In the early morning they were awakened by the rain falling on their
faces, and found their once dry and cosy retreat now thoroughly wet and
uncomfortable. Not only did water percolate through the hastily
constructed palmetto thatch, but, the wind having changed, the rain now
beat in from the front. A slow, steady downfall evidently had continued
throughout the night.
"It's a set-in rain, and we're goin' to have a hard time," Hubert
complained.
It was only with great difficulty and after long effort that they
succeeded in building a fire, and by the time the remainder of the
turkey, which had been hung out of reach of marauding animals the night
before, had been broiled and eaten, it was late in the morning.
What to do next was the puzzling question. Even the night before Ted had
been troubled to answer. To turn back might invite an encounter with a
pursuing party of slackers, yet the marsh barred further progress,
unless the boys were willing to take the risks involved in wading
through mud, slime, mosses, rushes, "bonnets," and what not, the water
being no doubt over their heads in many places.
"Let's try it," Ted proposed at last. "We are wet to the skin anyhow,
and if we can't do it, we can come back here. If we can get across, I
don't think it will take us long to find our way out of the swamp."
Hubert shrank from but agreed to the undertaking, preferring almost
anything whatsoever to turning back with the prospect of falling into
the hands of a pursuing party of slackers. Both boys were good swimmers,
but Ted thought it unwise to venture on a flooded marsh of unknown depth
without some safeguard. As they had no boat and probably would be unable
to float a raft, even if one could be constructed, he decided to take
with them a section of a tree to which they might cling, in case they
should advance beyond their depth and be unable to swim on account of
the mosses and sedge crowding the marsh water at so many points.
After considerable search Ted found a dead cypress which had broken
into parts in its fall before a wind storm. A section of this about
twelve feet long and about a foot in diameter, was chosen. Having
provided themselves with light slender poles some ten feet long, and
tied the gun and hatchet between two short up-reaching branches of the
log, the boys succeeded in launching what Ted termed their
"life-preserver."
While they were accomplishing this task Hubert made his first
acquaintance with a curiosity of the Okefinokee, more noticeable in
times past than now along the shores of islands within or bordering the
marshes. Stepping off from the island shore, Hubert walked forward upon
a seeming continuation of land--a mass of floating vegetable forms,
intermingled with moss, drift and slime, forming a compact floor capable
of sustaining his weight, which, although it did not at once break
through beneath him, could be seen to sink and rise at every step for
several feet around.
"Why this ground moves!" cried Hubert, astonished.
"You'd better look out," said Ted. "It won't hold you up much longer.
It's not ground; it's floating moss and stuff----"
He paused, smiling, as Hubert broke through and stood in mud and water
above his knees.
"I heard one of the slackers speak of that moving stuff as 'floating
batteries,'" Ted added. "Uncle Walter said the Indians, in old times,
called it 'Okefinokee' or 'trembling earth,' and that was how the swamp
got its name."
Once they had dragged their "life preserver" over the "trembling earth,"
the boys made better progress, although they still had to contend with a
submerged slimy moss of a green color and a great variety of crowding
rushes. As they staggered along, dragging the log, now only up to their
knees in water, now sinking in the yielding ooze until the water rose
above their waists, they were for a time much annoyed by a little black
fly or bug haunting the sedge which stung like a mosquito.
The clouds still dropped a slow drizzle, and a mist lay upon the great
marsh, in which the many little islands, clothed in dun-colored
vegetation, loomed up in dim, uncertain outlines. Ted remarked that he
had heard the slackers call these islets "houses," but that to him they
now rather suggested huge phantom ships. Many cranes, herons and
"poor-jobs" had already risen at their approach; and as they advanced
farther out on the marsh, where the water deepened, the sedge began to
thin and to be succeeded by "bonnets" or water lilies, large flocks of
ducks flew up, and occasionally a curlew skimmed across their course.
Passing not far from one of the little islands, they noted that it was
grown up at the edges with low cassina bushes, and that other vegetation
sloped gradually up to two or three tall cypresses in the center, the
whole being drearily decorated with long trailing drifts of Spanish
moss.
"It looks like a big circus tent," said Hubert.
The water still deepened, and soon they were obliged to swim--Ted with
his left arm thrown over the forward end of the cypress log, and Hubert
with his right resting on the rear end. A couple of hundred yards or so
further on they entered an open and perceptible current flowing almost
at right angles to their course.
"Let's follow this," proposed Ted. "It will be so much easier to carry
the log."
So they swam on, floating their log with the gentle current which
flowed narrowly between the bordering "bonnets," little dreaming that
they were on the head-waters of the famed Suwanee River.
