to look for as a right, and sitting on his front piazza

in the shade of his orange trees, gladdening our eyes with the view of

his vine-embowered pigpen, we listened to the legend of the pond:

"Yes, I've lived yere four-and-twenty year, but I done kim to Floridy

nigh on forty year ago: walked yere from Georgy to jine the Injun war.

I done found this place a-scoutin' about, and when I got married I kim

yere to settle. The Yankee folks wants to change the name o' the pond

to Summit Lake and one thing or 'nother, but I allays votes square agin

it every time, and allays will. You see, hit don't ought to be changed.

I don't mind the _pond_ part: they mought call it lake ef they think it

sounds better, but Kingsley's it _has_ to be. K-i-n-g-l-e-s-l-e-y:

that, I take it, is the prompt way to spell the name of the man as

named it, and that's the name it has to have. You see hit was this

a-way: Kingsley were a mail-rider--leastways, express--in the _old_

Injun wartime, I dunno how long ago. They was a fort on the pond them

days, over on the south side. Wal, Kingsley were a-comin' down toward

the fort from the no'th when he thort he see an Injun. He looked

behind, and, sure enough, there they was, a-closin' in on him. He

looked ahead agin. Shore's you're bo'hn there was a double row on

'em--better'n a hunderd--on all two sides of the trail. He hadn't a

minit to study, and jist one thing to do, and he done hit. He jist

clapped spurs to his critter and made for the pond. He knowed what they

wanted of him"--confidentially and solemnly: "it were their intention

to ketch him and scalp him alive, you know. Wal, they follered him to

the pond, a-whoopin' and a-yellin' all the way, makin' shore on him.

When he got to the pond he rid right in, the Injuns a'ter him, but his

critter soon began to gin out. When he see that he jist gethered up his

kit and jumped into the water, and swum for dear life. Two mile good

that feller swum, and saved his kit and musket. The Injuns got his

critter, but you never see nothin' so mad as they was to see him git

off that a-way. The soldiers at the fort was a-watchin' all the time.

They run down to meet him: they see he looked kinder foolish as he swum

in, and as soon as he struck the shore he jist flung himself on the

sand, and laid for half an hour athout openin' his eyes or speakin'.

Then he done riz right up and toted his kit to the commander, and axed

to hev the pond named a'ter him. The commander said it mought be so,

and so hit was; and so it _has_ to be, I says, and allays will."

[Illustration: TWIN LAKE.]

It would be impossible to detail the exquisite and varied beauty of the

way between Kingsley's Pond and Ekoniah Scrub. Through the fair

primeval forest we wandered, following the old Alachua Trail, the very

name of which enhanced the charm of the present scene by calling up

thrilling fancies of the past; for this is the famous Indian war-path

from the hunting-grounds of the interior to the settlements on the

frontier, and may well be the oldest and the most adventure-fraught

thoroughfare in the United States. We could hardly persuade ourselves

that we were not passing through some magnificent old estate--of late,

perhaps, somewhat fallen into neglect--so perfect was the lawn-like

smoothness of the grassy uplands, so rhythmical were the undulations of

the slopes, so majestic the natural avenues of enormous oaks, so

admirable the diversity of hill and dell, knoll and glade, shrubbery

and lawn, forest and park, interspersed with frequent sheets of

water--Blue Pond, rivalling the sky in color; Sandhill Pond, deep set

among high wooded slopes, with picturesque log mill and house; Magnolia

Lake, with its flawless mirror; Crystal, of more than crystal

clearness, with gorgeous sunset memories and sweet recollections of

kindly hospitalities in the two homes which crown its twin heights;

Bedford and Brooklyn Lakes, with log cottages beneath clustering trees;

Minnie Lake, and its great alligator sleeping on a log; starry

Lily-Pad; and Osceola's Punch-bowl, deep enough, and none too large, to

hold the potations of a Worthy; Twin Lakes, scarce divided by the

island in their midst; Double Pond, low sunk in the green forest slope,

a perfect circle bisected by a wooded ridge; Geneva Lake, dotted with

islands and beautiful with shining orange-groves;--always among the

lawns and glades, the forest-slopes and aisles of pines, with sough of

wind and song of bird, and fragrant wild perfumes. Always with bright

"bits" of life between the long, grand silences--a group of men faring

on foot across the pine level; a rosy, bareheaded girl--the only girl

in the place--searching for calves in the dingle, who gave us flowers

and told us the road with the sweet, lingering cadence of the South in

her velvet voice; two men riding by turns the mule that bore their

sacks of corn to mill; two boys carrying a great cross-cut saw along a

sloping lakeside, a noble Newfoundland dog frisking beside them; the

fleet bay horse and erect military figure of our host at Crystal Lake

guiding us among the intricacies of the Lake Colony. Always with sunny

memories of happy hours--gypsy dinners beside golden-watered "branch"

or sapphire lake; the cheery half hour in the log house on the hill

above the little grist-mill, with the bright young Philadelphians who

have here cast in their lot; the abundant feast in the farm-house under

the orange trees, and the "old-time" stories of the after-dinner hour;

the pleasant days at Crystal Lake, where our first day's drenching

resulted so happily in a slight illness that detained us in that lovely

spot, and showed us, in the new colony lately settled on this and the

adjacent lakes, how refinement and cultivation, lending elegance to

rude toil and harsh privation, may realize even Utopian dreams.

The great farm on Geneva Lake was the first old plantation which we had

seen since leaving Kingsley's, and this lies on the outskirts of

Ekoniah Scrub, which has long been settled by native Floridians or

Georgians. "Hit ain't a farmin' kentry, above there on the sandhills,"

said our host of the thrifty old farm on Lake Geneva. "It's fine for

oranges an' bananas, but the Scrub's better for plantin'. Talk about

oranges! Look a' that tree afore you! A sour tree hit were--right smart

big, too--but four year ago I sawed it off near the ground and stuck in

five buds. That tree is done borne three craps a'ready--fifteen oranges

the second year from the bud, a hundred and fifty the third, and last

year we picked eight hundred off her. Seedlin's? Anybody mought hev

fruit seven year from the seed, but they must take care o' the trees to

do it. Look a' them trees by the fence: eight year old, them is. Some

of 'em bore the sixth year: every one on 'em is sot full now--full

enough for young trees.

"Yes, that's right smart good orange-land up there in the sandhills.

Forty year ago, when I kim yere, they was nothin' but wild critters in

that lake kentry, as the Yankee folks calls it: all kind o' varmints

they was--bears, tigers, panthers, cats and all kinds. Right smart

huntin' they was, and 'tain't so bad now. They's rabbits and 'coons and

'possums, sure enough, and deer too; and--Cats? Why, cats is plenty,

but they ain't no 'count.

"I niver hunted much myself, but I've heerd an old man tell--Higgins by

name. Ef you could find him and could get him _right_, he'd tell you

right smart o' stories about varmints, and Injuns too. I've heerd him

tell how he went out with some puppies one time to larn 'em to hunt

bear. He heerd one o' the puppies a-screechin', and kase he didn't want

to lose him he run up. The screechin' come from a sort o' scrub, and he

got clost up afore he see it was a she-bear and two cubs. The bear had

the puppy, but when she see Higgins she dropped hit and made for him.

Now, you know, a bear ain't like no varmint nor cow-beast; hit don't go

'round under the trees, but jest makes a road for itself over the

scrub. Higgins hadn't no time to take aim, and ef he'd 'a missed he was

gone, sure 'nough; so he jest drawred his knife, and when she riz up to

clutch him he stuck her plum in the heart. Killed her, dead.

"No, I never had no trouble with Injuns. They was all gone to the

Nation when I settled yere, but I see Billy Bow-legs onct, and Jumper,

too. I was ago-in' through the woods, and I met a keert with three men

in it. Two on 'em was kinder dark-lookin', but I never thort much of

that till the man that was drivin' stopped and axed me ef I knowed who

he had in behind. It was them two chiefs, sure 'nough: right

good-lookin' fellers they was, too."

We had left the sandhills of the Ridge, and had reached the borders of

the Scrub, but there was yet another of the new Northern settlements to

visit. It lay a few miles beyond Geneva Lake, in the flat woods to the

south of Santa Fé Lake, the largest and best known of the group.

Who does not know the dreary flat-woods villages of the South, with

their decaying log cabins and hopelessly unfinished frame houses--with

their white roads, ankle-deep in sand, wandering disconsolately among

fallen trees and palmetto scrub and blackened stumps? Melrose is like

them all, but with a difference. The decaying cabins, new two years

ago, are deserted in favor of the great frame houses, which, unfinished

indeed, have yet a determined air, as if they meant to be finished some

day. The sandy roads are alive with long trains of heavy log-trucks or

lighter freight-wagons; there are men actually buying things in the

three stores; there is a school, with live children playing before the

door; there are saw- and grist-mills buzzing noisily; there is a

post-office, which connects us with the outer world as we receive our

waiting letters; there is a stir of enterprise in the air which speaks

quite plainly of Chicago and the Northern States, whence have come the

colonists; there is talk of a railroad to the St. John's on the east,

and of a canal which shall connect the lakes with one another and with

the railway on the west; there is a really good hotel, where we spend

the night in unanticipated luxury upon a breezy eminence overlooking

the silver sheet of Santa Fé Lake, which stretches away for miles to

the north and eastward.

