Chapter 17

AMONG THE SEMINOLES

The young explorers had found an uncharted route from the Bay of Florida to the Everglades and the work before them was now easy.

The water was deeper than was needed to float their canoe, and the grass too light to trouble them. They sheered off and avoided all bands of saw-grass unless they found trails across them. The Glades were dotted with little keys of bay, myrtle and cocoa plum. These were small and usually submerged. A few larger keys were covered with heavier timber, pine, oak, mastic, palmetto and other woods. In these, deer were plentiful and bear and panther sometimes found.

The boys went to several keys before they found one with dry land enough for a camp. It had been used for camping by the Seminoles for many years and was the only bit of land above the surface of the water for miles. On it were piles of turtle shells, while scattered about were bones of deer and alligator and skulls of bear and smaller animals. A cultivated papaw which some Indian had planted within a few years, stood twelve feet high and was filled with great melon-like papaws, each one of which weighed from five to ten pounds.

"Better than cantaloupe," said Dick as he finished half of a big one as a preliminary to his supper, "but what's this you are giving us for coffee?"

"Coffee's out," replied Ned. "The fellows that took the rifle cleaned out most of the coffee."

"Why didn't you make 'em give it back when you had 'em on the run?"

"Reckon I was glad to get out of it as easy as I did. Then I had said enough unkind things to them for one time."

"Sorry you think you were unkind. Your feelings must be a good deal torn up. But you haven't told me what I'm drinking. Tastes something like the sassafras tea I used to get dosed with when I was a kid. It's pretty good, though."

"It's something like it. It's made from the leaves of the sweet bay tree, which grows on all these islands and all over this country. Sweet-bay tea is all you're going to get to drink, excepting water, from now on."

"What is that fruit that looks like a big stubby pear on that curious-looking tree there?" inquired Dick.

"Custard apple."

"Does it taste like custard?"

"Yes, if the custard has been mixed with turpentine."

The explorers made little progress the following day. Bunches of thick saw-grass turned them back. They found shallow water where for long distances they had to paddle slowly to avoid little pillars of coral rock that came close to the surface and endangered their fragile canoe. Most of the afternoon was vainly spent in searching for a camping site. They found a key where the water was shoal and made a bed of poles and branches. Both of them chose to sleep on the bed they had made. Whether this was simply politeness or because both were afraid of rolling out of the canoe nobody else knows. The poles and branches sagged under their weight until both were wet. Then such a deluge of rain as is seldom seen outside of the tropics fell on them. They got out in the dark and tied their canvas sheet over the canoe. They didn't need it for themselves. They were already as wet as they could be.

In the morning they dried themselves--so Dick said--by rolling into the water and sloshing around. They made a cold lunch of smoked bear, cold hominy, or grits as it is called in Florida, and water, choosing to wait for breakfast until they should find land enough for a fire. During the day they saw high trees to the eastward and made for them. Here they found a Seminole camp of several families.

As they landed from their canoe they saw several pickaninnies, for Seminole children are not called papooses like children in other tribes of Indians, watching them from behind trees and boats. The squaws whom they met were equally shy and kept their faces hidden. Ned spoke to several of them, but they gave no sign that they even heard him.

"They don't like your looks," said Dick. "Let me speak to the next one."

The next one was a young girl and Dick was very confident, as he addressed her, with his very best smile. But he was turned down as badly as his chum, for the girl didn't see him at all. At the camp they found one old Indian and several squaws. The Indian welcomed them with a grunt and the question,

"_Whyome_ (whiskey), you got um?"

"_Whyome holowaugus_ (bad), no got um," replied Ned. The Indian grunted again and conversation ceased. Dick was sitting on the edge of the table which serves also as floor in a Seminole camp, when he heard a low growl just over his head. He looked up and saw, crouched on a shelf within four feet of him, a full-grown wild-cat, or bay lynx, which seemed disposed to spring at him. Dick tried to keep from showing how much he was scared, but he asked Ned to find out if the wild-cat would bite. To Ned's question, the Indian nodded emphatically and replied,

"Um, um, _unca, ojus_ (yes, heap)." Dick moved away, but the creature fascinated him and he came back. Dick never could resist the temptation to play with wild animals and he put out his hand to the wild-cat, saying:

"If that Injun can tame that beast, I can."