How far they traveled, floating on this current, they hardly knew, being
unable to see any great distance or keep anything like landmarks in
view. As soon as one of the ghostly little islands floated past and
disappeared in the mist, another would be outlined in their front, and,
all of them being more or less alike, the effect was confusing. They
lost count, as it were, of both distance and time.
Finally Hubert protested that he was cold as well as tired and hungry,
and demanded that they land on the next "house." Ted thought longingly
of a rest, too, and as soon as they were opposite another islet, he
struck out toward it through the "bonnets" and sedge, forcing the log
along with Hubert's help.
In this way they floated into a round open pool which the mist had
concealed from view. Ted had no sooner sighted several dark floating
objects a short distance ahead than the water about him became curiously
agitated, and, with a cry of alarm, he glanced back at Hubert.
"Jump on the log!" he shouted. "We're in a 'gator hole."
Neither boy could afterward have told how he did it, but almost in a
twinkling both stood upright on the log, maintaining a precarious
balance by dipping their long sticks in the water, first on one side and
then on the other. Under their combined weight the log sank so low that
it was almost entirely submerged, and this added to the alarm of both
when they saw that the pool seemed to be alive with alligators large and
small, for a hundred feet around. Some of the huge scaly saurians swam
about rather lazily, while others lay quiet on the water and gazed at
the intruders with their black, lusterless eyes. As yet they exhibited
no signs of either fear or anger, and even seemed lacking in curiosity.
But it was Hubert's first experience with the alligator of Florida and
southern Georgia, which, in his ignorance, he associated with the
crocodile of the far East, and the boy was terrified.
"They are going to eat us up!" he gasped, after he had tottered, swayed,
and very nearly lost his balance beyond recovery.
"I don't think they'll do anything to us, if we are careful not to run
into them," said Ted, reassuringly, though not without some real
apprehension of trouble.
But this is precisely what happened. Hubert's desperate struggles to
regain his balance caused the log to depart from the course Ted was
trying to maintain, and, before it could be prevented, they floated
between two motionless alligators, almost touching them, and then the
forward end of the log ran aground on the back of a third.
There followed a great stir and splashing. Hubert went overboard with
the first shock, and the powerful flirt of a frightened or enraged
alligator's tail sent Ted, slightly stunned, into the water three or
four feet from the log.
Both boys swam desperately back to their one refuge, conscious of the
plunging of the excited amphibians as they did so, and fearing every
moment that an arm or a leg would be bitten off. But when they again
stood upright on their log, balancing themselves once more with the long
sticks to which they had persisted in clinging, they saw with some
measure of relief that the nearest of the alligators now visible were
some yards distant. In their stupid astonishment or lazy indifference,
the creatures had allowed an easy prey to escape them.
With all possible speed, yet cautiously, the boys paddled their log away
from the undesirable neighborhood, breathing more freely only after they
were out of the pool and well on their way through the sedge toward the
"house."
"Maybe they didn't think we were good to eat," said Hubert, wondering,
and then joining nervously in Ted's merry laugh.
"I've heard that they eat animals sometimes, but they live on fish
mostly," said Ted. "It was lucky, though, that we had the log to get up
on."
"Would they have eaten us if we hadn't had it?"
Ted laughed again before he answered:
"I don't think so, but I shouldn't care to risk it a second time.
Hunters say alligators don't attack man except in self-defense."
"But I've heard of their catching pigs and even little niggers,"
persisted Hubert.
"Well," admitted Ted, still smiling, "you never can tell when such
creatures may want a change of diet. That place back there--a breeding
place, I think--is like one I heard Mr. Hardy speak of. He called it an
'alligator heaven.'"
"Deliver me from an 'alligator heaven,' if that's one," said Hubert, so
solemnly that Ted was amused and laughed once more.
Entering shallower water, they dared to step into it and wade toward the
little island. Leaving their log safely lodged on the "trembling earth"
formation, and having struggled through and over this, they landed on
firm but damp ground. The island was circular in form and hardly two
hundred yards in diameter. Cassina bushes fringed the shores, the
vegetation rising thence to a few tall cypress trees in the center.
Everywhere the funereal Spanish moss fluttered in the gentle breeze.
It had now ceased raining, but a dense mist still floated upon the great
marsh. The raw atmosphere seemed as cold as the water had been and the
boys moved about shivering, bitterly regretting their attempt to cross
the flooded wilderness. The wildness and desolation of the scene seemed
to be intensified by the presence of two small gray eagles, which
screamed in a harsh shrill way as they hovered about a large nest in the
top of the tallest tree on the island.
