186 AMONG THE SEMIXOLE3. 



lying upon their backs, their white bellies and mailed 

 sides glistening in the moonlight. 



&quot; Umpli ! alpatah fight heap ! &quot; was the only excla 

 mation our red brothers made. 



A few days later we parted from our friends, and, 

 after sending Jim into the river, I hired another guide 

 and set out for the Indian settlement. The man I now 

 hired was an old &quot; cow herder,&quot; having charge of several 

 hundred cattle which roamed in a half-wild state through 

 the woods and over the vast prairies. His house was the 

 only one between Indian river and Lake Okeechobee, a 

 distance of nearly fifty miles. We left the cabin, 

 mounted upon two stallions trained for cattle hunting 

 and following narrow trails. Each horse carried a pair 

 of saddle-bags, bag of corn, pair of blankets, and a man. 

 Each man had a gun, pint cup, and big knife. Leaving 

 the cabin early one day, we reached the Indian settle 

 ment late the next. Our only guide was a narrow trail 

 across the vast plats, following dry creek-beds, through 

 cypress swamps and saw-grass jungles, beneath gigantic 

 pines and through thick palmetto scrub. We followed 

 this trail, made by the Indians, in a southwesterly direc 

 tion till we struck the saw-grass bordering the &quot; Big 

 Cypress,&quot; a belt of cypress swamp nearly forty miles in 

 length. Through this swamp there was but one narrow, 

 blind trail, carefully concealed, lest the white man 

 should find it. But my guide was an old &quot;tracker&quot; 

 during the Seminole Avar, and struck it just where it en 

 tered the swamp. Dismounting, we attempted to lead 

 our horses through. Bleeding and torn we emerged 

 from the saw-grass to enter the blackest looking swamp 

 it was ever my lot to behold. The tall cypress grew high 

 above our heads, shutting out every ray of light ; long 