[Illustration: ALDERMAN'S, ON GENEVA LAKE.]

The morrow was almost spent while we lingered in the neighborhood of

the lake. The road makes a wide circuit to avoid its far-reaching arms

and bays: only here and there are glimpses of the water seen through

the trees and cart-tracks leading off to exquisite points of view upon

its banks. We are in the flat woods again--palmetto-clumps under the

pine trees, pitcher-plants and orchis in the low spots, violets and

pinguicula beside the ditches, vetches and lupines and pawpaw and the

trailing mimosa in the sand. The park-like character of the woods is

gone. Still, there are here and there gentle undulations upon which the

long lines of western sunlight slope away; the lake gleams silvery

through the trees; the air is pure and sparkling as in high altitudes.

It was evening before we could leave the lakeside and plunge into the

dense new growth which adds to the ancient name of Ekoniah the modern

appellation of "Scrub." Amid its close-crowding thickets night came

upon us speedily. How hospitably we were received in the bare new

"homestead" of Parson H----; how generously our hosts relinquished

their one "barred" bed and passed a night of horror exposed to the fury

of myriad mosquitos, whose songs of triumph we heard from our own

protected pillows; how basely Barney requited all this kindness by

breaking into the corn-crib and "stuffing himself as full as a

sausage," as the Small Boy reported,--may not here be dwelt upon.

The early morning was exquisite. Soft mists veiled all the glorious

colors; great spider-webs, strung thick with diamonds, stretched from

tree to tree; a little "pot-hole" pond of lilies exhaled sweet odors;

the lark's ecstatic song thrilled down from upper air. There was a

gentle hill before us, and halfway up a view to the right of a broad

lake, with the log huts of a "settle_ment_" on the high bank. The sun

has drunk up all the mists, and shines bright upon the soft gray satin

of the girdled pine trees in the clearing; flowers are crowding

everywhere--orange milkweed, purple phlox, creamy pawpaw, azure

bluebells, spotted foxgloves, rose-tinted daisies, brown-eyed

coreopsias and unknown flowers of palest blue. Butterflies flit

noiselessly among them, and mocking-birds sing loud in the leafy

screens above. A red-headed woodpecker taps upon a resounding tree and

screams in exultation as he seizes his prey.

We skirted Viola Lake, cresting the high hill, and descending to a

shaded valley where the lapping waters plashed upon the roadside: then

mounted another hill, among thick clustering oaks and giant pines, to

where three lakes are seen spreading broadly out upon a grassy plain

between high wooded slopes. And these are Ekoniah! Twenty years ago a

tiny rivulet, wandering through broad prairies; eight years later a

wider stream, already beginning to encroach upon the grassy borderland;

now a chain of ever-broadening lakes, already drawing near to the hills

which frame in the widespread plain. Famous grazing-lands these were

once, the favored haunts of cattle-drovers, more famous hunting-grounds

in older days, before firm prairie had given place to watery savanna.

There were Indian villages upon the heights above and bloody battles in

the plains below. But who shall tell the story of those days? The

Indians are gone; the cattle-drovers have followed them to the far

South; the new settler of twenty years ago cared nothing for

antiquities or for the legends of an older time. The dead past is

buried: even the sonorous old Indian name has been softened down to

Etonia: be it the happy lot of this chronicler to rescue it from

oblivion!

The lakes of the lately-traversed "Lake Region," frequent as they had

been, were as nothing to those of Ekoniah Scrub. The road rose and fell

over a succession of low hills, each ascent gained discovering a new

sheet of water to right, to left or before us, deep sunk among

thick-clustering trees. At rare intervals the forest would fall away on

either hand, opening up a wide view of cultivated fields, sweeping

grandly down in long stripes of tender green to the billowy verdure of

the broad savanna, where silvery-sparkling lakes lay imbedded and great

round "hummocks" of dark trees uprose like islands in the grassy sea.

In the distance would be barren slopes of rich dark red and silvery

gray, swelling upward to the far dim mystery of pine woods and the blue

arch above.

We ate our dinner beside Lake Rosa, a circular basin of clearest water

rippling and dimpling under the soft breeze. Toward evening we found

the ford, which a paralytic old woman sitting in a sunny corner of a

farm-house piazza had indicated to us as "right pretty." Pretty it was,

indeed, as we came down to it through the most luxuriant of hummocks of

transparent-foliaged sweet-gums and shining-leaved magnolias with one

great creamy flower. "Right pretty" it was, too, in the old woman's

meaning of the word, for Barney drew us through in safety, scarce up to

his knees in the transparent water which reflected so perfectly every

flower and leaf of the dense water-growth. The road beyond was cut

through an arch of close-meeting trees, and farther on it skirted a

broad lake, which already, in its slow, sure, upward progress, had

covered the roadway and was reaching even to the fence which bounds the

field above. In this field is a large mound, never investigated,

although the farmer who owns the property says he has no doubt that it

is the site of an Indian village, for the plough turns up in the fields

around not only arrow-heads, but fragments of pottery and household

utensils. It was not our good-fortune to obtain any of those relics, as

they have not been preserved, and this was the only mound of any extent

which we saw. Such mounds are said, however, to be not infrequent in

this district, and Indian relics are found everywhere.

As we drove along the hillside we began to notice frequent basin-like

depressions of greater or less size, always perfectly circular, always

with the same saucer-shaped dip, always without crack or fissure, yet

appearing to have been formed by a gradual receding of the

substructure, reminding one of the depression in the sand of an

hour-glass or of the grain in a hopper. Many of these concaves were

dry; others had a little water in the bottom; all of them had trees

growing here and there, quite undisturbed, whether in the water or not;

and there was no one who had cared to note how long a time had elapsed

since they had begun their "decline and fall." There is little doubt,

however, that the future traveller will find them developed into lakes,

as, indeed, we found one here and there upon the hilltops.

[Illustration: "THE ONLY GIRL IN THE PLACE."]

How many times we got lost among the lakes and "pot-holes," the fallen

trees and thickets of Ekoniah Scrub, it would be tedious to relate. How

many times we came down to the prairie-level, and, fearful to trust

ourselves upon the treacherous, billowy green, were forced to "try

back" for a new road along the hillside, it would be difficult to say.

The county clerk's itinerary had ended here, and William Townsend

proved to be less ubiquitous than we had been led to expect. Thus it

was that night came down upon us one evening before we had reached a

place of shelter--suddenly, in the thick scrub, not lingeringly, as in

the long forest glades of the lake country. For an hour we pushed on,

trusting now to Barney's sagacity, now to the pioneering abilities of

Artist and Scribe, who marched in the van. Fireflies flitted about,

their unusual brilliancy often cheating us into the fond hope that

shelter was at hand. The ignes-fatui in the valley below often added to

the deception, and after many disappointments we were about to spread

our blankets upon the earth and prepare for a night's rest _al fresco_

when we heard a distant cow-call. Clear and melodious as the far-off

"Ranz des Vaches" it broke upon the stillness, gladdening all our

hearts. How we answered it, how we hastened over logs and through

thickets in the direction of answering voices and glancing lights--no

ignes-fatui now--how we were met halfway by an entire family whom we

had aroused, and with what astonishment we heard ourselves addressed by

name,--can better be imagined than described. By the happiest of

chances we had come upon the home of some people whom we had casually

met upon the St. John's River only a few weeks before, and our dearest

and oldest friends could not have welcomed us more cordially or have

been more gladly met by us.

In the early morning we heard again, between sleeping and waking, the

musical cow-call. It echoed among the hills and over the lakes: there

were the tinkling of bells, the pattering of hoofs, the eager,

impatient sounds of a herd of cattle glad of morning freedom. It was

like a dream of Switzerland. And, hastening out, we found the dream but

vivified by the intense purity of the air surcharged with ozone, the

exquisite clearness of the outlines of the hills, the sparkling

brightness of the lakes in the valley, the freshness of glory and

beauty which overspread all like a world new made.

