“I’ll attend to Jerry. Leave him to me,” answered Bob. “But when every one has had his turn, you and I will make the real flight. We’ll try to see just what the deepest recesses of the big swamp are like.”
“You mean the hidden home of the last of the Seminoles?” suggested Tom eagerly.
“Sure,” exclaimed Bob. “If white men can’t get there by swimmin’ or by boat or on foot, it’s our duty to go. You know, Tom, I think you’re cut out for a writer—a sort of literary fellow—if you tried. Your mother showed me the stories you’ve written. And if we really find those old Indians who have an altar decorated with Spanish armor, and that’s what they say, you know—and who say their prayers to a big, sacred alligator, why you can write a piece about them, and, maybe, get it printed.”
“Do you think so?” asked Tom eagerly.
“I know it. And I’ll take photographs of the whole shootin’-match.”
“If I could do that,” exclaimed Tom, in an earnest voice, “I’d be happy. I’ll try.”
How Tom succeeded, any one can learn who will turn to the files of the Pensacola Sunday Journal for the following September where were published the articles on the “Secret City of the Seminoles” that eventually started the southern lad on his reportorial career.
North Key of the Anclote group of islands was not much over a thousand feet in width, but its sinuous length formed a crescent curve of nearly a mile. In formation, it was soft coral stone covered with wind blown sand, and a backbone of thin soil in which grew a ridge of scanty vegetation, a barrier of fan palmetto and sea grass, which protected the inner slope of the crescent. Captain Joe’s camp site was at the head of a little bay cutting into the island almost as far as the green topped ridge.
Here, the smooth shores of the beach changed to an abrupt bank some five or six feet high on the side of which, overhung by a group of three tall cabbage palmettoes, stood the new khaki tent. This the two boys easily made out, the little flag fluttering stiffly in the sea breeze, but there was no sign of the camp sentinel. Wondering where Mac might be, Bob and Tom ran forward.
Before they could scale the little slope, there was a cry from the other side of the converging beach, and Mac was made out, a tin bucket in one hand and a long bamboo rod in the other—barefooted and his trousers rolled to his knees—racing at top speed to meet them.