CHAPTER XVII
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."