One of the great events of that day was a desperate fight between two

chameleons in a low oak-scrub on the hilltop. The little creatures

attacked each other with such fury, with such rapid changes of color

from gray to green and from green to brown, with such unexpected

mutations of shape from long and slender to short and squat, with such

sudden dartings out and angry flamings of the transparent membrane

beneath the throat, with such swift springs and flights and glancings

to and fro, as were wonderful to see. It seemed as though both must

succumb to the fierce scratchings and clawings; and when at last one

got the entire head of his adversary in his mouth and proceeded

deliberately to chew it up, we thought that the last act in the tragedy

was at hand. The Small Boy made a stealthy step forward with a view to

a capture, when, presto! change! two chameleons with heads intact were

calmly gazing down upon us with that placid look of their kind which

seemed to assure us that fighting was the last act of which they were

capable.

That day, too, is memorable for the charming scenes it brought us,

impossible for the pencil to reproduce with all their sweet

accessories. We have found the ford at last, where the blue ribbon of

the stream lies across the white sand of our road. The prairie

stretches out broad and green with many circular islets of tree-mounds

in the ocean-like expanse. The winding road beyond the ford leads,

between cultivated fields on one side and the tree-bordered prairie on

the other, up to the low horizon, where soft white thunderheads are

heaped in the hazy blue. The tinkling of cow-bells comes sweetly over

the sea of grass; slow wavelets sob softly in the sedges of the stream;

fish glance through the water; a duck flies up on swiftly-whirring

wing. A great moss-draped live-oak leans over the stream, and the

perfume of the tender grapes which crown it floats toward us on the

air.

Again, after we have climbed the hill to Swan Lake, and have dined

beside Half-moon Pond, and have "laid our course," as the sailors say,

by our map and the sun, straight through the Scrub to visit Lake Ella,

we come out upon the heights above Lake Hutchinson. The dark greens of

the foreground soften into deep-blue shadows in the middle distance.

Lake Hutchinson sparkles, a vivid sapphire, against the distant

silvery-gray of Lake Geneva, while far away the low blue hills melt,

range behind range, into the pale-blue sky.

[Illustration: SANTA FÉ LAKE.]

Our faces were turned homeward, but there were yet many miles of the

Ekoniah country running to northward on the east of the Ridge, and

lakes and lakes and lakes among the scrub-clothed hills. A new feature

had become apparent in many of them: a low reef of marsh entirely

encircling the inner waters and separating them from a still outer

lagoon, reminding us, with a difference, of coral-reefs encircling

lakes in mid-ocean. The shores of these lakes were not marshy, but firm

and hard, like the lakes of the hilltops, with the same smooth

forest-slope surrounding. Is a reverse process going on here, we

wondered, from that we have seen in the prairies, and are these sheets

of water to change slowly into marsh, and so to firm land again? There

are a number of such lakes as these, and on the heights above one of

the largest, which they have called Bethel, a family of Canadian

emigrants have recently "taken up a homestead."

There was still another chain of prairie-lakes, the "Old Field Ponds,"

stretching north and south on our right, and as we wound around them,

plashing now and again through the slowly-encroaching water, we had

'Gator-bone Pond upon our right. The loneliness of the scene was

indescribable: for hours we had been winding in and out among the still

lagoons or climbing and descending the ever-steeper, darker hills.

Night was drawing on; stealthy mists came creeping grayly up from the

endless Old Field Ponds; fireflies and glow-worms and will-o'-the-wisps

danced and glowered amid the intense blackness; frogs croaked,

mosquitos shrilled, owls hooted; Barney's usual deliberate progress

became a snail's pace, which hinted plainly at blankets and the

oat-sack,--when, all at once, a bonfire flamed up from a distant

height, and the sagacious quadruped quickened his pace along the steep

hill-road.

A very pandemonium of sounds saluted our ears as we emerged from the

forest--lowings and roarings and shriekings of fighting cattle, wild

hoots from hoarse masculine throats, the shrill tones of a woman's

angry voice, the discordant notes of an accordion, the shuffle of heavy

dancing feet. We had but happened upon a band of cow-hunters returning

homeward with their spoils, and the fightings of their imprisoned

cattle were only less frightful than their own wild orgies. If we had

often before been reminded of Italian skies and of the freshness and

brightness of Swiss mountain-air, now thoughts of the Black Forest,

with all of weird or horrible that we had ever read of that storied

country, rushed to our minds--robber-haunted mills, murderous inns,

treacherous hosts, "terribly-strange beds." Not that we apprehended

real danger, but to our unfranchised and infant minds the chills and

fevers which mayhap lurked in the mist-clothed forest, or even a

wandering "cat," seemed less to be dreaded than the wild bacchanals who

surrounded us. We would fain have returned, but it was too late. Barney

was already in the power of unseen hands, which had seized upon him in

the darkness; an old virago had ordered us into the house; and when we

had declined to partake of the relics of a feast which strewed the

table, we were ignominiously consigned to a den of a lean-to opening

upon the piazza. A "terribly-strange bed" indeed was the old

four-poster, which swayed and shrieked at the slightest touch, and

myriad the enemies which there lay in wait for our blood. We were not

murdered, however, nor did our unseen foes--as had once been predicted

by a Cracker friend--_quite_ "eat us plum up, bodaciously alive." In

the early morning we fled, though not until we had seen how beautiful a

home the old plantation once had been. These were not Crackers among

whom we had passed the night, but the "native and best." Not a fair

specimen of this class, surely, but such as here and there, in the

remoter corners of the South, are breeding such troubles as may well

become a grave problem to the statesman--the legitimate outgrowth of

the old régime. War-orphaned, untutored, unrestrained, contemning

legitimate authority, spending the intervals of jail-life in wild

revels and wilder crimes,--such were the men in whose ruined home we

had passed the night.

There was yet one more morning among the gorgeous-foliaged

"scrub-hills," one more gypsy meal by a lakeside, one more genial

welcome to a hospitable Cracker board, and we were at home again in the

wide sea of pines which stretches to the St. John's. In the ten days of

our journey we had seen, within a tract of land some thirty miles long

by forty in breadth, more than fifty isolated lakes and three

prairie-chains; had visited four enterprising Northern colonies and

numerous thrifty Southern farms; had found an air clear and

invigorating as that of Switzerland, soft and balmy as in the tropics,

while the gorgeous colorings of tree and flower, of water and sky, were

like a dream of the Orient.

"But there!" said the Small Boy, stopping suddenly with a

half-unbuckled strap of Barney's harness in his hand: "we forgot one

thing, after all: never found William Townsend!"--LOUISE SEYMOUR

HOUGHTON.

CANOEING ON THE HIGH MISSISSIPPI.

CONCLUDING PAPER.

[Illustration: A LYNX STIRS UP THE CAMP.]

Itasca Lake was first seen of white men by William Morrison, an old

trader, in 1804. Several expeditions attempted to find the source of

the Great River, but the region was not explored till 1832--by

Schoolcraft, who regarded himself as the discoverer of Itasca. Much

interesting matter concerning the lake and its vicinity has been

written by Schoolcraft, Beltrami and Nicollet, but the exceeding

difficulty of reaching it, and the absence of any other inducements

thither than a spirit of adventure and curiosity, make visitors to its

solitudes few and far between. Itasca is fed in all by six small

streams, each too insignificant to be called the river's source. It has

three arms--one to the south-east, about three and a half miles long,

fed by a small brook of clear and lively water; one to the south-west,

about two miles and a half long, fed by the five small streams already

described; and one reaching northward to the outlet, about two and a

half miles. These unite in a central portion about one mile square. The

arms are from one-fourth of a mile to one mile wide, and the lake's

extreme length is about seven miles. Its water is clear and warm. July

thirteenth, when the temperature of the air was 76°, the water in the

largest arm of the lake varied between 74° and 80°. We saw no springs

nor evidences of them, and the water's temperature indicates that it

receives nothing from below. Still, it is sweet and pure to the taste

and bright and sparkling to the eye. Careful soundings gave a depth

varying between fourteen and a half and twenty-six feet. The only

island is that named by Schoolcraft after himself in 1832. It is in the

central body of the lake, and commands a partial view of each arm. It

is about one hundred and fifty feet wide by three hundred feet long,

varying in height from its water-line to twenty-five feet, and is

thickly timbered with maple, elm, oak and a thicket of bushes.

On Tuesday morning, July 14, at six o'clock, we paddled away from the

island to the foot of the lake. The outlet is entirely obscured by

reeds and wild rice, through which the water converges in almost

imperceptible current toward the river's first definite banks. This

screen penetrated, I stopped the Kleiner Fritz in mid-stream and

accurately measured width, depth and current. I found the width twenty

feet, the depth on either side of my canoe as she pointed down the

stream thirty-one inches, and the speed of the current two and

one-tenth miles to the hour. The first four miles of the infant's

course is swift and crooked, over a bed of red sand and gravel, thickly

interspersed with mussel and other small shells, and bordered with

reeds. Through these, at two points, we beat our way on foot, dragging

the canoes through unmade channels. Indeed, nearly all of these first

four miles demanded frequent leaps from the boats to direct their swift

and crooked course, until we came to a stretch of savanna country,

through which the river washes its way in serpentine windings for nine

miles with a gentle current from thirty to sixty feet wide, bordered by

high grass, bearing the appearance and having the even depth of a

canal. An easy, monotonous paddle through these broad meadows brought

us to the head of the first rapids, the scene of our two days' upward

struggle. These rapids extend about twelve miles as the river runs,

alternating between rattling, rocky plunges and swift, smooth water,

for the most part through a densely-wooded ravine cleft through low but

abrupt hills, and as lonely and cheerless as the heart of Africa. The

solitude is of that sort which takes hold upon the very soul and weaves

about it hues of the sombrest cast. From our parting with the Indians

on first reaching the river we had neither seen nor heard a human

being, nor were there save here and there remote traces of man's hand.

