The trees with their huge spreading roots grew so closely together that it was with difficulty that Walter forced the canoe in and out between them. His exultation at his escape from their enemies had given way to a settled despair. From descriptions he had heard, he recognized this mighty floating forest as the fringe which surrounds that greatest of all mysterious, trackless swamps, the Everglades. Before him lay the mighty unknown, unexplored mora.s.s, reeking with fever, and infested with serpents; behind him waited sure death at the hands of the outlaws.
One faint hope alone remained to him. If his strength held out, he might in time come upon a camp of the Seminoles, the only human beings in this unknown land.
Considering the small numbers of the Indians and the vastness of the swamp, it was a faint chance indeed that he or his companion would live to see any of the tribe, but, faint as it was, no other hope remained and Walter sent the canoe onward with feeble strokes.
Gradually the trees grew further and further apart until at last the canoe pa.s.sed out from their shadows into a lake, surrounded by tall growing gra.s.s and reeds. Far as the eye could reach stretched the dismal swamp, broken here and there by lakes or creeks and now and then by an island of higher ground rising from the rotting mud.
Under the heat of the blazing sun there rose around the canoe thick vapors from the sc.u.m-covered water and rotting vegetation, bearing in their foul embrace a sickening, deadly stench.
The paddle strokes grew slower and slower, and gradually ceased, Walter"s eyes slowly closed, and he sank down unconscious. His paddle fell from his nerveless hand and floated away on the stagnant water just as a dark, shapeless ma.s.s crept out of a bunch of reeds and struck the canoe with a gentle thud.
CHAPTER XX.
SAVED.
Darkness, black as night, floated over Walter"s reeling brain; darkness, pierced by a thousand gleaming, twinkling lights, brilliant as stars, then came a void and nothingness. Slowly at last he felt himself struggling up out of the void, battling, fighting for consciousness, then came a delicious sort of languor. If this was dying, it was very pleasant. Forms seemed to be flitting before his half-opened eyelids and the hum of voices seemed to float in his ears.
One voice irritated him greatly; it was faintly familiar in its loud joyousness. What was it saying?
"Golly, Ma.s.sa Captain, bless de Lawd, he ain"t dead."
Another voice responded, "No, thank G.o.d, he"s goin" to live, Chris.
Bear a hand and we"ll get him into the wigwam."
There was a sensation of being home through the air, and Walter surrendered to the delicious languor,--and slept.
When he opened his eyes again an ebony face was bending over him and Chris" voice demanded, "Golly, don"t you know me, Ma.s.sa Walt?"
"It"s Chris," Walter said, smiling feebly, and the little darky danced about in joy.
Walter raised his head with an effort and looked about him. He was lying on a bed of soft moss with a pillow of blankets under his head.
He seemed to be surrounded by walls of bark which met in a point far above his head; opposite him lay another figure on a bed similar to his own.
"Where am I, and how did I get here?" he demanded confusedly, "the last I remember was being in the canoe a few minutes ago and everything getting dark before me."
"A few minutes ago," cried Chris, excitedly. "Why, it"s dun been two days since Ma.s.sa Captain come on you when he was paddlin" around the lake. You was layin" in the bottom of the canoe like you was dead."
"Two days," exclaimed Walter in astonishment; then, with a sudden note of dread in his voice, he cried, "Charley!"
"He"s gettin" along pretty well," said the little darky cheerfully, "he"s lyin" right across from you thar. Now you jus" keep still an"
doan" talk no more," he commanded. "Ma.s.sa Captain out fixing up some soup. Reckon he"ll let you talk some more after you drink it."
The captain soon appeared with a gourd full of steaming liquid. He was overjoyed at finding Walter conscious, but firmly insisted that he should remain quiet, and he fed him liberally with the hot soup.
Indeed, Walter felt little desire to talk; a few swallows of the warm liquid made him very drowsy, and he quickly sank into a deep sleep from which he awoke feeling much stronger and almost like his old self again.
To his great joy, he found Charley conscious, and without fever, although still very weak. He sat down on the edge of the invalid"s bed and the two talked over the thrilling adventures through which they had pa.s.sed.
They were interrupted by the entrance of the captain and Chris, the captain bearing an armful of yams and Chris a string of fresh fish.
"We are layin" in a stock of provisions against the appet.i.te I reckon you lads will have now you are gettin" better," explained the captain, cheerfully.
Walter caught the old sailor by the sleeve and held him tightly. "Now you have got to sit right down and tell us your story before I will let you go," he said. "First, Charley and I want to know where we are."
