Payne made no reply but led the way to the dugout and headed across the water for the bunch of pines marking his northwestern corner.
"There isn't as much water on it as I thought," he said as the canoe stuck again as they approached the pines.
"No; it's only the middle that's really drowned. Wonder what the bottom's like."
Higgins thrust his paddle tentatively into the bottom. "Well, I'll be damned!" The blade of the paddle had slipped easily into the ground. Higgins pushed on the handle, pushed the paddle three feet into soil, withdrew it and held it up for inspection. "Muck! Three foot of black muck, and I wasn't near touching bottom!"
Together they began to probe, and everywhere with the same result. The muck underneath the water ran from three to five feet in depth, and was as black as peat.
The water grew shallower as they went westward and presently gave way to dry land covered with a growth of saw grass through which they literally had to push their way. The saw grass ended abruptly, and the last hundred yards to the pines they walked on high and dry land. The pines were on the eastern edge of the great prairie which they had glimpsed on their walk up the river.
As they paddled back to the hammock for the breakfast which they had left the Seminole to prepare Payne studied the land to the northward with keen interest. A heavier growth than saw grass covered this land. On closer inspection it proved to be a jungle of elderberry, the growth so dense that a man could barely squeeze through. The land here was higher and dry, and black muck of the same depth as on the drowned land to the south. Payne paddled back to Deer Hammock in silence. Just as they were about to land he drove his paddle into the bottom with a gesture of finality.
"Well, Higgins?"
"Yes, sir! That high ground to the north is a watershed and it all drains off onto your land. That's what drowns it."
"Right. And I drain into that river."