"I shouldn't think Indians would care to live in such a rattlesnaky country," he added.
"They don't mind them," laughed the Lieutenant. "Their keen eyesight generally enables them to discover a snake as soon as he sees them. Then, too, they have an infallible antidote for snake bite, the secret of which they refuse to divulge to white men."
"How many rattles has this fellow?" asked Sumner.
"Only seven," answered Lieutenant Carey, counting them.
"Then he was a young fellow. I thought from his size that he must be pretty old, and would have twelve or thirteen rattles and a button at least."
"The number of rattles does not indicate a snake's age," said the Lieutenant, smiling. "They get broken off, as do long finger-nails. I have seen very large snakes with fewer rattles than others that were smaller and evidently younger."
While they were eating lunch Quorum skinned the snake, rubbed the beautiful skin thoroughly with fine salt, and rolled it into a compact bundle, in which condition it would keep for a long time.
After lunch and the hour's rest that followed it the little fleet was again got under way, and proceeded up the swift river. About the middle of the afternoon they entered the broad belt of cypress timber that borders the Everglades on the west. Here the serried ranks of tall trees, stretching away as far as the eye could reach, held out their long moss-draped arms until they met overhead, and formed a dim archway for the passage of the rushing current. The water flowed with strange gurglings against the gray trunks, and the whole scene was one of such weird solitude, that on entering it the explorers shivered as with a chill. Through the semi-twilight fluffy night herons flitted like gray shadows, and the harsh scream of an occasional water-fowl, startled by the dip of paddles, echoed through the gloomy forest like a cry of human distress.
The atmosphere of the place was so depressing that no one spoke, but each bent to his paddle or oars with redoubled energy, the quicker to escape into the sunshine that they knew must lie somewhere beyond it.
Quorum, who had been sitting in the stern of the cruiser while the sailor rowed, was finally made so nervous by his uncanny surroundings that he begged his companion to change places with him. He wished to row that his thoughts might be occupied with the hard work. The sailor complied, though laughing at the negro's fears as he did so. While Quorum was working with desperate energy to catch up with the other boats, there came an incident of so startling a nature that in relating it afterwards he said: "I tell yo, sah, de ole niggah so skeer dat him come de neares' in he life to tu'nin' plumb white!"