"Fear nothing; they are my friends, and my friends are thy friends."
To the Indians he said in their own tongue, "Note well this man. He is my friend and that of all Seminoles. From them no harm must ever come to him."
Then he waved his hand, and the six warriors disappeared so instantly and so utterly that the white man rubbed his eyes and looked about him in amazement.
Turning, to express his surprise to Coacoochee, he discovered that the young chief had also disappeared, and that he alone occupied the road.
MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE OF A SENTINEL
For a full minute Ralph Boyd stood bewildered in the middle of the road. In vain did he look for some sign and listen for some sound that would betray the whereabouts of those who, but a moment before, had stood with him. The tall grasses waved and the flowers nodded before a gentle breeze, but it was not strong enough to move the stiff leaves of the palmetto scrub, nor was there any motion that might be traced to the passing of human beings among their hidden stalks. From the feathery tips of the cabbage palms came a steady fluttering that rose or fell with the breathings of the wind, and in far-away thickets could be heard the cooing of wood doves, and the occasional cheery note of a quail, but no other sound broke the all-pervading silence.
All at once from a hammock growing at a considerable distance from where the young man stood there came to his ears the thrilling sound of a Seminole war-cry:
"Yo-ho-ee yo-ho-ee yo-ho-ee-che!"