Dick in the Everglades

by A. W. Dimock

Ned and Dick were pretty husky youths, and as their canoe didn't weigh more than one-fourth that of the one just ahead of them, they thought they were in for a picnic. Very soon they changed their minds. Sometimes they could paddle, but generally they used their paddles as poles. They had one oar for pushing, which helped them a little. A light push sent the canoe forward, but when the push ended so did the motion. It took a stronger push to start the Seminole canoe, but the stroke was much longer, and when the stroke ended the motion continued. The boys were game and wouldn't admit that it tired them to keep up. But when a strand of heavy saw-grass had to be crossed they found trouble to burn. The round, heavy wooden cylinder of Seminole make slid slowly through the tall, stiff, saw-edged mass. But the light canoe was thrown back from each stroke by the elastic grass. Dick never liked to be beaten, so he went overboard and floundered along the trail ahead of the canoe, dragging it by the painter, while Ned got out and pushed from behind the stern. The sharp, serrated edges of the grass cut their faces and lacerated their hands. No air was stirring at the foot of those tall spears, and Dick thought of his hours in the fire room of the Southern steamer. Sometimes a big, deadly cotton-mouth, the ugliest snake in the world, swam in front of Dick as he struggled forward, but though his flesh quivered he said nothing lest he make Ned nervous. Then occasionally a poisonous brown moccasin rose out of the mud which the canoe stirred up, and, with uplifted head and open mouth, threatened Ned as he stumbled behind the craft, but he was silent about it lest he worry the chum who was new to the country. The saw-grass strand was only two hundred yards across, although it seemed a mile to the boys, who made light of it when they reached the other canoe, but their bleeding hands, torn by the terrible grass, told another story.

The canoes and cargoes arrived at Osceola's late in the afternoon, and Ned and Dick saw their second Seminole camp. It was the best camp in the Everglades, as Osceola himself was perhaps the best specimen of the Florida Seminole.

The three buildings which constituted the camp consisted merely of high roofs, beautifully constructed of palmetto, which came within four feet of the ground at their outer edges. Below this they were entirely open. These buildings were nearly filled with tables, about four feet high, on which the Indians slept at night and occupied as a floor during the day. The buildings were placed about a round shed, under which the cooking for the whole camp was done. The fire was built in the usual Seminole fashion. Logs of wood were arranged like the spokes of a wheel, and the fire built at the hub. When the cooking was finished the logs were drawn back a few inches and the fire went down to coals, but continued to smolder. When the logs were brought together again the fire blazed up.

Ned and Johnny made their bed on one of the tables and slept well, but they kicked at dipping their hands in the family stew, and broiled their venison and made their coffee over the common fire. It was a good-natured camp, but the boys made life a burden to the Indians for two days by their incessant attempts at conversation in the Indian tongue. Some of the old Indians were sociable, and the boys got along very well with them, but the younger ones were shy and refused to talk until, having put on the white man's clothes that Ned had given him, Tommy took several of the young squaws and pickaninnies out in an Indian canoe. The young Indians laughed so much at Tommy that they began to forget their shyness, and when Tommy bought for Ned a bright-colored Indian shirt that a squaw had just made and the boy put it on, the Indians gathered around him and made fun, very much as white children would have done. One of the squaws brought him a red handkerchief, such as many of the Indians wore, and when Ned nodded and tied it around his neck they all laughed. Another squaw motioned at Ned's hat, and then at several Indians who were bareheaded. Ned nodded again and tossed his hat aside. Then as a squaw pointed at his trousers and afterwards at the bare-legged Indians about him, Ned shook his head vigorously, and even the older Indians joined in the laughter.

The children of the camp were shy things, and peeped out at the strangers from behind trees and out of hiding-places, but Dick was fond of all wild creatures and few of them could resist his friendly advances. Soon every pickaninny in the place was tagging after him. The older ones took him out in canoes, which soon were capsized, and all hands swam back, each accusing the other of having upset the craft.

When the boys went to the Osceola camp of Seminoles with Tommy they found a people as stolid and taciturn as those of any Indian tribe of which they had read. After four days, during which all hospitality was extended to them, they left behind them a kindly group of untaught native Americans, who went out of their way to show friendliness to their guests. Johnny nearly cried over the parting, and would have bartered his hopes of the hereafter to have been allowed to accompany the boys, while Tommy, clothed again in his native costume and in his right mind, preceded them for two miles in his canoe to show them a blind, side trail which they were to take. When they turned to take their last look at him, the Seminole was standing in his canoe, leaning on his long pole and looking fixedly at them.

For a few miles the trail was easy, but then became too dry for paddles, and Dick pushed with an oar, while Ned used a pole which he had brought along for use with a harpoon. As the trail grew dryer, it became impossible to pole the canoe, and Ned took the painter and, stepping into the nearly dry ditch in front of the canoe, dragged the craft, while Billy got overboard and pushed from behind. Sometimes Ned stopped to kick something out of his path, and at last Dick called to him:

"What are you kicking, Ned?"

"Nothing but yellow-bellies and once in a while a brown moccasin. I used to worry myself half sick over them, but after seeing Chris Meyer wade through bunches of them in the Big Cypress without paying any attention to them, I got ashamed of being afraid, and now I don't mind moccasins much unless they are cotton-mouths."