The journey south through the Everglades seemed but a repetition of their former trip to Bill. The same endless stretches of sawgrass, intersected by lily-choked waterleads swept out to a low horizon. Occasional islands covered with a dense jungle of brilliant green provided the only variation in the monotonous landscape. The sun swam in cloudless skies, pouring down a heat that burned Bill’s flesh and sapped his vitality. The others, if they minded the terrific discomfort, appeared to ignore it. But Bill was thoroughly glad when at the beginning of the third day, they left the Everglades behind and paddled slowly down the broad bosom of a winding bayou.
That night the little army camped on the shore near the mouth of this arm of the sea.
“We’ll rest up tomorrow and plan the details,” said Osceola, as they sat by their campfire that evening. “Shell Island lies out there—about fifteen miles away. So far, so good. I, for one, am going to turn in now.”
“Call me at noon,” grunted Bill. “This may be my last sleep on earth—and it’s going to be a good one.”
[CHAPTER XVII—THE ATTACK]
For some hours earth and water had been bathed in the semi-darkness of a misty night when the Seminole canoes issued from the broad mouth of the bayou. The stench of the mangrove swamps behind them still hung heavy in the lifeless air, and as they advanced, a thick gray fog crept in from the sea. Soon the trailing folds of vapor rolled in opaque clouds along the water, and hovered, damp and billowing, over the moving flotilla.
Osceola shouted an order in Seminole and a moment later, the bow of a canoe nosed beside the stern of the leading dugout.
“Stop paddling!” he commanded, and his two companions obeyed. “I told the men to close up in single file,” he explained to Bill and Sam. “It is easy to go astray in a fog like this.”
“You said a mouthful,” returned Bill. “And the first thing you know we’ll be heading back to the mainland. There’s not a compass in the whole outfit.”
“Don’t worry about that. I’ll see that we get to Shell Island all right.”