Chapter XVIII: The Medicine Man

SUNRISE found the boys well on their way to Indiantown. By nine o'clock they were entering the jungle where Charley had been fired at on his previous trip. Before entering it, however, the lads stopped and cut two long slender poles with which to kill the moccasins basking on the road.

This time no rifle bullets halted their progress, but the snakes were there, and, by the time they had passed out of the jungle they had slaughtered over fifty of the loathsome creatures.

"Whew!" exclaimed Walter, as they broke out of the darkness of the jungle, "that's the most awful place I was ever in. It fairly reeks with rottenness and fever."

"Yes," Charley assented. "I dread putting the machine into it, but it's got to be done. I am going to set fire to it before the machine gets there; that may help some. Once we get through it, we are over the worst. There's Indiantown, about two miles from here. Now, I figure that the motive for the attacks on us lies somewhere between the machine and Indiantown, for the strange white men never go beyond the trading-post, but, for the life of me, I can see nothing in this country that would supply the motive, can you?"

"No," Walter admitted. "The land seems fertile enough, but there is plenty of good cheap land along the coast, right close to the railroad, so no one would want to come way out here for land. There is not enough timber here to offer any temptation, and we know that Florida contains no iron, coal, or precious minerals. I can see no motive for any striving out here. I guess we are just dreaming when we talk of a powerful motive out here."

"It's no dream," said Charley decidedly, "unless that fire was a dream, those convicts a dream, that dynamite a dream, the assault on McCarty a dream, those rifle-bullets a dream, and the whole one disagreeable nightmare."

"Well, let's forget it all," urged Walter. "Remember, this is a pleasure trip, and we want to make the most of it."

This conversation brought the two lads to the first Indian dwelling, but they found it empty, as was the next and the next. Near the middle of the little settlement, however, they came upon the whole tribe, gathered around a large wigwam. Unlike the other buildings, this one was not only thatched on top, but was also inclosed on sides and ends with bark and palmetto leaves. In one end was a small opening, just large enough for a man to enter by lying flat on the ground and wriggling through.

The two lads approached the silent group with their interest thoroughly aroused.

"What's the matter, Willie John?" Charley asked of an Indian he knew.

"Chief plenty sick," said the Indian sadly. "Indians go get paleface doctor, but paleface doctor say medicine no good, chief must die, but medicine man say he cure chief for two ponies. All right, we give two ponies. Medicine man come pretty soon to cure chief. No cure, no ponies. Understand?"

Charley nodded comprehensively. "Can we go in and see the chief?" he asked.

"I guess so," said the Indian indifferently. "It no matter, I guess. Chief be dead, maybe, before medicine man comes. He have to come all the way from Big Cypress."

Charley did not wait for other permission. Lying flat on his stomach, he wriggled into the wigwam, followed by his chum. Once inside the lads found themselves in pitch darkness, save that in a distant corner a feeble rushlight, set in an earthen saucer of oil, glowed faintly. For a moment, the lads were sorry that they had been so rash in entering, for the close air of the wigwam was heavy with the sickening smell of fever. A low moaning from one corner, however, drew them on.

On a bed of boughs and skins near the rushlight lay what had been once a magnificent figure of a warrior. The rushlight was too dim to be of much use, so Walter lit match after match, while Charley bent over and examined the stricken man. The warrior was hardly more than a skeleton. The skin was drawn tightly over protruding cheek bones, and the black, beady eyes glowed with unearthly brightness in their deep sockets.

Charley felt of the Indian's cheek. It was almost hot enough to burn his hand. "We can do nothing for him," he said to his chum. "He is just skin and bones, and he cannot live long with such a fever. We had better get out of here. He may have something contagious. We were fools to come in here."

But, before the boys could reach the opening, the Indians outside began to wriggle in, each bearing a rushlight in its earthen saucer of oil. "Medicine man come," whispered Willie John, as he passed them. "Better sit down and keep still. Indians no like you go now. They get plenty angry if you go."