No men dwell there: nothing invites men there. A few birds and fewer

animals hold absolute dominion. Wandering there, one's senses become

intensely alert. But for the hoot of the owl, the caw of the crow, the

scream of the eagle, the infrequent twitter of small birds, the mighty

but subdued roar of insects, the rush of water over the rocks and the

sigh and sough of the wind among the pines, the lonely wanderer has no

sign of aught but the rank and dank vegetation and a gloomy, oppressive

plodding on and on, without an instant's relief in the sights and

sounds of human life. We entered upon the descent of the rapids in no

very cheerful mood.

The downward way was easier, and we had cleared away, in the upward

struggle, such obstructions as were within our control. Still, we

travelled slowly and wearily, and came out of our first day's homeward

work wet and worn into a camp in the high grass a good twenty miles

from the start of the morning. We drew the canoes from the water, made

our beds of blankets inside, lashed our paddles to the masts for

ridge-poles, thatched our little cabins with our rubber blankets, hung

our mosquito-bars beneath, then cooked and ate under the flare of our

camp-fire, and sought our canoe-beds for that sweet sleep which comes

of weariness of body, but not of mind, under the bright stars and

broad-faced moon shining with unwonted clearness in that clear air.

The night proved very cool. Our outer garments, wet from so much

leaping in and out of the canoes, and rolled up for storage on the

decks over night, were found in the early morning frozen stiff, and had

to be thawed before we could unroll them. The thermometer registered

33° after six o'clock, and frost lay upon all our surroundings.

For two and a half days our course was down a stream winding gracefully

through a broad region of savanna country, occasionally varied by the

crossing of low sandy ridges beautifully graved by lofty yellow pines.

In the savannas the shores are made of black soil drifted in, and

forming, with the dense mass of grass-roots, a tough compound in which

the earthy and vegetable parts are about equal, while the tall grass,

growing perpendicularly from the shore, makes a stretch of walls on

either side, the monotony of which becomes at last so tiresome that a

twenty-feet hill, a boulder as large as a bushel basket or a tree of

unusual size or kind becomes specially interesting. Standing on tiptoe

in the canoes, we could see nothing before or around us but a boundless

meadow, with here and there a clump of pines, and before and behind the

serpent-like creepings of the river. The only physical life to be seen

was in the countless ducks, chiefly of the teal and mallard varieties,

a few small birds and the fish--lake-trout, grass-bass, pickerel and

sturgeon--constantly darting under and around us or poised motionless

in water so clear that every fin and scale was seen at depths of six

and eight feet. The ducks were exceedingly wild--something not easily

accounted for in that untroubled and uninhabited country; but we were

readily able to reinforce our staple supplies with juicy birds and

flaky fish broiled over a lively fire or baked under the glowing coals.

[Illustration: A BLOW ON BALL CLUB LAKE.]

By noon of Friday, the 18th, we had come to an average width in the

river of eighty feet and a sluggish flow of six feet in depth. We

halted for our lunch at the mouth of the South (or Plantagenian) Fork

of the Mississippi, up which Schoolcraft's party pursued its way to

Itasca Lake. Thence a short run brought us suddenly upon Lake

Marquette, a lovely sheet of water with clearly-defined and solid

shores, about one mile by two in extent, exactly across the centre of

which the river has entrance and exit. Beyond this, a short mile

brought us to the sandy beaches of Bemidji Lake, the first considerable

body of water in our downward travel, and about one hundred and

twenty-five miles, as the river winds, from Itasca. The real name of

the lake, as used by the Indians and whites adjacent, is Benidjigemah,

meaning "across the lake," and Bemidji is frequently known as Traverse

Lake. It is a lovely, unbroken expanse, about seven miles long and four

miles wide. Its shores are of beautiful white sand, gravel and

boulders, reaching back to open pine-groved bluffs. Our shore-searchers

found agate, topaz, carnelian, etc. Our approach to Bemidji had been

invested with special interest as the first unmistakable landmark in

our lonely wanderings, and as the home of one man--a half-breed--the

only human being who has a home above Cass Lake. We found his hut, but

not himself, at the river's outlet. The lodge is neatly built of bark.

It was surrounded by good patches of corn, potatoes, wheat, beans and

wild raspberries. There is a stable for a horse and a cow, and all

about were the conventional traps of a civilized biped who lives upon a

blending of wit, woodcraft and industry. We greatly wished to see this

hermit, whose nearest neighbors are thirty miles away. His dog welcomed

us with all the passion of canine hunger and days of isolation, but the

master was gone to Leech Lake, as we afterward found from his Cass Lake

neighbors. The wind favored a sail across the lake--a welcome variation

from our hitherto entirely muscular propulsion--so we rigged our spars

and canvas, drifted smoothly out into the trough of the lively but not

angry waves, and swept swiftly across the clear, bright little sea. The

white caps dashed over our decks and a few sharp puffs half careened

our little ships, but the crossing was safely and quickly made. It was

yet only mid-afternoon, but we had paddled steadily and made good

progress nearly four days; so we went into early camp on a bluff

overlooking the entire lake, did our first washing of travel-stained

garments, brought up epistolary arrearages, caught two fine lake-trout

for our next breakfast and went to sound sleep in the

nine-and-a-half-o'clock twilight.

We had been advised that we should need guides in finding our exits

from the lakes, which were obscured by reeds and wild rice. But no

guide was to be had, and we easily found our own way. The river at the

outlet of Bemidji Lake is about one hundred and fifty feet wide, very

shallow, and runs swiftly over a bed of large gravel and boulders

thickly grown with aquatic grass and weeds. We had gone but a little

way when a rattling ahead told of near proximity to swift and rough

water, down which we danced at a speed perilous to the boats, but not

to our personal safety. The river was unusually low, so that the many

bouldery rapids which otherwise would have been welcome were now only

the vexatious hints of what might have been. The shallow foam dashed

down each rocky ledge without channel or choice, and whichever way we

went we soon wished we had gone another. The rocks were too many for

evasion, and the swift current caught our keels upon their half-sunken

heads, which held us fast in imminent peril of a swamp or a capsize,

our only safety lying in open eyes, quick and skilful use of the paddle

or a sudden leap overboard at a critical instant. Added to these

difficulties, a gusty head wind and lively showers obscured the

boulders and the few open channels. So we went on all the forenoon,

hampered by our ponchos, poling, drifting, paddling and peering our

way, blinded by wind and rain, till we came to the last of these

labyrinths, liveliest and most treacherous of all. We were soaked, and

only dreaded an upset for our provisions and equipments. The rapid was

long, rough, swift, crooked. The Kleiner Fritz led the way into the

swirl, and was caught, a hundred feet down, hard and fast by her

bow-keel, swung around against another boulder at her stern, and was

pinned fast in no sort of danger, the water boiling under and around

her, while her captain sat at his leisure as under the inevitable, with

a don't-care-a-dash-ative procrastination of the not-to-be-avoided jump

overboard and wade for deeper water. The Betsy D., following closely,

passed the Fritz with a rush which narrowly escaped the impalement of

the one by the other's sharp nose, struck, hung for a moment, while the

water dashed over her decks and around her manhole, then washed loose

and went onward safely to still water. The Fritz, solid as the

Pyramids, beckoned the Hattie to come on without awaiting the

questionable time of the latter's release; so the namesake of the

hazel-eyed and brown-haired Indiana girl came into the boil and bubble,

sailed gayly by the troubles of the others, was gliding on toward quiet

seas under her skipper's gleeful whoops, when, bang! went her bow upon

a rock, from which a moment's work freed her: tz-z-z-z-z-zip crunched

her copper nails over another just under water, whence she went bumping

and crunching, her captain's prudent and energetic guidance knocking

his flag one way and his wooden hatch the other, till finally his

troubles were behind him. Then the Fritz began to stir. Her commander

went overboard and released her, then leaped astride her deck and

paddled cautiously down the rift and slowly down the quieter water

below, howling through the pelting rain,

"Then let the world wag along as it will:

We'll be gay and happy still,"

until he came upon his comrades--one stumbling about over the blackened

roots of grass and underbrush from a recent fire in search of wood for

our needed noon-day blaze; the other with wet matches and birch bark,

and imprecations for which there was ample justification, vainly

seeking that without which hot coffee and broiled bacon cannot be. The

Kleiner Fritz's haversack supplied dry matches, fire began to snap,

coffee boiled, bacon sputtered on the ends of willow rods, hard tack

was set out for each man, and we sat upon our heels for lunch under the

weeping skies and willows, comparing notes and experiences.

