Chapter XXVIII: The Chums Have Two Callers

"PERHAPS you can tell us how far we will have to go up this river before we find a place where we can cross?" Charley said.

"I can do better than that. I can take you across. I have a canoe but a little ways from here," replied the Indian lad.

"Good," exclaimed Walter, with pleasure. "That will help us out a lot. We were dreading the trip around."

"We can cross as soon as you wish," offered the young Seminole.

"Let's sit a while and rest," suggested Charley, whose curiosity was aroused by the manner and speech of the splendid young savage. "Are there many of your people camped at the Big Cypress?"

"About one hundred. The Seminoles are becoming as the leaves in autumn," said the lad, sadly. "There are only four tribes of us left. One is camped at Fort Lauderdale, one at Indiantown, another tribe is hunting in the Glades, and we are at the Big Cypress. Only four hundred left of a once powerful race." His voice and face took on a deeper tinge of melancholy as he said, "Soon we will all be gone and only be a memory growing dim with the passing years."

"Oh, I guess, it's not as bad as that," said Charley, cheerfully. "The Seminoles will gradually adjust themselves to civilization and begin to increase once more."

"We are a homeless people," declared the lad. "Your race took all, except this swamp. Here we have lived at peace where no white man would live and now even it is being taken from us. Every week from the East Coast, great canals, like rivers, creep further and further into the swamp. And as fast as they creep in follow the whites with ploughs and teams. Houses spring up over night. The forest and deer vanish, and green fields take their place. Soon the great swamp will be no more."

"But surely that is good," Charley argued. "It is the onward march of civilization."

"Civilization," echoed the Indian, bitterly. "Will civilization make my people better? They are truthful, they are honest, they are cleanly in mind and body. Will civilization make them better?"

Charley was silenced. Apart from education, he knew the Seminoles were the superior of his own race in morals.

"No, civilization will not improve us, but it is coming to us. Nothing can stop it. The white man rejoices at its advance, the red man is sad and troubled. The great writer Kipling says,--

'The toad beneath the harrow knows
Exactly where each tooth point goes,
The butterfly beside the road,
Preaches contentment to the toad.'"

Our little party marveled at this strange youth, a savage, yet educated, gentle mannered, and of a wisdom far beyond his years.

In reply to their questions, they learned that a noble white man, Dr. Fish, was spending his life in the heart of the Everglades, striving with all his might to do something for its unfortunate and deserving people. Amongst other things, he was educating the younger members of the tribe and trying to fit them for the inevitable struggle under the new order of things. They learned that their new friend was one of his pupils. That the lad was hunting for skins that he might earn the money necessary to go to college and fit himself to help his race in their distress.

Our little party were filled with admiration for the noble youth's lofty ambition. They reflected sadly that there were woefully few white boys fired by the same high ideals.

They would have liked to have tarried and talked longer with the interesting lad, but the slanting sun warned them that they must be on their way.

The young Seminole led the way to his canoe which proved to be a cranky, clumsy craft dug out of a big cypress tree. Used as they were to water crafts, they entered it with considerable doubt and care. As soon as they were safely aboard, the lad shoved off and with a long pole propelled the ungainly craft to the other side of the river.

"Follow the gulf," he directed, as they bade him good-by. "You ought to be out of the forest by to-morrow night. You will meet more rivers, but they contain no crocodiles so you will be able to cross them without danger."

He shook hands gravely with each at parting, repeating quaintly the words of a hymn the good missionary had doubtless taught him. As our little party once more took up their weary march, the familiar words so quaintly quoted by the solitary lad in the gloomy swamp kept thrumming through their thoughts.

"God be with you till we meet again,
By His counsel guide uphold you,
With His sheep securely fold you,
God be with you till we meet again."

They tramped steadily the balance of the afternoon and at night made camp on the edge of another large river. Here they were fortunate enough in finding a large bed of big mussels or fresh-water oysters, upon which they made a delicious supper.

Sunrise found them again on their way, eager to be out of the somber, gloomy forest. They had already spent three days in its gloomy depths and they were heartily sick of it and its crawling serpents. They paused but a few minutes at noon to rest a bit, and to eat a few of the mussels they had brought with them, then pushed on again.

"I believe we are nearly out of this hateful forest," Charley said, as they waded along its edge. "It seems to me that the cypress are not quite so dense, and, I fancy, I can get a glimpse of some trees of a darker green ahead."

