The boys had to change cars and "lay over" several hours at an
intervening point, and so it was night again when they left the train at
their destination, a small town near the eastern borders of the
Okefinokee Swamp. Their Uncle Walter met them and they drove with him
out to his big farm. At the station they noted that passing
acquaintances addressed him respectfully as Judge Ridgway, but there was
no overpowering dignity about him that they could see. He seemed almost
like an elderly boy who accepted them as comrades in his own class, so
jolly and friendly was he.
As they drove the five miles through the dark pine woods, he talked
enthusiastically of the coming trip into the Okefinokee and told them
hunting stories.
"If you boys should get lost from me," he said once, "and get mixed up
with wild animals after your ammunition has run out, fight 'em with
fire if you can. I've done it. I did it when I was a boy, too. My father
moved to a wild part of Texas when I was about twelve and stayed out
there four years. And once a pack of wolves got after me when I happened
to be alone in a camp without a gun. I thought my time had come, but I
actually whipped that pack of wolves without a thing to shoot with.
There was a good fire burning and I hugged it close. I noticed that they
seemed afraid of it and that gave me an idea. I threw on more wood and
then began to fling blazing chunks among my howling enemies. It did the
business. I actually threw a big live coal into the open mouth of the
nearest beast, and such a yelping and running you never saw! I flung
burning chunks until there was mighty little fire left, but I put the
whole pack to flight. Wild animals are all cowards when it comes to
fire, so you must never fail to have plenty of matches. But you won't
see any wolves in the Okefinokee these days. We may get a bear, though,
and bear steak is not bad when you're hungry. I'd consider it mighty
good on one of these 'meatless' days."
Uncle Walter continued to be merry and talkative, with a good story for
every occasion, after they reached the big, rambling farm-house and
while they ate the bountiful supper served by a young black waiter
directed by a fat negress, but he had hardly lighted his pipe by the
fireside in the sitting-room later when news came that at once made him
serious and regretful. A special messenger brought a telegram and when
he had read it his face fell.
"Boys, this is too bad," he said. "I've got to go to Washington by the
first train and our hunting trip will have to be postponed."
"We'll get along all right--till you come back," said Ted, struggling
with his disappointment and trying to look cheerful.
"But I don't know how soon I can get back. It's an important matter and
may take time. While I'm gone you boys can hunt as much as you please,
in the woods around the place and along the edge of the Okefinokee, but
don't venture into the swamp itself. You might get lost."
Both boys promised to be careful, and then their uncle rang a bell. When
the fat negress who had overseen the serving of the supper entered the
room, he said to her:
"Well, Clarissa, I've got to go to Washington and leave these boys in
your care. It's a pity your mis'es is not here." He referred to his
sister who was away on a visit. Uncle Walter was a bachelor.
"Dat's all right, Mr. Walter," good-naturedly responded the negress,
whom the boys understood that they were to address respectfully as "Aunt
Clarissa" in the old-time Southern fashion. "You kin trus' me to feed
'em up all right and keep 'em in clean clothes and clean sheets."
"They are to have the run of the place and go hunting as much as they
like," Uncle Walter directed. "And if they get tired of it out here they
can go to town and visit Cousin Jim Fraser. I told him about them and
he'll be glad to have them."
"All right, suh," the negress assented. "If dey goes off and don't come
back, I'll know dey's in town at Mr. Jim's."
"Now go and call Asa; I want to give him some directions," said Uncle
Walter, and the negress retired.
The boys were sorry to hear at breakfast next morning that their uncle
had gone, but there was much to see and do in his absence and they were
pretty sure of an interesting time even without him. It was with no lack
of cheerfulness that they shouldered their small bird-guns and started
forth in the fine sunny air.
Though February had not quite gone and it was still winter according to
the calendar, already wild violets were peeping through the
frost-browned wiregrass and dogwood and honeysuckle blossoms were
perfuming the air in the long-leaf pine forests which surrounded the
farm and seemed to have no end. To Ted there was nothing novel in these
vast stretches of pine woods as level as a floor, but to Hubert, who had
known only the North Carolina hills, the south Georgia country was
almost like a new world. The boys spent most of the day hunting in the
woods about the farm, but came home disappointed, having seen few quail
or doves and bagged practically nothing.
"To-morrow we'll take a look at the Okefinokee and hunt along the edge
of it," proposed Ted at supper.
Hubert agreed, adding, as "Aunt" Clarissa offered them more hot waffles:
"And if we get tired of that, we'll go to town and see Cousin Jim."
When they were about to start off next morning Hubert critically called
attention to the fact that Ted was still dressed in his khaki. "Are you
going to wear that all the time?" he asked.