[Illustration: PEKAGEMA FALLS.]

Thence, three hours through monotonous savanna and steady rain brought

us to the uppermost bay of Cass Lake, and unexpectedly upon a

straggling Indian village. We bore down upon it with yells, and there

came tumbling out from birch lodges and bark cabins the first human

beings we had seen for more than ten days, in all the ages, sizes,

tints, costumes and shades of filth known to the Chippewas of the

interior wilderness. At first they were a little shy of us, but we got

into a stumbling conversation with the only man of the whole lot who

wore breeches or could compass a little English, and soon the dirty,

laughing, wondering, chattering gang came down to inspect us and our,

to them, marvellous craft, and to fully enjoy what was perhaps the most

interesting event in many a long month of their uneventful lives. Then

we paddled across the bay, or upper lake, out into the broader swells

of Cass Lake itself, pulled four miles across to the northernmost point

of Colcaspi, or Grand Island, and made our second Saturday night's camp

upon its white sands at or very near the spot where Schoolcraft and his

party had encamped in July, forty-seven years before. The landward side

of the beautiful beach is skirted by an almost impenetrable jungle. We

had frequently seen traces, old and new, of deer, moose, bears and

smaller animals, but had seen none of the animals themselves save one

fine deer, and our sleep had been wholly undisturbed by prowlers; so we

sank to rest on Grand Island with no fears of invasion. At midnight the

occupant of the Kleiner Fritz was aroused by a scratching upon the side

of the canoe and low, whining howls. He partially arose, confused and

half asleep, in doubt as to the character of his disturber, which went

forward, climbed upon the deck and confronted him through the narrow

gable of his rubber roof with a pair of fiery eyes, which to his

startled imagination seemed like the blazing of a comet in duplicate.

The owner of the eyes was at arm's length, with nothing but a

mosquito-bar intervening. Then the eyes suddenly disappeared, and the

scratching and howling were renewed in a determined and partially

successful effort to get between the overlapping rubber blankets to the

captain of the Fritz. This movement was defeated by a quick grasp of

the edges of the blankets, and while the animal was snarling and pawing

at the shielded fist of his intended victim lusty shouts went out for

the camp to arouse and see what the enemy might be, as the Fritz was

unwilling to uncover to his unknown assailant. The Hattie's skipper,

hard by, saw that something unusual was on hand, peered out, and so

increased the uproar as to draw the adversary's attack. Then the Betsy

bore down upon us all just as the hungry and persistent beast was

crouching for a leap at the Hattie's jugular, the loud bang of a Parker

rifle rang out upon the stillness, and a fine, muscular lynx lay dead

at the Cincinnati Nimrod's feet. The animal's trail showed that he had

prowled around our bacon and hard tack in contempt, had inspected the

Betsy's commander as he lay on the sand in his blanket and under a huge

yellow mosquito-bar, but had evidently concluded that any man who could

snore as that man usually did was not a good subject for attack, and so

came on down the beach in search of blood less formidably defended. We

renewed our fire, examined our dead disturber, and turned in again to

sound sleep under the assuring suggestion of the Cincinnati man that,

whatever else the jungle might hide, two cannon-balls rarely enter the

same hole.

Our heavy and late slumber was broken by the laugh and chatter of two

Indian women and a child, who in a bark canoe a little way from shore

were regarding our camp in noisy curiosity. My blanket suddenly thrown

aside and a good-morning in English took them by surprise, and they

paddled away vigorously toward a group of lodges some four miles across

the lake. In the glorious sunset of a restful Sunday we crossed the

glassy lake to its outlet, taking two fine lake-trout of four pounds as

we went, and glided out of as beautiful a lake as sun and moon shine

upon into the swift, steady, deep current of what for the first time in

its long way Gulfward bears the full dignity of a river. Its green

banks are some two hundred feet apart. The water has a regular depth of

from five to six feet, and all the way to Lake Winnibegoshish affords

an unbroken channel for a medium-sized Western steamer. The shores,

alternating between low, firm, grass-grown earth and benches of

luxuriant green twenty feet high, grown over with open groves of fine

yellow pines, were so beautiful and regular that we could hardly

persuade ourselves that we should not see, as we rounded the graceful

curves, some fine old mansion of which these turfed knolls and charming

groves seemed the elegant lawns and parks. Our fleet unanimously voted

the river between Cass and Winnibegoshish Lakes the most beautiful of

all its upper course.

[Illustration: BARN BLUFF (C., M. & ST. P. R.R.).]

We began our second week upon the Mississippi with a breakfast of baked

lake-trout, slapjacks, maple syrup and coffee, which embodied the

culinary skill of the entire fleet: then started for Winnibegoshish in

the height of good spirits and physical vigor. In one of our easy,

five-miles-an-hour swings around the graceful curves we were met by a

duck flying close over our heads with noisy quacks. A little farther we

came upon the cause of the bird's lively flight in an Indian boy, not

above nine years old, paddling a large birch canoe, over the gunwale of

which peeped the muzzle of a sanguinary-looking old shot-gun. The

diminutive sportsman was for a moment dashed by our sudden and novel

appearance, but, from the way he urged his canoe and from the

determined set of his dirty face, we had small room to doubt the

ultimate fate of the flying mallard. Another curve brought us in sight

of the home of the little savage, where a dozen Indians, in all stages

of nudity, were encamped upon a high bluff. A concerted whoop from our

fleet brought all of them from their smoky lodges, and we swept by

under their wondering eyes and exclamations. Then the high land was

left behind, and half an hour between low meadows brought us out upon

the yellow sands and heaving swells of Lake Winnibegoshish, the largest

in the Mississippi chain, the dimensions of which, including its lovely

north-eastern bay, are about eleven by thirteen miles. The name

signifies "miserable dirty water lake," but save a faint tinge of brown

its waters are as pure and sparkling as those of any of the upper

lakes. Our entrance upon Winnibegoshish was under a driving storm of

wind and mist, against which we paddled three miles to Duck Point, a

slender finger of wooded sand and boulder reaching half a mile out, at

whose junction with the main land is a miserable village of most

villainous-looking Indians. One man alone could speak a little English,

and through him we negotiated for replenishing our provisions.

Meantime, the storm freshened and embargoed an eight-mile journey

across an open and boiling sea; so we paddled to the outermost joint

upon the jutting finger for a bivouac under the trees, waiting the

hoped-for lull of wind and wave at sunset. The smoke of our fire

invited to our camp the hungry natives, who dogged us at every turn all

the long afternoon, in squads of all numbers under twenty, and of all

ages between two and seventy. One club-footed and club-handed fellow of

forbidding visage protested with hand and head that he neither spoke

nor understood our vernacular. Later, he sidled up to the Hattie's

skipper and said in an earnest _sotto voce_, "Gib me dime." Denied the

dime, he intimated to the Betsy that he doted on bacon, of which we

were each broiling a slice. The Betsy's captain was bent upon securing

an Indian fish-spear, and he pantomimed to the twinkling eyes of the

copper-skin that he would invest a generous chunk of bacon in barbed

iron. The Indian strode back to his village, and soon returned with the

spear, which he transferred to the Betsy's stores.

The conventional Indian maiden besieged the bachelor two-thirds of our

expedition with all the wiles that could be embodied in a comely and

clean-calicoed charmer up in the twenties, who finally bore away from

the Betsy's private stores a fan of stunning colors and other odds and

ends of a St. Paul notion-store; while the guileless commander of the

Hattie, whose cumulative years should have taught him better, and whose

thinly-clad brain-shelter and disreputable attempt at sailor costume

should have blunted all feminine javelins, surrendered to the ugliest

old septuagenarian in the village, and sent her heart away rejoicing in

the ownership of a policeman's whistle courted by her leering eyes and

already smirched by her dirty lips, together with a stock of tea,

crackers and bacon for which her expanded corporosity evinced no

imminent need. At last rid of our importunate acquaintances, we turned

in for a sleep, which we resolved should be broken at the first moment,

dark or light, when we might cross the lake. Before daylight the

Betsy's resonant call awoke us, and in the earliest gray we paddled out

upon a heavy but not foaming sea, and after two and a half hours of

monotonous splashing in the trough of the waves landed for breakfast on

the eastern shore, whence we crossed a lovely bay and passed out once

more upon the river.

