Toward evening we saw on our left evidences of open country and bore in that direction, for when one has walked many hours in the shadows of interlocking branches it is as natural to be drawn toward a spot of sunlight as it would be to approach an open window after having been confined in a dismal room. So we bore in that direction and came to the edge of a vast prairie stretching before us as a sea of lifeless grass.
Except for a gray line on its horizon, marking, I afterward learned, the boundary of the Great Cypress Swamp, there was but a single break on this expansive waste. That was a rich growth of trees about two miles out, to the southeast of us; an oasis, it would have been called in the Sahara, but in the Florida prairies known as an "island." Whether this term of "island" finds origin in the similarity of these verdant places to real islands, seeming as they do to float upon an inland sea of grass, or whether because, being of higher ground, they actually become islands during rainy seasons when much of the prairie land is inundated, the native "cracker" is unable to explain. At any rate, fanned by the prairie breeze, they afford agreeable shelter where, in perfect seclusion, one may look out upon the surrounding country for great distances.
"We camp there," Smilax nodded.
"A good place," I affirmed.
"You stay hide," he said again. "Me find out if nobody 'round to see us go."
"Why can't I look with you?" I asked, wanting to study more of his methods, but he squelched me by answering:
"You look whole lot; no see anything."
I would have given him a good piece of my mind had he not suddenly disappeared; returning soon with his usual smile and saying:
"Come."
Single file, as before, we pushed into the breast-high grass, and the walking was easy. Once we crossed a patch of oozy turf from which arose a score of jack-snipe; again we skirted a drying pond whose boggy edges were the hunting ground of marsh hens. Yet other trails could be read here: deer, wildcat, raccoon, and innumerable wee things. And here, too, around the "bonnet" leaves, the silent moccasin lay coiled, so it was well to step with caution in a place like this.