Ted hoped that the war would be discussed around the camp fire that
night, but he was disappointed. Sweet Jackson turned up only in time to
eat his supper and went immediately to bed. The other men appeared to be
unusually tired and followed as soon as they had smoked a single pipe.
Nevertheless Ted was nearer his heart's desire than he supposed.
About two o'clock in the morning a large animal prowled into or near the
camp, doubtless attracted by the refuse of the deer's carcass; and all
hands were roused by the furious baying of the dogs. Snatching up their
guns, the slackers to the last man sallied out and followed in pursuit.
Billy ran after them, and Ted, Hubert and July were left standing over
the fire, now stirred to a bright blaze.
The eager hunters were hardly two hundred yards away when Hubert looked
across the fire at Ted and said:
"Now's our chance to get off in the boats. We could do it--if July would
go with us. You said he was thinking of it."
"Yes, I been thinkin' 'bout it," admitted July, his manner doubtful and
hesitating, "but on account o' dat waw I ain't made up my mind yit."
"And, anyhow, in the middle of the night is a bad time," said Ted.
"We're not ready either."
At this moment they heard the sound of footsteps and a voice shouted:
"Buck says you boys come, too, and see the fun. And, July, you better
bring some vittles."
The young man who had hurriedly returned on this errand had halted as
soon as he was within call, and now waited impatiently to be joined by
the boys and the negro, evidently afraid that he might miss seeing the
game run to earth. His "Hurry up" was so frequent and so insistent that
the boys joined him without a moment's delay and July, shaking his head,
followed without the "vittles."
The cause of the excitement, which proved to be a bear, had beaten a
hasty retreat toward the center of the island, and there, being hard
pressed by the dogs, climbed a tall pine. By the time the hunters
reached the spot the animal was at rest among the clustering boughs at
the very top. Nothing could be done now until daylight, and the men
proceeded to make themselves comfortable. Several fires were built,
forming a circle around the tree, in order to make sure that the bear
would remain where it was in case the watchers should fall asleep.
Then July and two men were sent back to camp to bring food and corn beer
of the slackers' own brewing. The besiegers threw themselves down in
comfortable, lounging attitudes around the largest fire and were
disposed to have a merry time during the three hours of waiting. Ted and
Hubert seated themselves on the grass near Buck Hardy and watched with
absorbed attention all that took place. The treeing of a bear in a tall
pine at such a time of night was remarked upon as a very unusual
occurrence, and several declared that they had never seen the like.
"I tell you the old Oke-fi-noke is the place to run up on curious
things," said Buck Hardy musingly, after the men sent to camp had
returned with their loads. "I've seen a heap o' strange things in this
swamp. I reckon you boys wouldn't believe me if I was to tell you I saw
a catfish whip a moccasin in h-yer one time."
The men laughed incredulously, but demanded the particulars. Buck took a
drink of corn beer from a gourd passed him by July, and then asked his
nearest neighbor, Al Peters, for "a chaw o' tobacco," before he
proceeded to satisfy their curiosity by telling his story. It was, in
substance, that he had once seen a moccasin spring upon a catfish in a
shallow lagoon of the swamp and promptly get "whipped." That is to say,
disastrous consequences resulted from the snake's attempt to swallow its
prey. For the fish immediately "popped" its formidable fins through the
reptile's throat, and all efforts on the part of the latter to disgorge
its victim proved futile.
"That moccasin reared mightily and was as lively a snake as you ever
laid eyes on," Buck declared with a laugh, "but it bit off more'n it
could chaw that time."
He wound up by saying that the snake crawled off rapidly out of sight;
but several hours later, returning past the same neighborhood, he found
it lying dead, the tail of the fish still protruding from its mouth and
the fins visibly transfixing its neck. Finding that the catfish was
still alive, Buck took the trouble of liberating it, then watched it
revive in its native element and finally swim away in the lagoon.
Buck's listeners had expected a jest, but they seemed to accept the
story as matter of fact--no one presuming to give expression to doubts,
if any were felt. This was the beginning of much spinning of Okefinokee
yarns, some of them even more remarkable. Finally Buck turned to Ted and
said:
"Well, kid, what's the strangest thing you've seen in the Oke-fi-noke?"