A mile on our way we came to the prettiest of the many Indian

burying-grounds which we saw now and then. Formerly, the Indians

deposited their dead upon rude scaffolds well up in the air. Now they

seek high ground and place the bodies of the departed in shallow

graves, over which they build little wooden houses a foot or two high

with gabled roofs, and mark each with a white flag raised upon a pole a

few feet above the sleeper's head. In this neighborhood we inquired of

a stalwart brave concerning our proximity to a portage by means of

which a short walk over to a small lake near the head of Ball Club Lake

and a pull of six miles down the latter would bring us out again into

the river, and save a tedious voyage of twenty-five to thirty miles

through a broad savanna. The Indian in his old birch canoe joined our

fleet, and led us to the beginning of the portage near the foot of

Little Winnipeg Lake. We had carried two canoes and all the baggage

over to the water on the other side of a sandy ridge, leaving only the

Kleiner Fritz to be brought, when our guide and packer, with a

preliminary grunt, said "Money?" inquiring how much we intended to pay

him. He had worked hard for four hours, for which we tried to tell him

that we should pay him one dollar when he should bring over the

remaining canoe; but we could not make him understand what a dollar

was. We then laid down, one after another, four silver quarter-dollars

and two bars of tobacco; whereupon he gave a satisfied grunt and an

affirmative nod, disappeared in the forest, and in less than an hour

returned with the Fritz upon his steaming shoulders, having covered

more than three miles in the round trip.

As we pulled out upon Ball Club Lake a gentle stern wind bade us hoist

our canvas for an easy and pleasant sail of six or seven miles down to

the open river. We glided out gayly before a gentle breeze, and sailed

restfully over the little rippling waves, our speed increasing, though

we hardly noted the signs of a gale driving after us over the hills

behind. The Hattie was leading well over to the port shore, the Fritz

bearing straight down the middle, with the Betsy on the starboard

quarter, when the storm struck us with a vigor that increased with each

gust. The black clouds swished over our heads, seemingly almost within

reach of our paddles. The sails tugged at the sheets with tiresome

strength. The canoes now plunged into a wave at the bows and were now

swept by others astern, as they rushed forward like mettlesome colts or

hung poised upon or within a rolling swell, until, with the increasing

gale, the roaring waves dashed entirely over decks and men. The Hattie

bore away to leeward and rode the gale finely, but at last prudence

bade the furling of her sail. Expecting no such blow the Fritz had not

taken the precaution to arrange her rubber apron for keeping out the

waves from her manhole, and now, between holding the sheet, steering

and watching the gusty wind, neither hand nor eye could be spared for

defensive preparations; so her skipper struck sail and paddled for the

westward shore, with the Betsy lunging and plunging close behind. We on

the windward side sought the smoother water within the reeds, and drove

along rapidly under bare poles, out of sight of the Hattie, separated

at nightfall by miles of raging sea. We rode before the wind to the

foot of the lake, where we were confronted by the alternative of a

toilsome and unsafe paddle around the coast against the storm's full

force, or camping in mutual anxiety as to the fate of the unseen

party--a by no means pleasant sedative for a night's rest upon wild and

uninhabited shores. We decided upon the pull, and labored on, now upon

the easy swells within the reeds, and then tossing upon the crests in

open places, until at last a whirling column of smoke a mile ahead gave

us assurance of the Hattie's safety. The reunited fleet paddled down

into the Mississippi, enlivening the darkness until we could find

camping-ground beyond the marshes by a comparison of storm-experiences

and congratulations that we had escaped the bottom of the lake.

[Illustration: CHURCH AMONG THE PINES (BRAINERD).]

Late in the afternoon of the next day, after a monotonous pull through

the interminable windings of Eagle Nest Savanna, we swept around a

curve of high tillable land upon the uppermost farm cultivated by

whites, eighteen miles above Pekagema Falls, and one hundred and

seventy miles by river beyond the Northern Pacific Railroad. Thomas

Smith and his partner, farming, herding and lumbering at the mouth of

Vermilion River, were the first white men we had seen since July 6,

seventeen days, and with them we enjoyed a chat in straight English.

Nine miles below we camped at River Camp, the second farm downward,

where we were kindly supplied with vegetables and with fresh milk,

which seemed to us then like the nectar of the gods. Thursday, 24th, we

reached Pekagema Falls, a wild pitch of some twenty feet, with rapids

above and below, down which the strong volume of the river plunges with

terrible force in picturesque beauty. A carry around the falls and

three miles of paddling brought us to Grand Rapids, and we rushed like

the wind into the whirl and boil of its upper ledge, down the steep and

crooked incline for two hundred yards, out of which we shot up to the

bank under a little group of houses where Warren Potter and Knox &

Wakefield conduct the uppermost post-office and stores upon the river.

We speedily closed our partly-completed letters and posted them for a

pack-mail upon an Indian's back sixty-five miles to Aitkin, while we

should follow the tortuous river thither for one hundred and fifty

miles. We had hoped for a rest and lift hence to Aitkin upon the good

steamboat City of Aitkin, which makes a few lonely trips each spring

and fall, but the low water had prevented her return from her last

voyage, made ten days before our arrival. Our stores replenished, after

two hours of rest we started again in a driving rain, and under the

hearty _bon voyage_ of a dozen frontiersmen and Indians shot the two

lively lower ledges of Grand Rapids, and came out on smooth water,

whose sluggish flow, broken by a very few rifts, bore us thence one

hundred and fifty miles to the next white settlement at Aitkin. The

entire distance lies through low bottom-lands heavily timbered, and our

course was drearily monotonous. We left Grand Rapids at mid-afternoon

of Thursday, July 24, and camped on Friday night four miles below Swan

River. Late on Saturday we passed Sandy Lake River--where formerly were

a large Indian population and an important trading-post, founded and

for many years conducted by Mr. Aitkin, who was prominently identified

with the early history of that region, and is now commemorated in the

town and county bearing his name, but where now remain only one or two

deserted cabins and a few Indian graves, over which white flags were

flapping in the sultry breeze--and camped two miles below. Monday's

afternoon brought us to Aitkin, so that we had covered one hundred and

fifty miles of sluggish channel, at low summer tide, in three working

days. We had been four weeks beyond possibility of home-tidings, and we

swooped down upon the disciple of Morse in that far-away village with

work that kept him clicking for an hour. We were handsomely taken in by

Warren Potter, a pioneer and an active and intelligent factor in the

business of that region, in whose tasteful home we for the first time

in a month sat down and ate in Christian fashion under a civilized

roof. Having lost a week in the farther wilderness, we decided to take

the rail to Minneapolis, that we might enjoy the beautiful river thence

to Lake Pepin, yet reach our homes within the appointed time. Half a

day was enjoyed at Brainerd, the junction of the Northern Pacific main

line with the St. Paul branch, and the most important town between Lake

Superior and the Missouri. It is beautifully built and picturesquely

scattered among the pines upon the Mississippi's eastern bank, not far

above Crow Wing River. Thence we were carried over the splendid

railway, passing the now abandoned Fort Ripley, winding along or near

to the river and across the wheat-fields, through the busy and

beautiful city of mills, below St. Anthony's roar and down the dancing

rapids to a pleasant island-camp between the green-and-gray bluffs that

bind Minneapolis to Minnehaha--the first really fine scenery this side

of Itasca's solitude. A delightful paddle under a bright morning sun

and over swift, clear water carried us to the little brook whose

laughter, three-quarters of a mile up a deep ravine, has been sent by

Longfellow rippling outward to all the world. We rounded the great

white-faced sand-rock that marks the outlet, paddled as far as we might

up the quiet stream, beached the canoes under the shade of the willows,

walked a little way up the brook, past a deserted mill, under cool

shadows of rock and wood, and enjoyed for half an hour the simple,

seductive charms of the "Laughing Water." Then we tramped back to our

boats, floated down under the old walls of Fort Snelling and between

the chalk-white cliffs which line the broadening river, until we came

in sight of St. Paul's roofs and spires, and soon were enjoying the

thoughtful care and generous hospitality of the Minnesota Boat Club.

Another day's close brought us to Red Wing, backgrounded by the green

bluffs and reddened cliffs of its bold hills. One more pull down the

now broad and islanded stream carried us to Lake Pepin, one of the

loveliest mirrors that reflects the sun, and to Frontenac's white

beach. The keels of the Fritz, the Betsy and the Hattie crunched the

sands at the end of their long journey, the boats were shunted back

upon the railway, and their weary owners were soon dozing in restful

forgetfulness upon the couches of the unsurpassed Chicago, Milwaukee

and St. Paul line.

[Illustration: END OF VOYAGE (FRONTENAC, LAKE PEPIN).]

Beyond reasonable doubt, our party is the only one that ever pushed its

way by boat up the entire course of the farther-most Mississippi.

