However, at that very moment he held his hand back to stop me, then beckoned me forward.
"Look!" He was pointing tensely ahead of us, moving his arm leftward and indicating a circle of perhaps thirty feet in diameter.
Whatever it was, I could see the tops of the gra.s.s shake as their stems were slightly jostled by this unknown creature"s progress, which continued with incredible speed and was circling back toward us. Then, with a slightly swishing sound as its body glided through the dry gra.s.s, that friend of Florida woodsmen--the king snake--pa.s.sed before our feet like a brownish-green streak.
"Rattler! You watch!" Smilax whispered. His eyes were wide with interest, for it is not permitted many men to see a duel between these mortal enemies.
Somewhere directly ahead of us a diamond-back rattlesnake must have awaited the attack he sensed, though we could not yet see him. Time after time the king snake swept by in front of us, decreasing the circles and, I thought, increasing his speed. After each revolution we stepped in a little nearer, being careful not to interfere with his course nor distract his attention from the serious business at hand.
Soon the viper became visible. His flat head, elevated a few inches above his heavy coil, turned anxiously with the sounds in the gra.s.s. He knew what was coming, I think, but did not rattle until the king had reduced the circles about him to a diameter of six or seven feet. Then he became electrified. The rattles sounded viciously, and his head began an ominous swaying motion, out and in, as he searched for a vital spot at which to strike.
The king, although keeping just outside the danger line, was also watching for an opportunity. He may have realized his immunity to poisons, yet did not care unnecessarily to suffer the laceration of fangs. Rather did he choose to rely upon the further protective gifts that nature had given him: length and strength, speed and agility, and a skin that blended elusively with the ground colors; therefore, revolving in these smaller circles, he seemed to make almost a continuous line, without beginning or end, and the rattler was at a loss to act. Now, profiting by a moment when the venomous eyes were turned away, he darted in and caught the viper close up behind its head. Wrapping himself about the squirming body he ruthlessly straightened out. We heard the vertebrae being torn until his victim lay crushed and stretched into a helpless ma.s.s.
For several minutes the sleek avenger remained perfectly quiet. Then, uncoiling warily but not releasing the hold with his teeth, he worked his body aside. Last of all he dropped the head and drew suspiciously back as if alert for a sign of life. Of course, there was none, and soon he glided into the gra.s.s, not seeming to have noticed us at all.
"Whew!" I said, taking a deep breath. "I wish we had king snakes around us all the time!"
"Heap good friend," Smilax grinned, stooping to cut off the rattles that were large and perfect.
"I thought you said there weren"t any snakes out in winter!"
"Not much; maybe no see any for long time."
He told me now as we proceeded across the prairie that the Seminole Reservation lay about fifty miles north of us, and I wondered what our chances would be of getting a squad of "braves," should the _Whim_ not show up and we found ourselves on the eve of a fight against rather big odds. It was worth keeping in mind.
The "island," when we reached it, was by far the largest I had ever seen, and proved to be an ideal place to camp. High pines and stately palms grew here in great profusion, while there also might be found a sprinkling of hardwoods; and yet in some parts there was enough sunlight to permit the growth of really luxurious gra.s.s, as trim as if it had been cut by the hand of man. Smilax, pointing to a number of tracks I had not observed, said the deer kept it short by grazing. One"s first impression here was of a well-kept park, intersected by green avenues that stretched beneath the best specimens of trees which a landscape architect had carefully planned to leave standing. But there were wilder portions; perhaps three acres of heavy jungle. About midway, festooned with vines, was the pool I had hoped to find, of quite good size and cool. It, like the other that had entranced me, nourished a few stalks of iris, but there was no "bonnet" or other place on its closely cropped bank for the wily moccasin.
"My private bath," I declared, feeling at this sundown hour the call strong within me.
Smilax had remained behind. His reconnoissance as we entered the prairie must be completed by another as we emerged from it; and I had left him standing behind the trees looking back across our trail, searching for any distant movement. At last he came up, saying:
"All right; you smoke."
"I don"t want to smoke," I laughed. "I want to get in that pool, if we can find another supply of drinking water."
"No need um," he grinned. "Big spring come up there," he pointed toward the farther end. "Me know island now; been here one time."
