Canoemates: A Story of the Florida Reef and Everglades

by Kirk Munroe

Quorum said: "Ef Marse Summer an' Marse Worf gwine fight dem Injuns, ob co'se de ole man gwine erlong to pertec' 'em. Dem chillun can't be 'lowed ter go prospeckin' in de wilderness wifout Quor'm ter look affer 'em, an' holp do de fightin' as well as de cookin'."

All this discussion took place after the canoes had been hauled from the water and concealed in a clump of bushes, and while coffee was being prepared over the alcohol lamps, which gave out great heat with little light. They gathered closely about their little stoves and talked in low tones, while the night shadows settled down and shut out the surrounding landscape. After eating a hearty meal, which showed their appetites to be in nowise impaired by their recent fright, and providing a supply of coffee for the morning, they rolled up in their blankets and lay down for a few hours' sleep on the bare ground. That is, all but Worth lay down. He, wrapping his blanket about him, and sitting with his gun across his knees, prepared to keep the first hour's watch. He was given this first hour because he was the youngest, and he was to wake Sumner when it had expired. Sumner was to rouse Quorum, he the sailor, and he the Lieutenant, who was to stand the last watch and decide upon the time for starting.

To be sitting there alone, surrounded by the unseen terrors of a Southern wilderness, was a novel and weird experience for Worth. He could hear the eddying and gurgling of the river, with frequent splashes that marked the nocturnal activity of its animal life. Innumerable insects filled the air about him with shrill sounds, and deep-voiced frogs kept up a ceaseless din from the adjacent swamps. Frequent vibratory bellowings, exactly like those of an enraged bull, and certain flounderings in the water, attested the wakefulness of his newly-made alligator acquaintances. The forest rang with the tiresomely irritating notes of the chuck-wills-widows and the solemn warnings of the great hoot owls.

Every now and then he was startled by the agonized cries of some unfortunate bird seized and dragged from its resting-place by a 'coon or other predatory animal. These, loud and shrill at first, gradually became weaker, until hushed into a lifeless silence. His blood chilled at the distant howl of wolves, or the human-like cry of a panther, and it required all the boy's strength of mind to refrain from arousing his comrades long before the expiration of that interminable hour.

Only a frequent reaching out of the hand and touching Sumner, who lay close beside him, gave him courage to maintain his solitary vigil. His mind was so actively occupied by what he heard, and by listening for what he dreaded still more to hear—the dip of paddles or other sounds indicating the approach of human enemies, that he had not the slightest inclination to sleep. He never was more wide awake in his life, with all his senses more keenly alert, than during that hour. He wondered if, with all those uncanny sounds ringing in his ears, he should dare even to close his eyes when his turn for sleeping came. He kept track of the time by occasionally striking a match, and looking at his watch beneath the sheltering folds of his blanket.

When the time came to waken Sumner, he hated to do so; but realizing that his own strength for the ensuing day depended upon his sleeping that night, he finally laid his hand gently on his comrade's forehead. From long training in being aroused at unseemly hours, Sumner sat up, wide awake, in an instant. The boys exchanged a few whispered words, and then Worth lay down. He closed his eyes, determined to try and sleep, though without the least idea of being able to do so.

When he next opened them Lieutenant Carey was bending over him, and saying that it was three o'clock in the morning. It seemed impossible that he could have been asleep for hours, and as the boy sat up rubbing his eyes, he was certain that the Lieutenant must have made some mistake.

In spite of the darkness, which was still as intense as ever, the boats had been almost noiselessly got into the water, and Quorum had heated the coffee made the night before. A cup of this, hot and strong, roused the boy into a full wakefulness, and fifteen minutes later he was seated in his canoe, prepared once more to undertake the passage of the dreaded cypress belt. The Lieutenant led the way, Sumner and Worth, keeping as close together as possible, followed, and the cruiser, with muffled oars, brought up the rear.

If the cypress forest into which they almost immediately plunged had seemed weird and gloomy by daylight, how infinitely more so was it in the pitchy darkness by which it was now enshrouded! Still, the black walls of tree-trunks rising on each side could be distinguished from the surface of the river, and thus the voyagers were enabled to keep in the channel. The air was motionless, and heavy with dampness and the rank odors of decaying vegetation. The rush of waters, the plash of their paddles, and the unaccountable night sounds of the drenched forest, rang out with startling distinctness. They proceeded with the utmost caution, and uttered no word; but it seemed as though their progress must be apparent to any ear within a mile of them.