The boy would have liked to reply that the strangest, most
unaccountable, most infamous sight he had seen in the great swamp was a
party of able-bodied young men who, instead of serving their country by
training to fight the Germans, were deliberate and confessed slackers
and fugitives from the law of the land. But he hesitated to go so far
and only said:
"I haven't seen as much of it as the rest of you, but the strangest
story about it I ever heard was the one my Uncle Walter said the Indians
used to tell a hundred years ago."
"Let's hear it," invited several.
So Ted related the old Indian legend which pictured the remote interior
of the Okefinokee as a high and dry land, and one of the most blissful
spots of earth, where dwelt beautiful women called daughters of the Sun.
Some warriors of the Creek nation, lost in the interminable bogs and
jungles, and confronted with starvation and despair, were once on a time
rescued and lovingly cared for by these radiant creatures. And ere the
lost warriors were led out of the confusing labyrinths and sent on their
way, they were fed bountifully with dates, oranges, and corn-cake. There
may have been other good things to eat, but Ted's memory could vouch
only for the dates, oranges, and corn-cake. He remembered that his uncle
had spoken skeptically about the dates and disrespectfully of the
corn-cake, which latter, though a good and useful thing in its way, was
too "common" for celestial ladies who, in all other tales of the same
type, were in the habit of feeding on ambrosia. Uncle Walter conceded,
however, that the maize was probably regarded by the Creek Indian as one
of the most precious gifts of the gods and, therefore, not unworthy of
a place in this legend of the daughters of the Sun who dwelt in the
great Okefinokee.
This story, with Judge Ridgway's comment added, was over the heads of
the uneducated young backwoodsmen who listened with heavy gravity, but
several of them expressed polite appreciation of it and spoke in
complimentary terms of Ted's recital.
The fires were now replenished, more corn-beer was imbibed, fresh pipes
were lighted, and the yarn-spinners began another series devoted to the
"tight scrapes" in which they had found themselves occasionally in the
Okefinokee. One young man told of a deadly hand-to-hand conflict with a
wounded bear; another of a thrilling unarmed fight with a wild-cat; a
third related how he had once sunk down suddenly to his armpits in the
great marsh called the "prairie," how he had saved himself by grasping
the growth on a small tussock, and how he was confronted there, before
he could drag himself out, by an angry moccasin, which luckily he shot.
And so on.
When this yarn-spinning began to languish for lack of startling
material, Buck Hardy asked Ted if he did not have something interesting
to tell about his and Hubert's struggles on their way through the swamp
to the island. In relating the Indian legend Ted had kept his seat on
the grass, but now, as if accepting this invitation, he rose to his
feet, his eye sweeping the faces of the eight assembled young "backwoods
Crackers," all evidently more or less ignorant and uneducated, and--as
Ted thought--sorely in need of instruction, especially on the subject of
the great war. Some of them had read a weekly paper occasionally, but
most of them had not even availed themselves of that limited source of
information. This Ted knew from inquiries he had made. Did this not
account, at least in part, for their indifference, and if they were told
more about the war, might it not be possible to wake them up? Thus Ted
had reasoned as he sat listening, observing and awaiting his
opportunity.
"Gentlemen," he politely began, "what happened to us coming through the
swamp is hardly worth telling about. I'd much rather talk about the
greatest and most terrible war in history, and I hope you are willing.
For everything--the whole world's future as well as our own country's
safety--depends on the way it ends. I don't think you know enough about
it. If you did, you wouldn't be here to-night. You would be in the
training camps wearing the soldier's uniform."
"Shut up!"
The voice was Sweet Jackson's, and his demand was echoed by several
others.
"No, don't shut him up," shouted Buck Hardy. "Let him talk. _I'm_ not
afraid to listen to him. I'm man enough to know my business and stick to
it even if a boy who can talk fine does come along. Go on, kid."
