“Well, where do we go! We’ve got neither food nor a boat. What with snakes, alligators and other pleasant companions, we won’t get very far on a hike through the swamps. You spoke of a plan some time ago. How about it?”
“Just a germ of one,” sighed Bill. “It needs working out—but with luck you and I will be able to get away from this vile place and go pretty much where we like. It all hangs on whether we can—”
“Hush!” warned Osceola. “They’re coming this way. Look over your shoulder!”
Bill did more than that. He twisted round in the niche and stared into the black opaqueness toward the corduroy road.
Lights, twinkling pinpoints of red, dotted the black night in wavering clusters which advanced along the road. And again the damp, lifeless air was burdened with the deep-throated cry of bloodhounds.
“Those lights will discover us if the searching party leaves the road and comes over this way,” whispered Bill.
“There’s only one thing to do,” admitted his companion. “And we’d better do it now.”
“What’s that?”
“Crawl out on one of these branches and lie flat. You take that one nearest you and I’ll lie on the one that parallels it. Don’t move if they come underneath us. Some of those guards have ears like their hounds.”
Bill had no difficulty in performing this feat, for the branch was thicker than his own body and he wriggled along until he lay fifteen or twenty feet from the trunk of the tree. His eyes had at last grown used to the inky darkness of this forest in the swamp. Peering down through the heavy screen of foliage and vines, the gnarled roots, underbrush and stagnant water below became dimly visible. To the left, possibly ten feet away and slightly above him, was the branch on which his Indian friend lay. Of Osceola he could see nothing, but he heard the Seminole’s muffled warning as he twisted his body to get a better view and in doing so, cracked a twig.