Twisting round again, he sought relief from troubled thought in the view from his tiny porthole. They were traveling overland now. Fifteen or twenty miles away, he could make out the sea’s dim outline. But what interested Bill far more was the nature of the country below. Innumerable water-courses intersected a dense cloak of dark green foliage which seemed to be banded with a somber red along the waterways. Then as the plane’s pilot dropped her nose, seeking to avoid the increasingly strong headwind, Bill caught the sickening stench that he remembered so well.
“Mangrove!” he exclaimed aloud, his voice drowned in the roar of the engines. “We’re over the mangrove swamps of Florida, south of the Everglades! That red line along the banks of the streams—exposed roots, of course.”
He watched the swamp for some time, wondering what the pilot would do if a forced landing became necessary, and thanking heaven that the motors seemed to be running smoothly.
Then the amphibian sailed over wide water again. “Whitewater Bay, on a bet,” thought Bill, who remembered his map of Southern Florida. “Chuck full of mangrove islands, too. If I’m right, we’ll cross a strip of mainland soon, and if that pilot keeps to this north-by-west course, we’ll be over the Ten Thousand Islands in fifteen or twenty minutes!”
Bill’s guess was a good one. The bay gave way to swamp once more, and then they shot out over a weirdly beautiful stretch of water, studded again with countless islands. He knew now that the plane was paralleling the south-western border of the Everglades—that huge, swampy basin on the southern Peninsula which covers an area much the same as Connecticut. But unlike the populous New England state, the only human inhabitants of the Everglades are a few hundred Indians who thread its lonely water-paths in primitive dugout canoes.
Evidently the plane’s pilot did not intend to cross the Everglades. They were still heading north, but the amphibian’s nose had been swung to starboard. By the time they left the Ten Thousand Isles, Bill realized that they were traveling a point or two east of north. Could it be that they were making for those dark, watery woodlands known as the Big Cypress?
Bill had heard about the Florida Cypress Swamps, and knew them to be a trackless labyrinth of swamps, lagoons, creeks and low, fertile islands, all deeply buried in the shadows of a mighty cypress forest. Twilight was deepening over the earth now, as the red ball of the sun sank below the horizon. Bill thought he could just discern the first outlines of the big trees; then all was dark, and the amphibian roared on into the maw of black night.
He continued to gaze into the darkness. Perhaps fifteen minutes later, his vigil was rewarded by the sight of a pinpoint of red light far ahead and slightly to the left of the speeding plane. It was soon evident that the pilot recognized this signal, far below in the wilderness. The light disappeared from Bill’s view, and he knew the reason why. The plane’s nose was now headed directly for the light and therefore it was out of range from his porthole.
Down there in the trackless swamps of Big Cypress, someone was signalling the amphibian. Could this be their destination? Had they reached “the workings” that the men on Shell Island mentioned with such obvious loathing?
The big bus tilted forward and down. The three motors ceased to function and Bill knew that the plane was about to land.