POKE RECEIVES A CUR'OSITY AND TELLS A YARN. 247 



sight by the draping moss or jammed trees. Sometimes the leading 

 boat would wait for its fellow, calling to it a few feet off to come 

 through some curtain of vegetation, where it had just found a 

 passage. There was no animal life here save reptiles, and little 

 vegetable beauty. It was a waste of water overhung by the dead 

 growth of ancient times. 



Then, too, there was a watchfulness against Indian cunning 

 that made our passage seem more like a flight than a hunt, and 

 when some alligator rushed from the bank to the water, the noise 

 would startle us and bring back the scene when Jackson died on 

 just such a passage down the Ouithlacouchee. Two or three days 

 brought us into pleasanter life, and our eyes were greeted with 

 the open water of Lake George and the varied vegetation of its 

 low-lying shores. 



It was curious to watch Mike make his entry on the lake. As 

 we approached, our boats came nearer and paddled slower. We 

 hugged the shore closely, and when the first faint roll of the waves 

 of the lake came into the river, he motioned us to stay, and glided 

 down among the rushes in his own canoe, watching the broad open 

 water with a keen, careful eye. We slowly came up and followed 

 him as, parting the reeds, he wound along the shore some quarter 

 of a mile, till where the grass began to grow thin. Then beaching 

 the canoes where they could not be seen from the lake, we unpacked 

 our provisions, and, seated where we could overlook all the water, 

 and yet not be seen, ate our dinner and took our noonday nap. 



The propriety of Mike's caution in a little while became 

 apparent. A canoe came out from one of the outlets of the lake 

 a mile down, and crossed over to the side where we were sitting. 

 In it was a single Indian. This was followed at a short distance 

 by another with three women, and both boats disappeared in a 

 cove. Had we been on the lake we should have been seen, or had 

 we continued our course we must have met them. 



" What 's that mean, Mike ? " 



" Injins." 



"Yes; but what are they doing? Is there a tribe of them 

 here, and are they a war party, or what ? " 



" No ; it 's a band ; they 've got their squaws with 'em. They 're 



