"This," said Payne, "is where the Paradise Gardens Colony should be by
all maps and reports."
"But it isn't," said Higgins. "It's where some gazaboo with a pot of
money and a taste for oriental effects camps out. I'm wondering if
there is such a thing as that much advertised colony."
"I'm going to find out."
"Look out! There comes a ferocious animal to chew you up!"
A white poodle of tiny size with a bark like a piping bird came bobbing
out of the house.
"Here, Nero!" called Higgins.
And then the dark slender woman who had been on the Egret stepped out
from behind a palm.
"Flossy!" she said with a stamp of the foot, which twinkled the
pendants in her ears. "She won't bite you."
"I was worrying," said Roger.
"Ramos!" called the woman. "There are some strange men here. Come,
Flossy."
Payne found himself facing a tall dark man, with a hook nose, rings in
his ears and a stringy mustache. The man placed himself full in the
path leading to the little lake, and lazily, insolently studied the
intruding pair.
"You wish to see some one?" he drawled.
"You, greaser!" blurted Higgins in anger. "Hanged if I've seen such a
sassy half-breed since I left Mexico."
The man's lazy-lidded eyes narrowed to a slit. He came forward.
"Unless you are known you had better go elsewhere," he murmured.
"Really?" said Payne.
"Don't bother to be polite to him," growled Higgins. "Can't you see
he's a greaser? Get out of the way, _hombre_; we want to talk to some
one with brains."
Payne caught the engineer by the shoulder and held him back.
"We just want directions for getting up to the headwaters," he said.
"I still repeat: unless you are known, you had better go elsewhere."
"That's what we want to do. We're going up to the headwaters. This
place happens to be on our way."
"You are not known here?"
"No."
"Then go back." The Mexican pointed toward the path whence they had
come.
"Go back where you came from--and quickly."
"No," said Payne slowly, "that doesn't suit our program. We're going
that way." He pointed across the clearing toward the blue water of the
lake.
"Call your boss, greaser," snapped Higgins. "Let's talk to him." He
raised his voice to a shrieking falsetto. "Help, help!"
Payne looked toward the boat landing instinctively.
The girl of the dawn on Gumbo Key was coming toward them, laughing; and
the trees and the vine flowers and the sun all seemed to laugh with her.
"Oh, it's you, is it?" she said. "And the red-haired man, too!"
"Auburn!" protested Higgins, baring his fiery poll. "The best barbers
of the West have told me it's auburn."
Ramos bowed deferentially.
"You know these men, miss?"
The girl and Payne looked at one another a long while. At last she
turned resolutely to Ramos.
"Yes; I know them."
"My orders----"
"That's all right, Ramos, I know them."
"Perhaps you will tell me who they are?"
"Perhaps."
"Ah! Yes. Perhaps. Mrs. Livingstone called me. She did not know
these men."
"I do. And I scarcely know you at all, Ramos. What are you; what is
your job round here?"
"Caretaker, miss. Especially--when Mr. Garman is away."
"Annette!" It was the older woman again.
"Aunty," the girl whirling about resolutely, "I want to know a lot of
things; why is there said to be a colony here when there is only Mr.
Garman's winter home? Why is there all this mystery round here? Why
does Ramos prowl round like a watchdog?"
"Come in the house, dear. Leave Ramos to deal with the strangers."
"Why don't you answer me, aunty?"
"You foolish child!"
"I'm not a child." The red was burning in the girl's creamy cheeks.
"I won't be treated as a child. I want to know."
"Please, Annette, do not discuss your affairs before strangers."
"Strangers! Why, aunty, it's you who are strange to me. I can't
understand you. It's all strange. My father letting me come here
alone before he comes--he's strange, too, lately."
"I suppose Mr. Garman is strange to you too?"
A flush spread over the girl's face and she appeared to shrink and
wilt; and in the swift glance she cast at Payne there seemed an appeal
for help.
Payne spoke swiftly.
"We are truly sorry to intrude. We blundered in here on our way to the
head of the river. If we can get directions we will be on our way at
once."
The girl looked from her aunt to Ramos and then to Payne, and her chin
went up.
"Come," she said, and led the way to the boathouse on the lake shore.
"Oh, Willy Tiger!"
As mild and stoical a Seminole Indian as ever belied his surname
responded to her call. He smiled at the sight of her, an appalling
feat for a Seminole; and the smile confessed he was her abject slave.
"Willy, you will do a favor for me, won't you? I want you to take
these two friends of mine up to the head of the river, wherever that
is. My friends. For me, Willy."
The Seminole silently disappeared and returned paddling a long dugout
into which he tossed his rifle and a bundle containing his camping
outfit.
"My name's Roger Payne," said Roger, preparing to follow Higgins into
the boat. "I am under obligations, Miss----"
She did not respond to his suggestive pause.
"I don't think I'll tell you my name--now," she said thoughtfully.
"Perhaps--after you've seen the land you purchased from Senator
Fairclothe. Perhaps--not. Good-by."
Roger looked at Ramos, watching them from a distance, and replied:
"So long."
X
Higgins sat facing the silent Seminole, who swiftly paddled the long
dugout out of the little lake before the house and into a sluggish
creek running into it from the northeast. The Indian wore the
mauve-tinted, gaudily embroidered dress shirt of his tribe, but as a
concession to civilization he had donned a pair of overalls so much too
large for him that the belt was high round his strapping chest.