Their weariness and sharp hunger were the only certain indications of
the flight of time, but as the light began to wane the boys realized
that they had been on the marsh for hours and had not landed on the
island till late in the afternoon. It was now necessary to make some
sort of preparation for the night, and that speedily. An attempt to
build a fire had failed, the wet matches refusing even to ignite, and as
the gun was also wet and the shells soaked, there appeared to be no hope
of obtaining even the raw flesh of a bird for supper, supposing they
could have eaten it.
Tears appeared in shivering Hubert's eyes and rolled slowly down his
cheeks, seeing which Ted smiled and tried hard to make merry with a
little jest.
"Now, Hu, we've had enough water for one day without pumping up any
more," he said, patting his cousin affectionately on the shoulder.
"Well, you know," said Hubert, trying to smile in response, "I never did
have a good grip on my what-you-may-call-'em ducts, and this is pretty
tough, as you know. I really am trying hard to stand it and not be a
baby. I'm glad we didn't have such a dose as this the first day in the
swamp--I'd have boo-hooed sure enough. I'm not quite the baby that I
was."
"No, you are not, Hu; you are getting to be quite a man," said Ted
gently, and Hubert, struggling hard to sit on the lid of his lachrymal
ducts, so to speak, was very grateful.
A few moments later he smilingly announced that he had succeeded in
"turning off the water," but he feared that he had spoken too soon when
suddenly Ted, moving about, very nearly stepped on a large moccasin and
found some difficulty in killing it with his long stick. Hubert suffered
from an instinctive horror of snakes and the episode almost upset him.
Ted had heard the slackers describe how they made shift for the night
when they had to camp out on a marsh island or on a damp tussock in the
flooded forests, and he now proceeded to strip bark off the cypress
trees with the aid of the hatchet. This was spread on the ground under
quantities of Spanish moss which was to be used as both bed and
covering. The moss was damp, water-soaked, in fact; but even so they
would be warmer covered with it than if they lay exposed to the currents
of raw air.
By the time these preparations were completed it was dark. Ted thought
they ought to remain awake and keep more or less active all night, in
order to stave off severe colds; but they were both too exhausted to
persevere in such efforts. Seated on the cushioned cypress bark, and
leaning their backs against a tree, the wet moss drawn up over them,
they soon subsided into quiet of limb and tongue, and after a long while
fell into troubled, dream-haunted slumber.
"We'll never get home," moaned Hubert, breaking down at last, while
still they talked, sitting there in the thick darkness.
Ted made no reply at once. He was thinking how different had been the
experience of the heroes of romance wrecked on unknown islands or lost
in desolate places. None of these, so far as he could remember, had ever
suffered such continuing miseries of body and mind as he and Hubert had
to endure; there always seemed to be a wreck at hand with plenty of good
things on board to eat, and the castaways could at least manage to sleep
warm and dry.
"We are going to starve to death in this swamp," moaned Hubert.
"Not a bit of it," said Ted with forced cheerfulness, cutting off
abruptly his own complaining train of thought. "Now, Hu, you are not
really giving up, I know; you only think you are," he continued, leaning
affectionately against his cousin. "Brace up like the man you really
are. Just think how much better off we are than some people. Think of
our soldiers in the trenches at night in bad weather. In some ways we
are as uncomfortable, but think how much safer we are. There are no
Germans to sneak poison-gas over on us in the dark."
"There are no Germans, but there are moccasins," said Hubert dolefully.
"I'll just bet that was the only one on this island," Ted declared
stoutly, although he feared there were at least a dozen. "Don't think
about them. Think of what we are going to do tomorrow, and we are going
to get out of this swamp--or pretty nearly. Things come out all right
after a while; I never saw it fail. You know, Hu, I like to think of the
grand pluck of old Socrates--I've heard Uncle Walter quote him--when he
said: 'No evil can befall a good man, whether he be alive or dead.' That
means, if we are truthful and manly, and harm nobody, and do our best,
we're all right, or going to be all right, whatever happens. And you and
I are goin' to be all right soon, too. You'll see."
Whether it was the result of this comforting philosophy or sheer
physical exhaustion, Hubert became quiet and soon fell asleep. But it
was long before poor Ted, sitting alone in the dark, could do for
himself what he had so manfully done for his cousin. If a discerning eye
had looked down through the night, helplessness, even despair, would
have been seen in his face. And then, all at once, somehow help came to
Ted, too; his courage returned, and with it a certain restfulness of
body which presently brought sleep.