THE CAMP FIEE. 23 



in whatever he did. There was no pretension or osten- 

 tation about him, and so far did he carry this negative 

 virtue, that he never mentioned himself if he could avoid 

 it, and no one could tell his intentions or anticipate his 

 motives until the act was done. A leather dress, and a 

 leather cap, the same colored shoes and belt, with a blue 

 flannel shirt, buttoned in front by two polished alliga- 

 tor's teeth, was the invariable costume of the hunter. 

 Once he had a cabin at Tampa, where he would come 

 and go with such uncertainty that he obtained the name 

 of Mike the Spook. Thence, at evening, when the set- 

 tlers with anxious eye regarded the forest that environed 

 them, dreading the whoop of the Seminole on every 

 wind, Mike would flit into the shadow, and begone a 

 month or more, appearing again on the limits of the 

 peninsula at Fort Dallas. The great interior wilderness 

 was his home, and in its solitudes he had acquired his 

 taciturnity. His voice was low and singularly musical. 

 He might not speak for hours, the indication of his fin- 

 ger and the expression of his countenance being suffi- 

 cient for all ordinary language, yet when he did, his tone 

 was as efiective as a command. The villagers at Mican- 

 opy called him Injun Mike, and said they never saw him 

 come or go but in a storm, and they, hunters as they 

 were, seemed afraid of his reckless will and strong 

 arm. 



Mike acted as guide in our wildwood roamings. He 

 had undertaken it partly from a liking for me, and partly, 

 as I suspected, from mere curiosity to see the Doctor and 