"What name did she call you by, Willy?" asked the engineer.
"Me Willy Tiger."
"Tiger doesn't fit you, Willy."
Higgins dipped his hand overboard and sprinkled water on the Indian's
head.
"I hereby christen you Willy High Pockets. And may they never be
empty."
An awful contortion took place upon the Seminole's mahogany features.
He was trying to grin.
"You give good Seminole why-o-me," he said, ceasing his paddling to rub
his stomach. "Willy Tiger----"
"High Pockets!"
"Willy High Pock' sick. Why-o-me make strong."
"So that's how they miscall hooch down in this country," ruminated
Higgins. "No, Willy; we don't pack any liquor. Shall I give him a
piece of plug?"
"Suit yourself--if you've got any."
"Got any? Never go into an Indian country without it."
Higgins produced from his bag a slab of plug tobacco which made Willy's
mouth water.
"Willy," said Payne suddenly, "who is Mr. Garman?"
"Donno."
"Put your tobacco away, Higgins."
"Garman big boss," said the Indian swiftly.
"_Esoka-bonus-che_-tobacco. You give."
"Boss of what?"
Without taking his eyes from the plug Willy's right arm described an
eloquent arc embracing the earth, the water, the sky, about them.
"Big boss--all country! Good tobacco. Strong----"
"Boss of the whole country, eh? What business is he in?"
"Donno."
"Where is he now?"
"Donno."
"What makes him boss of this country?"
"Donno."
"And there you are," laughed Higgins. "Willy looks different from a
regular Indian; but they're all alike. He loosened up to get this
piece of plug; now he 'dunno' anything."
"Donno," repeated Willy monotonously.
As the dugout scraped and stuck on the bottom the Indian doffed his
overalls and displayed the full gorgeousness of the Seminole dress
shirt. Payne wondered how in the souls of these swamp dwellers there
had developed a taste for a hue as delicate as the pink of the
flamingo. Bands of red, yellow, scarlet, mauve and black were
embroidered upon the cloth, and upon the shoulders were scarlet tufts
resembling epaulets. Willy stepped overboard, barefooted and nude save
for his rolled up shirt, and began to shove. A three-foot water
moccasin lay coiled on a mud bank in his path and the Indian's bare
foot flung it aside as one might kick away a stick. Presently he
paused, deep in liquid mud to his thighs, his feet working on something
below.
"_Alpate_," he said. "'Gator."
A commotion followed in the mud; a dark knob appeared above water.
There was a thrashing and upheaval and the Indian threw a half-grown
alligator upon the bank and dispatched it with a blow from his camp ax.
A few rods farther on the canoe was over the shallows and floating
easily in a flooded jungle of saw grass which stretched away as far as
the eye could reach.
"What's this?" demanded Payne.
"_Oko_ make river end."
"What?"
"_Oko_--lake. River end here. We there."
Payne drew out his maps and studied them.
"Where's Deer Hammock?"
"_Echu_ Hammock there." The Indian pointed to a cluster of palmettos
that reared its tops above the saw grass to the north.
"Go there."
They shoved their way through the grass; and as he contemplated the
drowned land all round Payne grew warm and then cold with anger. Mile
after mile to the east, north and south the watery waste stretched.
Here and there a hammock bearing a few trees stood out, like tiny
islands in a vast sea. Save for this there was only the uninhabited
desolation of the water and grass; and the brilliant sky above.
There was no word spoken as they pushed toward the hammock. Higgins
had noted the change on Payne's countenance and saw it was no time for
careless words. Payne drove his pole into the bottom and drew it out
for inspection.
"Limestone bottom; a thin scum of muck on top of it; and water."
The saw grass grew thicker. Only a water trail worn by dugouts
permitted them to go through. Higgins probed the bottom.
"About six inches of muck here," he reported, "and a foot of water on
it."
The water grew shallow on both sides of the channel and the grass more
dense. The Indian rose to his toes and peered above the grass tops as
they neared the hammock.
"_Echu_!" he said presently, reaching for his rifle. "Deer _ojus_ on
hammock."
Silently the dugout crept toward the high ground, the Indian parting
the saw grass to peer ahead. They were fifty yards from it when Willy
began to fire and at the third shot a tiny buck leaped up and crashed
down in the palmetto scrub, where it had fancied itself concealed.
It was near the end of the day now and the phenomena of the tropical
sunset served to add to the desolation of the scene. Tiny clouds rode
in the sky, multicolored from the sun, for all the world as if painted
upon the blue above. The west was livid with scarlet and orange flame,
and on the hammock the tops of the trees were rosy in the sunset.
Higgins and Payne set to work to dress the deer while Willy proceeded
to build a Seminole camp. On the highest ground of the hammock he dug
a fire hole, and radiating from it like spokes from the hub of a wheel
he dug three small ditches. With his ax he swiftly constructed three
sleeping benches of branches, building them close to the central fire
hole. Then he built his main fire of short logs in the fire hole. In
each of the little ditches he threw long logs, their ends in the fire.
Payne and Higgins watched him, expertly appreciative of his novel
woodcraft.
"It was a shame to take this country away from his kind," said Higgins.
"They know how to live in it--and like it."
Payne nodded. He was looking back over the watery waste through which
they had come.
"You got your tract located?" asked Higgins.
Payne pointed out over the saw grass waving above the drowned land on
the southern side of the hammock.
"That's it."