"That Injun understands you, just as well as I do. He only pretends he doesn't so as to make us try to talk his confounded lingo."

A half smile stole over the stolid face of the Indian, either on account of what Ned was saying or because Dick's hand was slowly approaching the wild-cat. The paw of the lynx flashed out and back so quickly that it could scarcely be seen, but the blood began to flow from several deep, parallel cuts on the back of the boy's hand. Dick still held out his hand, scarcely moving a muscle, while Ned called out:

"Come away, Dick, that beast'll scratch out your eyes."

"Wonder what it would do if I cuffed it?"

The Indian appeared to understand this, for he spoke sharply to the lynx, and going up to it patted its head and stroked its body lightly. He then motioned to Dick to do the same. To Dick's great delight the wild-cat not only allowed him to stroke it, but even purred as well as a wild-cat can.

"Ned, I've got to have that cat. I've given up all my other pets because you didn't want them in the canoe, or there wasn't room. Now Tom will take care of himself and won't need any toting. Shouldn't wonder if he'd feed himself, too."

"That's what I'm most afraid of.

"Don't worry. I won't let him eat you. Ask old Stick-in-the-mud there what he wants for his beastie."

Ned talked with the Indian and reported to Dick.

"He says he will sell for one otter skin like that one in the canoe."

"How could he see that skin from here? Tell him it's a whack. Only he must make Tom go with me if there is any trouble about it."

"He says wild-cat go with you, you brave boy, not afraid of him. Says somebody get scared, he eat 'em up."

"Ned, you old hypocrite, you made that up."

"Honest Injun, I didn't. I told it straight, just as I got it. That Indian likes you."

"Why don't he talk white man lingo to me, then, instead of his old gibberish that he can't possibly understand himself? Ask the old snoozer what's cooking in that pot. It smells bully and I'm hungry."

Ned turned to the Indian and pointing to the steaming pot, said:

"_Nar-kee?_ (What is it?)"

"_Lock-a-wa._ (Turtle.)"

"_Esoka bonus che._ (I want some.)"

"_Humbuggus cha._ (Come eat.)"

The boys took turns with the big, wooden, family spoon and found the mess very good. There was another kettle of which the Indians ate freely into which Dick dipped his spoon. He made a wry face as he swallowed the portion he had scooped up and said to Ned:

"Tell your copper-faced friend that he had better give that swill back to the pigs he stole it from."

"Be careful, Dick, he understands."

"Then let him say so in a decent language and I'll apologize for hurting his feelings, but I won't say that stuff is fit to eat, not if I am tied to the stake."

Dick spent one afternoon getting acquainted with the Indian children, in which he succeeded so well that when he came back to the camp streaming with water, the whole bunch, although they were quite as well soaked as he, followed him screaming with laughter, quite like white children.

"What is the trouble?" inquired Ned as soon as the youngsters gave him a chance to be heard.

"Only the usual thing. These Indians don't know how to manage their roly-poly canoes and I'm afraid I'll be drowned before I get 'em taught."

Dick had found a big family canoe that looked as if it couldn't capsize and had made signs to an Indian boy to go out in it with him. Before they were fairly afloat all the pickaninnies belonging to the camp had piled into the craft. From the smallest squab to the biggest boy, the Indian children danced about in the canoe without disturbing its equilibrium. The boy in the stern, standing on the extreme point of the craft, set his pole on the coral bottom and threw his weight back upon it until his whole body stood out almost parallel with the water behind the canoe. Dick stood on the tiny deck on the bow of the boat, but with every thrust of his pole the canoe wabbled till the pickaninnies balanced it. But Dick improved with practice and as he grew confident, threw his weight on the pole in true Seminole fashion. He would have pulled through with credit, but for the slipping of his pole on a point of coral rock, when he fell heavily in the water, capsizing the craft as he went overboard. At first the boy was alarmed for the safety of his cargo of children, but soon saw that they were as much at home in the water as on land and were quite capable of caring for themselves. After Ned had heard what had happened he called the attention of the squaws to the ducking of their babies without causing the faintest gleam of interest to cross their stolid faces.

