Their road—it was little more than some winding wheel tracks—lead through a rather thin stand of tall, yellow pines which were straight and smooth as telegraph poles with only a few flat branches near the top. In places there was scarcely any underbrush on the ground, only a few stray spears of wire grass and a thin layer of dead needles which scarcely covered the white sand. Here and there were large patches of scrub palmetto, just leaves three or four feet high growing up from the snakelike roots which seemed to lie almost on the surface of the ground. With the exception of these palmettoes it did not look very different from the pine forests of the Southwest with which Scott was so familiar.
“Where are all those ridges which are marked on the map hereabouts?” Scott asked, as he looked curiously at the level country. So far he had seen no sign of a hill.
“There is one of them,” Mr. Graham laughed. “Doesn’t look much like the ‘Great Divide,’ does it?”
“I don’t get you,” Scott said, still scanning the country.
“Well, you see this country is all made up of strips of swamp and strips of dry land. The dry land is often not more than two or three feet higher than the swamp, but it is called a ridge just the same. Must seem a little strange to a man from the mountains.”
Just ahead of them appeared a solid bank of dense underbrush, all woven together with climbing vines which arched the road like a gateway. The road dipped slightly under the arch where the ground was black and damp, but rose quickly and was almost immediately out in the open pine woods again.
“That,” Mr. Graham explained, “is a baygall, and this is another ridge. Always be careful how you try to ride through those baygalls where there is no road, they are sometimes very soft and even if they are not you are more than apt to hang yourself in those vines. They have yanked me out of the saddle more than once.”
For two hours they rode through this fascinating country of alternating swamp and pine flats without seeing any one or any sign of human habitation. It seemed to Scott even more deserted than his own wild, rocky mountains. They ducked through a little baygall and suddenly came out on to an open ridge from which all the timber had been cut. A more desolate-looking place Scott had seldom seen. Every stick of timber was gone and under the Forest Service regulations the slashings had been burned so clean that the ground was perfectly bare. The low stumps stood out like tombstones in a cemetery.
“You are approaching the haunted grounds now!” exclaimed Mr. Graham. “This is where Qualley is cutting and over yonder in that swamp lies the enchanted pool where all those logs have so mysteriously disappeared.”
They could hear the sound of axes now and the darkies laughing and shouting at the mules. Soon they overtook the strangest-looking rig that Scott had ever seen. It looked at first like two great wheels rolling along the road alone, but as they drew closer he could make out a pair of mules ahead of them and three long logs hung on chains underneath. He had read of these “high wheels” (they were actually eight feet high), but these were the first he had ever seen. A darky was sitting on the long tongue singing light-heartedly and punctuating his song with entirely unnecessary shouts at the patient mules. When he saw the riders his shiny black face broke into a broad grin.