It was a slow, weary progress that she accomplished, and she had to pick her way carefully, measuring the depth of the water with a stick which she had cut from a pine on Black Jack Island, but she kept resolutely on until her watch registered seven o'clock. Then, all of a sudden, the stick sunk so deeply into the muck that she knew she would have to swim, and she hastily ate the chocolate which was to be her evening meal, and plunged forward to swim.
As the time slowly passed, she watched Black Jack Island fading in the distance, and hope swelled in her heart. She was nearing land at last—perhaps only an island—but even if she were not out of the swamp, at least she would be away from her enemies. She smiled when she pictured the consternation and anger of the men at finding her gone.
She swam on for some distance, now and then pausing to cut the grasses that became entangled about her legs. Her shoes were heavy, but she hated to take them off, for they were a help in the shallow water.
After an hour of this exercise, she was utterly exhausted, and she looked about her in dismay. What if she should drown now, in the midst of her own country—after she had conquered the Atlantic Ocean successfully? The thought was absurd; she steeled herself to press forward, for she was coming nearer to that bank of trees. Surely, there lay safety!
Had she but known it, she was now entering one of the so-called "Gator Roads" of the swamp—channels of water which the alligators followed. But it looked promising to the tired, hungry girl.
The foliage was growing thicker now, and the water-way narrowing. Some distance on, the trees met overhead, and beautiful moss hung from their branches, shutting out the setting sunlight, and forming a lovely green bower. But Linda was scarcely conscious of this beauty, for she was breathing with difficulty, panting with fatigue. If she could only make that bank—where the land seemed firm!
A big tree had fallen across the water, and she managed to reach it, and to cling to it for support while she rested. Her feet hung down in the muck, and she realized that the water was comparatively shallow. She wanted to laugh aloud in her relief.
Pulling herself up by her hands, she decided to walk the log to the bank, and had just poised herself upon its rather perilous round surface, when she encountered the greatest shock in her life thus far. Not ten yards away, in the very water where she would have been now, had she not mounted the log—was an alligator, at least eight feet long! Brave as she was usually in the face of other dangers, she let out a piercing scream of terror at the sight of this horrible monster.
"Now I've got to walk the log!" she thought. "It's death if I fall off!"