The boys' curiosity overcame their prudence. They were both anxious to witness the rites of the medicine man and they seated themselves among the Indians, who, after lighting their rushlights, set them together in the middle of the wigwam and sat down Turk fashion on either side of the wigwam and folded their arms across their breasts. It was a curious scene, with the dim glow of the rushlights falling on their impassive faces and black, beady eyes.

For perhaps ten minutes the silence was unbroken save by the restless tossing and moaning of the sick man. Then, from outside the tent came a shrill, wailing sound, gradually getting nearer and nearer, until the skin that covered the entrance was pushed to one side and through the opening wriggled a figure that made the boys' flesh creep. Once inside the figure rose erect, and the lads could see in the rushlights' glow that it was an old Indian, naked save for a loin cloth. So old was he that his face was a mass of wrinkles, and he tottered as he walked. Around his withered neck was a string of alligators' teeth, and from his arms and waist and ankles hung strings of human bones. His withered body was painted a vivid red, slashed with streaks of bright yellow. In his right hand he carried a wand, from which hung dozens of rattlesnake rattles, which made a noise like the song of a locust whenever he moved his skinny arm. In his left hand was clutched a bag made of snake skin.

As this grewsome object passed by them the boys shrank back in dread, but the old savage did not notice them. He tottered on, and sank to the ground beside the sick man. Then followed a scene which the boys never forgot. Rolling on the ground beside the sick man the old Indian began to beat the air with his hands, uttering a low, wailing cry, that was taken up and repeated by the circle of Seminoles. Faster and faster the old man beat the air, flecks of foam gathered on his lips, and his withered face grew horribly contorted. With his talon-like hands he began clawing at the sick man, who was twisting and tossing on his couch, as though with convulsions. The medicine man paused for a moment in his wild exertions, and, taking from his snakeskin bag a packet of reddish powder, he scattered it over the burning rushlights. Immediately there rose a sweet, sickening, pungent vapor, that made the boys gasp for breath. They would have given a good deal to have got out in the fresh air, but they were afraid the Indians would resent any move on their part, and, besides, they were curious to see the end of this weird ceremony. They had not long to wait. The medicine man, with a sudden yell, snatched a knife from his loin cloth and plunged it into the sick man's arm. Into the long, shallow cut he had made he rubbed more of the reddish powder; then, with a long-drawn-out wail, he sank back to the ground and his limbs and body stiffened out as rigid as stone. Evidently this was the end of the incantations, for a couple of Indians advanced, and, picking up the stiff figure, bore it outside of the wigwam. The two lads started to follow, but Willie John put forth a detaining hand.

"Go look at chief first," he said, and they silently obeyed.

The change in the sick man was amazing. They could hardly believe their eyes. The haggard look of pain had disappeared from his face, his skin was moist and cool, his tossing had ceased, and he had fallen into a deep sleep.

"Pale face doctor no cure chief like medicine man," proudly said Willie John, and the wondering lads had to admit the truth of his assertion.

Outside the two lads found the Indians dashing water in the medicine man's face and trying to bring him out of his cataleptic state.

"He be all right, pretty soon," Willie John assured them. "Alway he get stiff like this when he wrestles with the evil spirits of sickness. Now I will go and get two ponies for you." He soon returned, leading two ponies already saddled and bridled. The boys mounted, and, with farewell waves of the hand, rode out of the camp and turned into the road leading to the great lake.

"What did you think of that business back there?" Walter asked, as soon as they were out of hearing of the little settlement.

"I give it up," Charley said frankly. "It's a mystery beyond me. Of course, I don't take much stock in all that wriggling, clawing, and wailing, but there must certainly be some wonderful curative agent in that powder. I agree with the doctor that the chief was dying when the medicine man came."

"Well, it is not so very wonderful, after all, when one stops to consider the matter," said Walter reflectively. "The Seminoles are an old, old race, so old that nobody knows how old they are. For ages and ages they have lived in these great swamps, and it would be strange, indeed, if the more intelligent of them had not by this time found some remedy for the fevers of the country."

"It's interesting, anyway," Charley declared. "I'd give something to know what that powder was made of. It would be a blessing to the fever-stricken world."