DOWN THE ARBUCKLE RIVER. 
F. W. PORTER. 
We loaded my hunting boat on a wagon 
at my ranch one morning late in January, 
and drove 5 miles to Rocky creek, where we 
launched. 
I told the boys we shouldn’t see any game 
on the way over, but they thought quails, 
squirrels and rabbits were game, so we had 
camp meat at once. From Reedy lake to 
Arbuckle lake is 4 miles if you are bird- 
rigged, and climb a tree to start. By water, 
it is nearer 40 miles. We floated half way 
down the creek that afternoon, and camped 
where I had a turkey roost spotted. I made 
camp and sent the others where I thought 
the big birds would come in. They re- 
turned at dusk without any turkeys. Some 
had been seen, but Winchester said they 
looked just like those his mother had at 
home and he didn’t like to shoot. My other 
friend I’ll call Thunder, because he used a 
double 10 gauge loaded with black powder. 
Next morning we continued our journey 
down the creek. The lower end of the 
creek is through a heavy swamp which was 
dry a year ago for the first time, possibly, in 
centuries. Then fire swept it, throwing trees 
and vines of all sizes across the creek, so 
there was some fancy acrobatic work. 
Sometimes we would vault over a log which 
the boat went under, sometimes we would 
go under and lift the boat over, sometimes 
a dive through a tree top was the caper. 
Once, when we flattened out in the boat to 
squeeze under a big cypress, one chap left 
the slack of his trousers a trifle too high. 
The craft drifted placidly on and left him 
hanging, head to heels, from a branch. We 
rescued him before the cloth tore, and got to 
the mouth of the creek by dinner time. 
The creek had built itself a bank far into 
the lake and our camp was on a part of 
that, 20 yards wide, the creek on one side 
and lake on the other. We spent the after- 
noon there; the boys fished and discovered 
a 10 foot ’gator. 
Arbuckle lake is 8 miles long and 3 miles 
wide. It is usually wind-swept during the 
day, and, as our boat was small and over- 
loaded, we decided to cross at night. I woke 
about midnight, found it foggy but not dark, 
and perfectly quiet. I roused the camp and 
after we had made coffee we put to sea. A 
2 hours’ row took us to the lower end of the 
lake and to what appeared a solid wall of 
cypress. The steersman was told to coast 
along it until he saw an opening. He did 
so and in a few minutes put us in the head 
of Arbuckle river. 
We ran alongside a bunch of bonnet and 
dropped anchor to wait for daylight. Thun- 
105 
der wanted to try for catfish. We were will- 
ing he should but had no bait. We got 
over the difficulty by shooting a water tur- 
key and using strips of its flesh. Our friend 
got lots of strikes, some of them strong 
enough to move the boat, anchor and all, 
but as he was not used to the fighting tac- 
tics of Florida catfish he did not land a 
n. 
When daylight appeared we started down 
stream through one of the prettiest bits of 
water in Florida. The river averages 100 
feet in width, is deep, and for several miles 
runs through a big cypress swamp. 
A dozen species of lilies grow on its bor- 
ders, and the trees are covered with air 
plants and orchids. The swamp is inhabit- 
ed by many varieties of game birds and ani- 
mals. 
The dip of ducks and the whir of wings 
was constantly heard ahead of us, but as the 
foliage was dense and the stream tortuous, 
we got but few shots. 
A short run took us through the swamp 
and out into open water with Kissimee 
prairie on one side and high pine woods on 
the other. There, in a little hummock of 
cabbage palms and live oaks that gave us 
almost the shelter of a house and furnished 
us beds of Spanish moss, we made our per- 
manent camp. We caught bass with min- 
nows, and would not take out of water a 
fish under 8 pounds. We drifted down 
stream gawking at one bank while a gob- 
bler sat and gawked at us from the other. 
He gawked a little too long for his health, 
however. 
Winchester shot into a bunch of curlew, 
and as he waded about picking up his dead, 
a flock of canvasbacks almost knocked his 
hat off. We, in the boat, wondered why he 
did not shoot. He came back and said they 
were not ducks. On one occasion, as cur- 
lew and other birds were passing over us by 
thousands, somebody sat, eyes and mouth 
open in astonishment, until his gun went off, 
pointed nowhere in particular, and nearly 
knocked him out of the boat. 
Then came the last morning, which we 
had decided to devote to turkeys exclusive- 
ly. Two of us got up and had our break- 
fast, of course, long before daylight, and 
we had almost to drag No. 3 out of the 
blankets. Finally he came along and we 
got our turkeys, one of them a 25-pounder 
that Winchester knocked into the river. He 
was surprised to see it go paddling up 
stream, and said if any one had told him 
a turkey could swim, he would, if it was a 
small man, have called him a liar. 