I afterwards saw that he referred to one of those unique springs, occasionally to be found in Florida--a transparent water of bluish tinge, bubbling up through the bottom of its deep, self-made reservoir; keeping the sand in a subdued state of agitation, and bringing pleasure to the eye of man.
By the spirit of Pan, my pool felt good after the long day"s hike!
The wind had changed with the waning afternoon and now blew gently from the southwest, promising a period of fair weather. It gave us, also, the advantage of greater freedom in noises; for, when living in the wild, one comes to realize how potent a carrier, or m.u.f.fler, of noises is the wind. A fire at night, or smoke by day, may be tempered with human ingenuity, but nature bandies the sound waves with her breath.
I dined in the elegance of simplicity, and Smilax extinguished our small fire of b.u.t.tonwood. Leaning my back against a stalwart pine, I watched the shadows stealing through our avenue of trees. Somewhere above my head a whistling owl, one of those lovable little feathered cavaliers that showers his mate with unstinted adulation, fluttered and courted.
Later the mournful call of a whooping crane floated across the prairie.
I heard these things in a lazy, contented way, but my thoughts were on another island--a real island surrounded by water, where waves lapped the beach and two eyes, that had given color to the iris, watched for deliverance. Then with a jerk I sat up. Smilax had turned his head to listen, and in his att.i.tude dwelt a note of agitation.
"What is it?" I whispered; for surely I had heard a sound that did not belong to these creatures living in the forest about us.
He raised his hand to caution silence. Then came the sound again, slowly: one--two--three--four--
"Axe," he said, his eyes shining as beads and his finger pointing into the southwest from where the breeze was coming. "You wait; me go see."
"I"ll go, too," I announced.
"No; maybe make too much noise. Smilax go."
"Who d"you suppose it is that close to us?" I excitedly asked. "Not them, surely?"
He looked at me with grave eyes and answered:
"No can say; maybe hunters find way in here. You smoke; me go see."
Yet his sudden gravity left little doubt in my mind of what, at least, he suspected; for he well knew that hunters did not find their way into this unsurveyed wilderness! Then, too, there was something in the stillness of the night that seemed to portend great things. The leaves transmitted their restlessness to my yawning nerves, as iron dust springs to a magnet.
Intending to wave good luck as he melted into the darkness, without being observed I walked silently behind him to the prairie"s edge; but there he stopped, opened his arms, raised his face to the sky, standing motionless. And a great peace came over me, for I saw that, in the simple way of the old-time Seminoles who invariably turned to their Great Spirit on the eve of hopes or fears or dangers, Smilax was praying.
Religion is the poetry of the savages" existence. Alas, that we are civilized! He does not spend his nights poring over The Laws and The Prophets, and his days peppering a neighbor across the head with a new-born creed. No, he puts an abiding faith in some Great Spirit, be it the sun, the moon, the stars; or fashioned of stone, or clay, or wood.
But his soul looks into the Infinite as his physical sight, less far reaching, feasts upon the Symbol. And what does he lose? He loses the privilege of bickering with evangelists; he loses the acid frequently to be found in church organization--the feeling of pity or contempt of one denomination for another, each of which stands upon the Holy Rock searching for motes and waving a princely disregard to beams. And, because he remains benighted and in darkness, he also loses doubt; wherefore, as a trusting child, he touches the hand of G.o.d.
I had long since finished my second pipe when Smilax returned. He came out of the darkness as he had gone into it, with the stealth of a panther, and was close to me before I knew it. But a striking change had taken place in him. His breathing was fast, though not from exertion, and pointing back he hurriedly whispered:
"Efaw Kotee there! Lady, too! Me see!"
CHAPTER XV
EFAW KOTEE"S DEN
Sylvia there! I bounded up as though some one had sent a galvanic current through my body, exclaiming:
"Good Lord! How far, Smilax? Come quick, let"s go!"
He answered each of my exclamations in sequence, a peculiarity he had:
"Yes, Lord good. Two mile, maybe some more. Plenty time, we go back soon."
"But we couldn"t have heard that axe two miles," I said incredulously.
"Still night, when wind on prairie right; yes, sometime."
"How are they camped? How many are there? Come, man, don"t keep me waiting!"
He drew himself up to full height and, with one arm pointing toward the southwest, spoke deliberately as if realizing his importance, seeming to choose his words--seeming, rather, to grope for them.