After another day of eating with the Seminoles and sleeping on their tables, Dick announced that Tom and he were tired of Injuns and wanted to light out. The whole Indian family saw them off, even the squaws coming half way to the canoe from their camp. Dick carried Tom on his shoulder and the lynx stepped into the canoe as if it had always owned it and curled up on the canvas of the tent.

"Where do you want to go, Dick?"

"What's the use of asking me? You have been talking Everglades and Big Cypress in a steady streak, for two days to that old Injun. You must have a map of his brain by this time."

"We can go through the Everglades to Lake Okeechobee, out through the canal and down the Caloosahatchee, but the Everglades will be much the same as we have seen, only more and worse saw-grass and so harder work. If we go to the east we will pretty soon come out at the coast which we want to avoid. I think we had better strike across to the prairies and the border land between the Everglades and the Big Cypress Swamp. Bear, deer, panther and wild turkey are to be found in that country, and we won't have to hurry so much to get through in the time we talked of for the trip. What do you say?"

"The woods for me, every time. Then I think it would be better for Tom's health. I am afraid he would get melancholy if we kept him on the water too much. Let's put in a big day's work and get somewhere. I can stand sleeping in the water once in a while, but don't like it as a regular thing."

They put in their big day's work without getting very far. They struck shoal water in the morning where little pillars of coral, rising almost to the surface, threatened to tear a hole in their canoe. When they got overboard and waded, the same sharp points of coral hurt their feet and bruised their shins. During the afternoon they held their course, as best they could, for a tall palmetto, which, lifting its head above a waste of water and grass, gave promise of land enough for a camp beneath it. They dragged the canoe through a narrow strand of saw-grass, but were turned westward by a heavier band of the same obstacle, and finally made their camp for the night on a bushy little submerged key, where Ned lay on top of the canoe and was kept from sleeping by the fear of rolling over into the water, and Dick lay on a bed of brush that soon settled into the water with him. At first Tom climbed a little tree, but didn't seem pleased with his quarters. He looked at Dick's bed for a moment and turned in for the night with Ned in the canoe. Good progress was made on the following day, for the boys were tired of trying to sleep on the water and meant to find land enough for a camp before another night. They found much open water, most of the grass was light and the few strands of saw-grass they encountered were easily avoided. They saw few keys and all of those were submerged. So again when night came there was no dry land for a camp and the bed of branches was built up in the shallow water. About midnight Ned, noticing that his companion was restless, said to him:

"Dick, can you sleep any more?"

"Sleep any more?" said the indignant Dick. "I haven't slept any, yet."

"Then let's get out of this and paddle the rest of the night. It's full moon, paddling isn't half as hard as trying to sleep on that bed and we may get somewhere."

"Good thing, and I move that we keep paddling till we get to those woods you talked about, if it takes a week. Tom votes with me. Motion carried."

About the middle of the forenoon they saw a clump of palmettos on a key, for which they headed at once, where they found ground which had been often camped upon. Dick climbed a tree and could make out a forest near the horizon, in the west. A few more hours' work would see them out of the Glades, but they chose to rest for the remainder of the day.

"There goes your pet. That's the last of him," said Ned, pointing to the lynx in the top of the tree, which Dick had climbed.

"He'll come back all right. If he doesn't I'll go up and fetch him by the scruff of his neck."

Dick was right, for when the wild-cat saw the stores broken into for dinner he came down for his portion of meat and then curled up for a nap on his canvas in the canoe. Tom tolerated Ned, but never permitted any familiarities from him, while Dick could handle him as he chose and the lynx only smiled, in his own fashion.

To reach the woods they were aiming for the boys left the Indian trail they were on and, after forcing their way through a strand of saw-grass, found themselves on a prairie, bounded on the west by a heavy growth of cypress, oak and other heavy timber, while the prairie itself was made beautiful by picturesque little groups of palmettos which were scattered through it.