Beyond any question, our canoes were the first wooden boats that ever

traversed those waters. Schoolcraft, in 1832, came all the way down the

upper river without portages, but he had very high water and many

helpers, in spite of which one of his birch canoes was wrecked. The

correspondent of a New York newspaper claimed the complete trip in his

canoe some five years ago, but his own guide and others told us that

his Dolly Varden never was above Brainerd, and that his portages above

were frequent. So we may well feel an honest pride in our Rushton-built

Rob Roys and our hard knocks, and may remember with pardonable

gratification that upon our own feet and keels we have penetrated the

solitudes lying around the source of the world's most remarkable river,

where no men live and where, probably, not more than two-score white

men have ever been.--A.H. SIEGFRIED.

ADAM AND EVE.

CHAPTER XXVI.

By the time Reuben May entered the little town of Looe he had come to a

decision about his movements and how he should carry out his plan of

getting back to London. Not by going with Captain Triggs, for the

monotonous inaction of a sailing voyage would now be insupportable to

him, but by walking as far as he could, and now and then, whenever it

was possible, endeavoring to get a cheap lift on the road. His first

step must therefore be to inform Triggs of his decision, and to do this

he must get back to Plymouth, a distance from Looe of some fifteen or

sixteen miles.

In going through Looe that morning he had stopped for a few minutes at

a small inn which stood not far from the beach; and having now crossed

the river which divides West from East Looe, he began looking about for

this house, intending to get some refreshments, to rest for an hour or

so, and then proceed on his journey.

Already the town-clock was striking six, and Reuben calculated that if

he started between nine and ten he should have time to take another

good rest on the road--which he had already once that day

traversed--and reach Plymouth Barbican, where the Mary Jane lay, by

daybreak.

The inn found, he ordered his meal and informed the landlady of his

intention.

"Why, do 'ee stop here till mornin', then," exclaimed the large-hearted

Cornish woman. "If 'tis the matter o' the money," she added, eying him

critically, "that's hinderin' 'ee from it, it needn't to, for I'll see

us don't have no quarrel 'bout the price o' the bed."

Reuben assured her that choice, not necessity, impelled his onward

footsteps; and, thus satisfied, she bade him "Take and lie down on the

settle there inside the bar-parlor; for," she added, "'less 'tis the

sergeant over fra Liskeard 'tain't likely you'll be disturbed no ways;

and I shall be in and out to see you'm all right."

Reuben stretched himself out, and, overcome by the excitement and

fatigue of the day, was soon asleep and dreaming of those happier times

when he and Eve had walked as friends together. Suddenly some one

seemed to speak her name, and though the name at once wove itself into

the movement of the dream, the external sound had aroused the sleeper,

and he opened his eyes to see three men sitting near talking over their

grog.

With just enough consciousness to allow of his noticing that one was a

soldier and the other two were sailors, Reuben looked for a minute,

then closed his eyes, and was again sinking back into sleep when the

name of Eve was repeated, and this time with such effect that all

Reuben's senses seemed to quicken into life, and, cautiously opening

his eyes, so as to look without being observed, he saw that it was the

soldier who was speaking.

"Young chap, thinks I," he was saying, "you little fancy there's one so

near who's got your sweetheart's seal dangling to his fob;" and with an

air of self-satisfied vanity he held out for inspection a curious

little seal which Reuben at once recognized as the same which he

himself had given to Eve.

The unexpected sight came upon him with such surprise that, had not the

height of the little table served as a screen to shelter him from view,

his sudden movement must have betrayed his wakefulness.

"He's a nice one for any woman to be tied to, he is!" replied the

younger of the two sailors. "Why, the only time as I ever had what you

may call a fair look at un was one night in to the King o' Proosia's,

and there he was dealing out his soft sawder to little Nancy Lagassick

as if he couldn't live a minute out o' her sight."

"That's about it," laughed the soldier. "He's one of your own sort

there: you Jacks are all alike, with a wife in every port. However," he

added--and as he spoke he gave a complacent stroke to his good-looking

face--"he may thank his stars that a matter of seven miles or so lays

between his pretty Eve and Captain Van Courtland's troop, or there'd

have been a cutting-out expedition that, saving the presence of those I

speak before"--and he gave a most exasperating wink--"might have proved

a trifle more successful than such things have of late."

"Here, I say," said the sailor, flaming up at this ill-timed

jocularity, "p'ra'ps you'll tell me what 'tis you're drivin' at; for

I've got to hear of it if you, or any o' your cloth either, ever made a

find yet. You're mighty 'cute 'bout other folks, though when the

spirits was under yer very noses, and you searched the houses through

'twas knowed to be stowed in, you couldn't lay hold on a single cask.

'Tis true we mayn't have nabbed the men, but by jingo if 't has come to

us bein' made fools of by the women!"

"There, now, stash it there!" said his older comrade, who had no wish

to see a quarrel ensue. "So far as I can see, there's no cause for

bounce 'twixt either o' us; though only you give us a chance of getting

near to them, sergeant," he said, turning to the soldier, "and I'll

promise you shall make it all square with this pretty lass you fancy

while her lover's cutting capers under Tyburn tree."

"'A chance?'" repeated his companion, despondingly: "where's it to come

from, and the only one we'd got cut away from under us by those Hart

chaps?"

"How so? where's the Hart off to, then?" asked the sergeant.

"Off to Port Mellint," said the man addressed. "Nothing but a hoax, I

fancy, but still she was bound to go;" and so saying he tossed off the

remainder of his grog and began making a movement, saying, as he did

so, to his somewhat quarrelsomely-disposed shipmate, "Here, I say,

Bill, come 'long down to the rendezvoos with me, and if there's nothin'

up for to-night what d'ye say to stepping round to Paddy Burke's? He's

asked us to come ever so many times, you know."

"Paddy Burke?" said the sergeant. "What! do you know him? Why, if

you're going there, I'll step so far with you."

"Well, we're bound for the rendezvoos first," said the sailor.

"All right! I can find plenty to do while you're in there."

"Then come along;" and, only stopping to exchange a few words in

passing with the landlady, out they all went, and Reuben was left

alone, a prey to the thoughts which now came crowding into his mind.

For a few minutes he sat with his arms resting on the table as if

communing with himself: then, starting up as if filled with a sudden

resolve, he went out and asked the landlady a few commonplace

questions, and finally inquired whereabouts and in what direction did

the rendezvous lie.

"Close down by the bridge, the first house after you pass the second

turning. Why?" she said: "be 'ee wanting to see anybody there?"

"No," said Reuben: "I only heard the fellows that came in there talking

about the rendezvous, and I wondered whether I'd passed it."

"Why, iss, o' course you did, comin' in. 'Tis the house with the flag

stream-in' over the doorways."

Reuben waited for no further information. He said something about not

knowing it was so late, bade the landlady a rather abrupt farewell, and

went his way.

Down the narrow street he hurried, turned a corner, and found himself

in front of the house indicated, outside which all was dark. Nobody

near, and, with the exception of himself, not a soul to be seen.

Inside, he could hear voices, and the more plainly from the top sash of

the window being a little way open. By the help of the iron stanchion

driven in to support the flagstaff he managed to get up, steady himself

on the window-sill and take a survey of the room. Several men were in

it, and among them the two he had already seen, one of whom was

speaking to a person whom, from his uniform, Reuben took to be an

officer.

The sight apparently decided what he had before hesitated about, and

getting; down he took from his pocket a slip of paper--one he had

provided in case he should want to leave a message for Eve--and rapidly

wrote on it these words: "The Lottery is expected at Polperro tonight.

They will land at Down End as soon as the tide will let them get near."

Folding this, he once more mounted the window-sill, tossed the paper

into the room, lingered for but an instant to see that it was picked

up, then jumped down, ran with all speed, and was soon lost amid the

darkness which surrounded him.

As he hurried from the house an echo seemed to carry to his ears the

shout which greeted this surprise--a surprise which set every one

talking at once, each one speaking and no one listening. Some were for

going, some for staying away, some for treating it as a serious matter,

others for taking it as a joke.

At length the officer called "Silence!" and after a pause, addressing

the men present in a few words, he said that however it might turn out

he considered that he should only be doing his duty by ordering the

boats to proceed to the place named and see what amount of truth there

was in this somewhat mysterious manoeuvre. If it was nothing but a hoax

they must bear to have the laugh once more turned against them; but

should it turn out the truth! The buzz which greeted this bare

supposition showed how favorably his decision was regarded, and the

absent men were ordered to be summoned without delay. Everything was

got ready as quickly as possible, and in a little over an hour two

boats started, fully equipped and manned, to lie in ambush near the

coast midway between Looe and Polperro.