The captain filled his old black pipe, and got it to drawing good before he answered.
"You"re on an island about two miles inside the Everglades, as near as I can calculate."
"Did you build this shelter since you have been here?" asked Charley eagerly.
A shade of sadness pa.s.sed over the captain"s open face. "No," he said slowly, "this island belonged to the chief an" this wigwam was where he lived, an" it was here we brought him to die."
"To die?" echoed both boys together.
"Aye, lads, he pa.s.sed away the same day we reached here," said the captain, sadly. "He was a white man clean through, if his color was red. I got to know him powerful well on the trip here, an" he sure had all of a white man"s feelings."
The boys remained silent in face of the captain"s evident grief, and the old sailor, after a pause, continued. "We buried him under a big oak tree, with his gun and plenty of food by his side, just as he had directed, an" I reckon his spirit is up in his happy hunting-grounds now."
"And the young chief, his son, what has become of him?" Walter asked after a pause.
"Gone to gather his people together an" swoop down with them on the murderin" convicts. He found out from signs, that I couldn"t make nothin" of, that his tribe had divided into two parties, one going towards a hunting-ground called Big Cypress, an" the other to another place where deer an" bear are thick. As soon as the chief was buried, he jumps into his dugout an" starts to round "em up. If he gets back with them in time to catch them outlaws, may the Lord have mercy on their murderin" sin-stained souls, for the young chap will have "em slowly tortured to death if he catches them."
"Tell us all about your trip," Walter urged, "how did we get separated, I wonder?"
"It puzzled me for a bit as to what had become of you, but the chief soon explained it by saying that you likely had taken another stream.
Chris an" I was for turnin" back an" huntin" you, but the chief reasoned us out of it, by saying that you might have taken any one of a dozen forks and that there would be mighty little chance of our hitting on the right one, while we would be almost sure to run right into the convicts" hands again. But what influenced us most, was his explainin"
that all streams thereabout ran into, or from, the Everglades, an" that all we had to do was to get here first and keep a sharp lookout along the cypress for you, and you"d soon show up. The chief had great confidence in your good sense, Charley, an" seemed to feel certain that you would reason that the only safe thing to do was to keep right on up the stream you had taken. "Course, we never suspected that you had been shot."
"Well, I guess my successor in command did all I would have done and perhaps more," remarked Charley with a smile.
"It was just by luck that I happened to do the right thing," said Walter, modestly.
"You didn"t appear like as though luck had helped you much when I found you, Walt," remarked the captain, dryly. "It sorter looked to me like only hard work an" an amazin" lot of pluck an" grit had brought you that far."
"Now don"t you go trying to make a hero out of me," said Walter, hotly, "I won"t have it. I only did what anyone would have done, and I made a whole lot of foolish blunders besides."
"Well, you can have it your own way, lad," agreed the captain, with a glance of affection at the embarra.s.sed young hunter. "I reckon that"s about all of our story worth tellin"," he concluded. "We made the best speed we could so as to get here before you. We caught sight of parties of the convicts searchin" for us now an" then, but the chief was more than a match for them an" they never caught sight of us.
Since we got here, Chris and I have patrolled the rivers" mouths for sight of you every day, but we had begun to despair when we came upon your canoe day before yesterday. And now, that"s all, my lads, except that I feel we had all ought to join in thankin" our Heavenly Father for deliverin" us from our enemies an" bringin" us together again."
With hearts full of grat.i.tude, the young hunters sat with bowed heads while the kindly old sailor offered up a simple, fervent prayer of thanksgiving for the mercies they had received from the One who heeds even the sparrow"s fall.
"Thar"s one thing more to tell you, an" then I"m through," said the captain, breaking the thoughtful silence that had followed the prayer.
"The chief seemed to set great store by you, Charley. I reckon it came from your savin" his life at the risk of your own. Anyway, he spoke right often of the "young white chief", as he called you, an" once he said you should be honored with riches. Not an hour before he died, he gave me this an" charged me to give it to you."
Charley took with wonder the object the captain handed him. It was a piece of exquisitely dressed doe-skin about six inches square. On the smooth side was traced in a reddish sort of ink a kind of rude sketch of a lone palm tree, amongst the leaves of which a large bird was perched. Resting against the foot of the palm was an object that bore a faint resemblance to a paddle.
"It is sign language, but I cannot make out what it means," said Charley in perplexity. "I wonder why he wanted me to have it and what he wanted me to do with it."