RATTLESNAKES AND RIFLE-SHOTS.
While they were returning through the grassy glade, the Lieutenant,
who was a few steps in advance, suddenly stopped and sprang back. The
boys barely caught a glimpse of a flat, wicked-looking head, from which
a forked tongue was viciously thrusting, and heard a sound like the
whir-r-r-r of an immense locust, when Lieutenant Carey fired, and the
head disappeared in the tall grass.
"It was a snake, wasn't it?" asked Worth.
"Worse than that," replied the Lieutenant. "It was a diamond-back
rattler, the most venomous snake known to this country, and with
another step I should have been on him. I'd rather face your panther
unarmed than to have stepped on that fellow."
"What would you have done if you had met it without a gun in your
hand?" asked Sumner, curiously.
"Run," answered the Lieutenant, laconically, as he grasped the lifeless
body of the snake by the tail, with a view to dragging it into camp.
"But if he had caught and bitten you?"
"He wouldn't have caught me, because, in the first place, he would
have been content to be let alone, and wouldn't have chased me. In the
second place, the rattlesnake is such a sluggish reptile that I could
run faster than he, and could easily have kept out of his way."
"Well, then, what would you do if you were bitten?"
"If it were on an arm or a leg, I should tie my handkerchief above the
wound, and twist it with a bit of stick as tightly as possible, so as
to impede the circulation. Then I should enlarge the wound with my
knife, and, if I could reach it with my mouth, I should suck it for
five minutes, frequently spitting out the blood. After that I should
get to camp as quickly as possible, put a freshly-chewed tobacco
plaster on the wound every ten minutes for the next hour, and at the
same time drink a tumblerful of whiskey or other alcoholic liquor. If
I could do all that, and the fangs had not struck an artery, I should
feel reasonably sure of recovery."
"Suppose they had struck an artery, what would you do?"
"Reconcile myself to death as quickly as possible, for I should
probably be dead inside of three minutes," was the grim reply.
Worth shuddered as he gazed at the scaly body that, marked with
black and yellow diamonds, trailed for more than five feet behind
the Lieutenant, and remarked that the sooner they got away from the
haunts of panthers and rattlesnakes, and back among the good-natured
alligators, the better he should like it.
"I shouldn't think Indians would care to live in such a rattlesnaky
country," he added.
"They don't mind them," laughed the Lieutenant. "Their keen eyesight
generally enables them to discover a snake as soon as he sees them.
Then, too, they have an infallible antidote for snake bite, the secret
of which they refuse to divulge to white men."
"How many rattles has this fellow?" asked Sumner.
"Only seven," answered Lieutenant Carey, counting them.
"Then he was a young fellow. I thought from his size that he must be
pretty old, and would have twelve or thirteen rattles and a button at
least."
"The number of rattles does not indicate a snake's age," said the
Lieutenant, smiling. "They get broken off, as do long finger-nails. I
have seen very large snakes with fewer rattles than others that were
smaller and evidently younger."
While they were eating lunch Quorum skinned the snake, rubbed the
beautiful skin thoroughly with fine salt, and rolled it into a compact
bundle, in which condition it would keep for a long time.
After lunch and the hour's rest that followed it the little fleet was
again got under way, and proceeded up the swift river. About the middle
of the afternoon they entered the broad belt of cypress timber that
borders the Everglades on the west. Here the serried ranks of tall
trees, stretching away as far as the eye could reach, held out their
long moss-draped arms until they met overhead, and formed a dim archway
for the passage of the rushing current. The water flowed with strange
gurglings against the gray trunks, and the whole scene was one of such
weird solitude, that on entering it the explorers shivered as with a
chill. Through the semi-twilight fluffy night herons flitted like gray
shadows, and the harsh scream of an occasional water-fowl, startled
by the dip of paddles, echoed through the gloomy forest like a cry of
human distress.
The atmosphere of the place was so depressing that no one spoke, but
each bent to his paddle or oars with redoubled energy, the quicker to
escape into the sunshine that they knew must lie somewhere beyond it.
Quorum, who had been sitting in the stern of the cruiser while the
sailor rowed, was finally made so nervous by his uncanny surroundings
that he begged his companion to change places with him. He wished to
row that his thoughts might be occupied with the hard work. The sailor
complied, though laughing at the negro's fears as he did so. While
Quorum was working with desperate energy to catch up with the other
boats, there came an incident of so startling a nature that in relating
it afterwards he said: "I tell yo, sah, de ole niggah so skeer dat him
come de neares' in he life to tu'nin' plumb white!"
It was a volley of rifle-shots that flashed and roared from the forest
on the right bank of the river like thunder from a clear sky. A second
volley followed almost immediately, and then succeeded such a din of
yells, whoops, and howlings as would have dismayed the stoutest heart.
For an instant each one of the explorers imagined himself to be the
sole survivor of a wholesale massacre, and the surprise of the volleys
was fully equalled by that of seeing his companions still alive.
[Illustration: "A VOLLEY OF RIFLE-SHOTS FLASHED AND ROARED FROM THE
FOREST."]
While the echoes of the first volley were still reverberating through
the dim arches of the forest, Quorum whirled the cruiser around as on
a pivot, and despite his companion's remonstrances, started her down
the river with a rush. The canoemen sat for a couple of seconds with
uplifted paddles as though paralyzed, and in that space of time the
powerful current did for them what Quorum had done for the cruiser.
There seemed nothing to do but to fly from those crashing rifles and
demoniac yells. So fly they did, paddling furiously, and casting
fearful glances over their shoulders to note if they were pursued. It
must be stated, however, that the Lieutenant tried repeatedly to rally
the fugitives, and when he found this to be impossible, he held his
own canoe in check until certain that no immediate pursuit was being
undertaken.
It was nearly sunset when he overtook the others at a place beyond the
lower edge of the cypress belt, where they had halted to wait for him.
He found them still badly demoralized, and ready to continue their
flight at the first intimation of further danger.
"Well, boys," he cried, cheerily, as his canoe swept down beside them,
"I suppose we might as well call this the end of our day's work, and go
into camp."
"Camp?" almost gasped Worth. "You don't mean, sir, that you propose to
go into camp while the whole country is simply swarming with savage
Indians?"
"I certainly do," replied the Lieutenant. "We shall be safer in
camp, where we can work together, than on the river, where we must
necessarily be separated, especially in the dark. Moreover, I don't
believe we shall be molested here. The mere fact that they have not
pursued us so far is, to my mind, an indication that they don't intend
to. Indeed, boys, in thinking over this matter, I am inclined to
believe that the Indians, or whoever fired those shots, for I didn't
see a human being, only intended to frighten us, in the hope that we
would give up our undertaking. I believe that the cartridges they fired
were blanks. Certainly some of us would have been hit if they had been
loaded. I cannot remember seeing a bullet strike the water or anywhere
else; can you?"
No; none of them had noticed anything of the kind.
"That they have not pursued us is another indication that they do not
desire our lives," continued the Lieutenant. "Besides all this, the
Seminoles are fully aware of the consequences to themselves in case
they should kill a white man, and I have no idea that they desire a
war or anything like it. Thus I say that they only meant to frighten
us, and I must acknowledge that they succeeded. I, for one, was never
more startled and scared in my life. Now I propose that we camp here,
without lighting a fire to betray our presence, or let them know that
we have stopped running, until towards morning. Then I intend to try
the passage of that cypress swamp again."