While Fate, in the shape of Reuben May, had been hastening events

toward a disastrous climax, the course of circumstances in Polperro had

not gone altogether smoothly. To Eve's vexation, because of the

impossibility of speaking of her late encounter with Reuben May, she

found on her return home that during her absence Mrs. Tucker had

arrived, with the rare and unappreciated announcement that she had come

to stop and have her tea with them. The example set by Mrs. Tucker was

followed by an invitation to two or three other elderly friends, so

that between her hospitality and her excitement Joan had no opportunity

of noticing any undue change in Eve's manner or appearance. Two or

three remarks were made on her pale face and abstracted air, but this

more by the way of teasing than anything else; while Joan, remembering

the suppressed anxiety she was most probably trying to subdue,

endeavored to come to her aid and assist in turning away this

over-scrutiny of her tell-tale appearance.

The opportunity thus afforded by silence gave time for reflection, and

Eve, who had never been quite straightforward or very explicit about

herself and Reuben May, now began to hesitate. Perhaps, after all, it

would be better to say nothing, for Joan was certain to ask questions

which, without betraying the annoyance she had undergone, Eve hardly

saw her way to answering. Again, it was not impossible but that

Reuben's anger might relent, and if so he would most probably seek

another interview, in which to beg her pardon.

In her heart Eve hoped and believed this would be the case; for,

indignantly as she had defied Reuben's scorn and flung back his

reproaches, they had been each a separate sting to her, and she longed

for the chance to be afforded Reuben of seeing how immeasurably above

the general run of men was the one she had chosen.

"Here, I say, Eve!" exclaimed Joan, as she came in-doors from bidding

good-bye to the last departure: "come bear a hand and let's set the

place all straight: I can't abide the men's coming home to find us all

in a muddle."

Eve turned to with a good will, and the girls soon had the satisfaction

of seeing the room look as bright and cheery as they desired.

"Let's see--ten minutes past 'leben," said Joan, looking at the clock.

"I don't see how 'tis possible for 'em to venture in 'fore wan, 'less

'tis to Yallow Rock, and they'd hardly try that. What do 'ee say, Eve?

Shall we run up out to cliff, top o' Talland lane, and see if us can

see any signs of 'em?"

"Oh do, Joan!"

And, throwing their cloaks over them, off they set.

"Here, give me your hand," said Joan as they reached the gate and

entered upon the path which Eve had last trod with Adam by her side. "I

knaw the path better than you, and 'tis a bit narrow for a pitch-dark

night like this. Take care: we'm come to the watter. That's right. Now

up we goes till we get atop, and then we'll have a good look round us."

Thus instructed, Eve managed to get on, and, stumbling up by Joan's

side, they quickly reached the narrow line of level which seemed to

overhang the depths below.

"We couldn't see them if they were there," said Eve, turning to Joan,

who was still peering into the darkness.

"No, 'tis blacker than I thought," said Joan cheerily: "that's ever so

much help to 'em, and--Hooray! the fires is out! Do 'ee see, Eve? There

ain't a spark o' nothin' nowheres. Ole Jonathan's hoaxed 'em fine this

time: the gawpuses have sooked it all in, and, I'll be bound, raced off

so fast as wind and tide 'ud carry 'em."

"Then they're sure to come now?" said Eve excitedly.

"Certain," said Joan. "They've seed the fires put out, and knaw it

means the bait's swallowed and the cruiser is off. I shouldn't wonder a

bit if they'm close in shore, only waitin' for the tide to give 'em a

proper draw o' water, so that they may send the kegs over."

"Should we go on a bit farther," said Eve, "and get down the hill by

the Warren stile? We might meet some of 'em, perhaps."

"Better not," said Joan. "To tell 'ee the truth, 'tis best to make our

way home so quick as can, for I wudn't say us 'ull have 'em back

quicker than I thought."

"Then let's make haste," exclaimed Eve, giving her hand to Joan, while

she turned her head to take a farewell glance in the direction where it

was probable the vessel was now waiting. "Oh, Joan! what's that?" For a

fiery arrow had seemed to shoot along the darkness, and in quick

succession came another and another.

Joan did not answer, but she seemed to catch her breath, and, clutching

hold of Eve, she made a spring up on to the wall over which they had

before been looking. And now a succession of sharp cracks were heard,

then the tongues of fire darted through the air, and again all was

gloom.

"O Lord!" groaned Joan, "I hope 'tain't nothin's gone wrong with 'em."

In an instant Eve had scrambled up by her side: "What can it be? what

could go wrong, Joan?"

But Joan's whole attention seemed now centred on the opposite cliff,

from where, a little below Hard Head, after a few minutes' watching,

Eve saw a blue light burning: this was answered by another lower down,

then a rocket was sent up, at sight of which Joan clasped her hands and

cried, "Awn, 'tis they! 'tis they! Lord save 'em! Lord help 'em! They

cursed hounds have surely played 'em false."

"What! not taken them, Joan?"

"They won't be taken," she said fiercely. "Do you think, unless 'twas

over their dead bodies, they'd ever let king's men stand masters on the

Lottery's deck?"

Eve's heart died within her, and with one rush every detail of the

lawless life seemed to come before her.

"There they go again!" cried Joan; and this time, by the sound, she

knew their position was altered to the westward and somewhat nearer to

land. "Lord send they mayn't knaw their course!" she continued: "'tis

but a point or two on, and they'll surely touch the Steeple Reef.--Awh,

you blidthirsty cowards! I wish I'd the pitchin' of every man of 'ee

overboards: 'tis precious little mercy you'd get from me. And the

blessed sawls to be caught in yer snarin' traps close into home,

anighst their very doors, too!--Eve, I must go and see what they means

to do for 'em. They'll never suffer to see 'em butchered whilst there's

a man in Polperro to go out and help 'em."

Forgetting in her terror all the difficulties she had before seen in

the path, Eve managed to keep up with Joan, whose flying footsteps

never stayed until she found herself in front of a long building close

under shelter of the Peak which had been named as a sort of

assembling-place in case of danger.

"'Tis they?" Joan called out in breathless agony, pushing her way

through the crowd of men now hastening up from all directions toward

the captain of the Cleopatra.

"I'm feared so;" and his grave face bespoke how fraught with anxiety

his fears were.

"What can it be, d'ee think?"

"Can't tell noways. They who brought us word saw the Hart sail, and

steady watch has been kept up, so that us knaws her ain't back."

"You manes to do somethin' for 'em?" said Joan.

"Never fear but us'll do what us can, though that's mighty little, I

can tell 'ee, Joan."

Joan gave an impatient groan. Her thorough comprehension of their

danger and its possible consequences lent activity to her distress,

while Eve, with nothing more tangible than the knowledge that a

terrible danger was near, seemed the prey to indefinite horrors which

took away from her every sense but the sense of suffering.

By this time the whole place was astir, people running to this point

and that, asking questions, listening to rumors, hazarding a hundred

conjectures, each more wild than the other. A couple of boats had been

manned, ready to row round by the cliff. One party had gone toward the

Warren, another to Yellow Rock. All were filled with the keenest desire

not only to aid their comrades, but to be revenged on those who had

snared them into this cunningly-devised pitfall. But amid all this zeal

arose the question, What could they do?

Absolutely nothing, for by this time the firing had ceased, the contest

was apparently over, and around them impenetrable darkness again

reigned supreme. To show any lights by which some point of land should

be discovered might only serve as a beacon to the enemy. To send out a

boat might be to run it into their very jaws, for surely, were

assistance needed, those on board the Lottery would know that by this

time trusty friends were anxiously watching, waiting for but the

slightest signal to be given to risk life and limb in their service.

The wisest thing to be done was to put everything in order for a sudden

call, and then sit down and patiently abide the result. This decision

being put into effect, the excited crowd began to thin, and before

long, with the exception of those who could render assistance, very few

lookers-on remained. Joan had lingered till the last, and then, urged

by the possibility that many of her house-comforts might be needed, she

hurried home to join Eve, who had gone before her.

With their minds running upon all the varied accidents of a fight, the

girls, without exchanging a word of their separate fears, got ready

what each fancied might prove the best remedy, until, nothing more

being left to do, they sat down, one on each side of the fire, and

counted the minutes by which time dragged out this weary watching into

hours.

"Couldn't 'ee say a few hymns or somethin', Eve?" Joan said at length,

with a hope of breaking this dreadful monotony.

Eve shook her head.

"No?" said Joan disappointedly. "I thought you might ha' knowed o'

some." Then, after another pause, struck by a happier suggestion, she

said, "S'pose us was to get down the big Bible and read a bit, eh? What

do 'ee say?"

But Eve only shook her head again. "No," she said, in a hard, dry

voice: "I couldn't read the Bible now."

"Couldn't 'ee?" sighed Joan. "Then, after all, it don't seem that

religion and that's much of a comfort. By what I'd heard," she added,

"I thought 'twas made o' purpose for folks to lay hold on in times o'

trouble."