"Why shouldn't I if I like? In a way I am in the government's service
and this is my uniform." Ted spoke quite seriously.
"_You_ in the government's service!" scoffed Hubert.
"Didn't you know the President has made all the Boy Scouts dispatch
bearers? When I get the pamphlets I am to distribute, you'll see me in
the service all right."
Hubert soon forgot his skepticism and envy in the interest he found in
their expedition. Inquiring the way from a negro encountered on the
public road, the boys tramped straight in the direction of the great
swamp. For about three miles the path led through open, level,
wiregrass-carpeted pine woods; then gradually a downward slope was
perceived and soon the straggling pines were succeeded by a dense
"hammock" growth, thick with underbrush, reeds and brambles, the ground
becoming damp and spongy, and the more open spaces being often little
more than sloppy bogs around which the young adventurers picked their
way.
The great Okefinokee Swamp, formerly some forty miles long by
twenty-five wide with a vast surrounding acreage of untouched pine
barrens, has been to some extent reclaimed by advancing settlement,
local drainage, and the invasion at points of the insatiable lumberman;
but even when Ted and Hubert entered its borders the greater part of it
was still a wild and almost pathless acreage of tangled forest-grown
bottom lands, flooded jungles, watery "prairies" or marshes, remote
lakes, sluggish streams, and pine-covered islands. More than a hundred
years ago a story was current that it had been the last refuge of the
ancient Yemassees, an Indian race that disappeared before the march of
the conquering Creeks. It is well known to have been a stronghold of the
Seminoles during the Florida-Indian wars as well as to have furnished a
secure hiding place for deserters from the Confederate army during the
Civil War, and even in the year 1917 fugitives from the draft law could
have found no more remote and safe retreat than its inner recesses
afforded.
At points the line of demarcation between the surrounding pine woods and
the outer reaches of the swamp itself is by no means clear. A
considerable acreage of low swampy land is nothing uncommon anywhere in
the long-leaf pine section of southern Georgia. Ted had often seen such
low areas far from the great swamp, and so now, without realizing what
he did, he pushed forward into a section of the Okefinokee itself. The
point where the boys entered was thickly grown with cypress and covered
in considerable part with shallow water through which they waded. This
was nothing alarming, hunting in that section with dry feet being
practically out of the question.
After they had eaten some biscuits and rested at noon Hubert urged that
they turn back, but Ted declared that he intended to "make a day of it"
and pushed on.
"We can go to town to-morrow if we want to," he said.
About mid-afternoon they found themselves on the shore of a little lake,
the surface of which, except near the center, was hidden by clumps of
brown flags and "bonnets," a species of waterlily. Visions of wild
ducks, both alive and slain, now occupied Ted's imagination and urged
him on. He skirted more than half the way round the lake, creeping
forward stealthily, before he sighted a flock of ducks within range. In
his excitement he fired too quickly and the ducks fluttered away
unharmed.
Hubert, who had remained behind, now hurried up to see what Ted had
shot. By this time the sun was getting low, and the younger boy insisted
that they ought to take the backward trail at once in order to be out of
the woods or reach the public road by night. But Ted refused to start
back until he had skirted the lake twice, shot three times and finally
killed a duck, to secure which he waded up to his waist in the sedge.
Struggling out of the water with his prize, the boy hurriedly took his
bearings and led the way along what appeared to be the trail by which
they had come.
Within an hour the sun had set and the short twilight of that latitude
was at hand. This would have mattered little if they had been clear of
the swamp; but so far from having gained the open pine woods, they now
seemed more deeply involved than ever, and were unable to recognize
anything about them. Ted halted and looked anxiously around. He now more
than suspected that, in skirting the lake, intent on the game only, he
had lost his bearings, and that in starting homeward they had taken the
wrong direction.
"Don't be afraid, Hu," he said manfully, after a few moments; "but we
are lost, and we've got to stay here all night."
"Stay here all night!" echoed Hubert, gazing around the gloomy
swamp-depths through starting tears. "I _said_ we ought to turn back. I
told you two or three times, but you wouldn't listen to me."
"Yes, it was all my fault," admitted Ted.
"Do you think the panthers will smell us and--and--come?" asked Hubert,
his voice lowered.
"Of course not," answered Ted stoutly, although he also was troubled
with vague misgivings. He had never spent a night in a swamp; and the
prospect of it now, under the existing circumstances, was little less
than terrifying.
But for the younger boy's sake as well as because of a certain pride of
manliness, he determined not to betray his feelings. So he "got a grip
on" himself, as he mentally phrased it, and spoke up resolutely in a
steady voice:
"It's no use to think of finding our way home to-night, and we had
better hunt a place to camp right away."