62 
WILD WINGS 
rookerv. Starting from the southern end of the west coasts 
probably somewhere on Wdiitewater Bay, he watched the 
flight of the birds, formed a conclusion as to the exact 
direction of their course, and plunged into the bewildering 
maze of the mangrove swamp. Carrying a meagre outht 
and a light canoe, he slept among the mangrove roots where 
night overtook him. From time to time he climbed a tree 
and verihed his course by that of the birds. Now and then 
he utilized one of the muddy, brackish lakes, and secured 
a few moments’ rest, as he paddled across, from the worst 
of the innumerable hordes of mosquitoes that there make 
the life of man almost intolerable. 
How many days he was thus engaged is not known, but 
at length, forcing his canoe through a narrow, overgrown 
channel from one of these lakes, which seemed to lead to 
some other body of water, he came out into a round, open 
lake, a mile and a half across. Out in the middle of it he saw 
a small island of about two acres, densely overgrown with 
mangrove trees, whose dark foliage was almost hidden under 
a canopy of snow-white birds, — ibises, herons, and egrets, — 
with others of darker plumage. 
It must have been a beautiful and wonderful sight, a theme 
for the artist, a vision for the poet. But our j^lume-hunter was 
not that sort of a man ; the sesthetic side was lost upon him. 
Making a closer investigation, he found that the island was 
crowded bv innumerable thousands of several kinds of birds, 
some of them the species whose plumage would bring the 
highest prices. There they were, the nesting-season at its 
height, brooding their eggs and feeding their young. 
Did Cuthbert spread the joyful news among the Seminole 
Indians, the widely scattered settlers, or the outlaws that are 
in hiding in the swamps ? Not at all. He pondered these 
things in his own heart, with a mercenary intent. The snap 
