"This looks like the right place," said Cornwood, after he had directed the deck-hands to carry the bow fasts ashore and catch a turn around the trees. Then he looked about him, as if he was trying to identify the place. "I wish I had the latitude," he added.
"We can give you that, for I have my instruments in my room. I brought them because I was afraid they might be stolen," I replied.
I got the instruments, and took an observation from the hurricane-deck of the steamer; and Washburn figured it up. "28° 37′ 55″," said the mate, when he had completed and verified his calculation.
"That's it, almost to a hair line," said Cornwood, laughing. "Parallel section line 21 runs through Titusville. We are in east section 33, and south section 21. We are all right, and you may land your mules."
He referred to the land sections of the state, of which I had no knowledge. We laid down the planks, and got the mules ashore, and then the wagons. It was only ten o'clock, and we wished to reach our destination by noon. In a few minutes, our hands, under the direction of the pilot, succeeded in harnessing the mules to the wagons. We put six persons in each, with their bags and sporting apparatus. All hands wanted to go with us, but we could not take any of them. We had the same sand for roads as in the streets of Jacksonville. Cornwood drove one team, and I drove the other. Half a mile from the river, we found a settler in a log house, who seemed to be greatly astonished at our sudden appearance, and insisted on knowing how we got there. We told him, and in reply he informed us that the woods were full of game, and no sportsman had been that way for a year.
We reached our destination at noon. Titusville consisted of only a few houses; but the party were gladly taken in by the settlers.
CHAPTER XXIX.
A MYSTERIOUS SHOT.
Indian River, Halifax River, Mosquito Lagoon, and half a dozen rivers, sounds, lagoons, lakes, and inlets on the Atlantic coast of Florida, are different names for the same shallow body of water, separated from the main ocean by a narrow strip of sand, which extends north and south for two hundred miles. Indian River extends from about twenty-five miles north of Titusville to the inlet, a distance of one hundred miles. But Banana River and Mosquito Inlet are separated from it only by Merritt's Island, so that these bodies of water overlap each other. The water in these inlets is often not more than three feet deep, so that no large vessels can navigate them.