This quelled the disturbance, and Ted continued:
"This war's got to end in complete victory for the United States and her
allies, for if the Germans win, they will ride over us all rough-shod
and make us no better than slaves, just as they have done in Belgium and
wherever they have marched their armies. We must win, as the President
says, so that the world can be made safe for Christian ideals and for
democracy."
"Stop a minute, kid," said Buck. "You are handin' out some pretty big
words. I reckon we all know what Christian means, but a bunch of us may
not be quite so sure about 'de-mocracy.'"
"Democracy," explained Ted, "is free government by and for the people,
instead of high-and-mighty government by one man like the German Kaiser.
You will see better what we'll be up against if the Germans get this
country," the boy continued, "if I tell you about some of the things
they have done and some of the things they want to do. After training
for this war fifty years, they jumped on Europe, taking everybody by
surprise. They have already conquered Belgium, Servia and Rumania, and
they hold northern France, part of Russia and part of Italy. They want
to take all the rest of Europe and then conquer the United States. They
have said so. Some of 'em even say they ought to force the German
language as well as German rule on the world, and they are so crazy with
conceit that they say they have a right to do so because they are so
much finer people than the people of other countries. Some of them even
claim that the Germans have been divinely appointed to rule all
nations."
"A little bit stuck on themselves, ain't they?" interjected Buck
derisively.
"Why, I read," continued Ted, "of how one of their big preachers told
his congregation: 'The German soul is God's soul; it shall and will rule
over mankind.' And the Kaiser talks about 'the German God.'"
"You reckon they're such blame' fools as all that?" questioned Al Peters
doubtfully.
"Germany is a fur ways and tales are pretty apt to grow as they travel,"
remarked a young man known as "Bud" Jones. "I know how a tale can grow
in ten miles, let alone all the way across the ocean. It puts me in mind
of the time Wash' Johnson was up before court."
Jones then related with humorous exaggerations how the story of a very
small offense, on its eventful and roundabout journey "from Possum Trot
to Crossways," became almost a murder in the first degree. "And when all
the truth came out," he concluded, "there was jes' _nothin'_ to it."
Several others recalled amusing anecdotes illustrating the powers of a
rumor to expand enormously as it passed from mouth to mouth, and the
effect was such that poor Ted saw his opportunity disappear for the
time. He was too inexperienced a speaker to find a way to regain command
of the situation, but he made an effort. He was further embarrassed as
he took note that clumps of palmettos and scrub-oak thickets under the
tall pines were becoming clearly outlined at a distance from the dying
fires, showing that day had dawned and the time left him was short.
"But I haven't told you _anything_ yet," he insisted, as soon as he was
able to put in a word. "And it's all _true_. Our ambassadors and consuls
and big men who have come back from Europe say the Germans have said and
done even worse things than have been reported. If you would just let me
tell you some of the things I know----"
"Can't be done now, kid; it's daylight," interrupted Buck Hardy, moving
to rise and looking around into the woods from which the darkness was
rapidly lifting.
All the loungers about the fire now sprang to their feet, turning their
eyes toward the top of the pine wherein the bear had taken refuge, and
noisily proposing to be the first to bag the game. As soon as there was
sufficient light to outline the black bulky form among the high
branches, the men opened fire, one at a time, and at the thirteenth
shot the big game came tumbling down, striking the ground with great
force.
"I got him!" insisted several voices, but of course there was no means
of determining which was the fatal shot.
The bear measured seven inches across the ball of the foot, three inches
through the fat on the round, and the total weight was calculated at not
less than four hundred pounds. The hide was carefully taken off and some
pounds of the choicest meat were sliced to dry, but the bulk of the
carcass was left where it was for the buzzards.
"I wish it could be shipped to the starving Belgians," said Ted, as he
looked on, sorrowing to think of such waste at a time when economy and
careful conservation of all food were urged upon the whole nation.
But nobody paid any attention to him, merriment and care-free
indifference being the dominant note of the moment. When the sun was an
hour high all hands, in great good humor, returned to camp and, to the
accompaniment of boastful hunting stories, partook heartily of the hot
breakfast which by this time July had prepared.