An hour's more wading proved his guess correct. Palmettoes, satinwoods, bays, and even pines, began to be mingled with the cypress. The color of the water changed gradually from its fresh blackness to the salt tinge of greenish-blue, and, at last, they came to a stretch of sandy beach which they hailed with joy for their feet were getting tender and sore from the constant wading.

Long before dark, they were clear of the dismal, floating forest and made camp on a high, sandy bluff by the side of a clear, purling little brook. Their supper was a feast; roasted buds of the cabbage palmettoes, black bass fresh from the creek, oysters, clams, crab claws, and for dessert, huckleberries which grew in profusion around them.

When it was finished, they stretched out on the beds they had made of dry, fragrant sea moss before the glowing fire in more hopeful spirits than they had been in many days. They were lying thus chattering contentedly when they received an unexpected visitor. He came as silently as an Indian. They neither saw nor heard him until he stepped into the fire's glow. He was a man of about forty years of age, dressed in buckskin and was of rather engaging appearance. His name, he said, was Watson, and he was a hunter and trapper.

From him they learned they were but a day's journey from Tampa, and that a good beach extended the whole distance.

The stranger stayed for at least two hours. He seemed to take an almost childish interest in their account of their misadventures and took an interest, that was pathetic, in all they could tell him of the news of the world outside. Events which had occurred two and three years before seemed to be news to him. Yet he appeared an educated, brainy man.

He stayed until the little party's yawns could not longer be suppressed, then departed as silently as he had come.

"Whew," sighed Charley, when at last he was gone, "I would as soon entertain a rattlesnake as that man."

"Why?" Walter said, in surprise. "I thought he seemed bright and pleasant."

"Is it possible you have never heard of that man, Watson? I thought everyone in Florida knew of him."

"I have never heard of him, either," said Captain Westfield. "Who is he? Tell us about him."

"It's a horrible tale, yet pathetic, too, in a way," said the lad, thoughtfully. "From what I have often heard, we are now in what is sometimes called 'Murderer's Belt.' I have heard it referred to many, many times, but I had forgotten all about it until I heard that man's name. In this fringe of country bordering on the Everglades, it seems that there are some forty or fifty men hiding out. They are men wanted for serious crimes, murder in most cases, for nothing but the dread of being hung would induce men to lead the lives they are forced to live. They live solitary lives. The Indians will have nothing to do with them and they fear or mistrust each other too much to associate amongst themselves. Each one is as alone in the world as though he were in solitary confinement. They get their living with their traps and rifles. That's all they get out of life, just a living and freedom. An army could not capture one of them, except by surprise, for at the first alarm they plunge into the swamp where none but an Indian could follow them. I don't suppose that man Watson has even spoken to a human being in years until to-night. Only our apparent harmlessness induced him to seek speech with us, I believe. For Watson is the king murderer of the lot. He came to Florida some years ago from Georgia, with the law officers in close pursuit. It had been discovered up there that he was the author of a string of mysterious murders. Brutal, cold-blooded murders that had been going on for years. Some forty or forty-five years in all, I believe. The officers caught up with him at Tampa, but he killed two, wounded the third, and escaped into 'Murderer's belt.' With him was a young brother, who, so far as could be learned, had taken no part in his crimes, but the two seemed to stick together from mutual affection.

"Contrary to the usual custom in 'Murderer's Belt,' the two did not play it alone together as they should have done, but met and made friends with a man by the name of Cox who was about as hardened a character as Watson. The three hung together for a while, but one day there was a little quarrel and Cox shot the boy through the heart. He intended to kill Watson also and thought he had done so but the bullet glanced off on a button and Watson recovered his senses after a while to find his brother dead and Cox gone. They are both now seeking each other in the 'Belt.' Watson will try to kill Cox at sight to avenge his brother, and Cox will try to kill Watson the first chance he gets to keep from being killed. Neither can appeal to the law for they are both outside the law. It's a case of man against man or rather murderer against murderer. Think of what their lives must be. Every hour, day and night, trying to kill or keep from being killed. Not seeing each other, but knowing every minute that the other is seeking him with murder in his heart, expecting death from behind every tree and bush."

"Massa Chas," said Chris, with a shudder, "youse gibbin' me de creep. Please not dat kind ob talk an' let's go to sleep."