Februaby, 1919 
FOREST AND STREAM 
65 
Our friends had come prepared to himt like “ regular fellers ” and came back loaded down with deer and turkeys 
cies of desecration. Things are more 
beautiful than you imagined they could 
be anywhere on earth. 
But we must hurry on, with fragment- 
ary notes of the remaining days up Loss- 
man’s River, for our real sportsman’s 
story lies further northward still. It 
should be remembered that* Mr. King was 
not here for the pleasure of it. He had 
not been sent out from Miami to hunt 
or to fish. For the time being, at least, 
these must be incidentals. In his quiet, 
unobtrusive way, he had been studying the 
“lay of the land.” His little red book 
was beginning to show pages of baffling 
maps, drawn with a hard pencil, in a cop- 
per-plate technique, at once comprehen- 
sive and ingenious. He had taken speci- 
mens of soil and of rock. He had fol- 
lowed the courses of many rivers and 
weighed the future worth of tractless 
miles, half under water. With his glasses 
to his eyes and his note book on his 
knee, he would sit for hours, sweeping an 
open stretch, where hammock and man- 
grove jungle joined the flat monotony of 
the Everglades. 
It was while they were far up the nar- 
rower stream that one of those sudden 
rain storms came beating down through 
the live oaks and cypress. The steam 
oozed up from the black earth and solid 
sheets of water came glancing through 
the undergrowth. As speedily as possi- 
ble Hendry rigged up a tarpaulin cover 
for the boat and all three huddled under 
it, disliking the thought of soaked gar- 
ments. But the rain did not stop and the 
afternoon waned and darkness came un- 
heralded. It was agreed that they would 
camp just where they were, at the end of 
a tiny mangrove island, until morning. 
It cleared by eight o’clock and a fire was 
lighted on shore, after much difficulty. 
Hendry, however, was an adept at this, 
whether wood was wet or not. They 
roasted the birds and made a decent meal 
of them, together with such picnicing 
odds and ends as the guide had shrewdly 
hidden on board. 
And such a night! The great hollow 
infinity of dripping leaves and utter dark- 
ness hedged them in on all sides. The 
’gators croaked and bellowed and the 
water moccasins played in the creek. 
Coons busied themselves on the outer 
lines of the flickering, hissing fire. A cat 
called — called in a human way — far up 
amongst the live oaks. 
In the morning, the bass were wrapped 
in leaves and royally cooked for break- 
fast. Then they poled down stream and 
selecting a more navigable body of water, 
went a distance of three miles into the 
Everglades. Now they caught their first 
glimpse of the big pine hammock men- 
Here was real hunting and real sport by 
men who had learned their lesson in Big 
Cypress and who made every day 
Thanksgiving Day, if turkey-meat is at 
all significant 
tioned by John Billy, rising rather aus- 
terely from the flat reaches of saw grass. 
It was impossible to go further in the 
larger boat, so the glade skiff was un- 
leashed and they all piled in, intent on 
a visit to this isolated hammock that had 
never appeared on a map. 
It was two miles across — further than 
they thought at first sight, and hard 
going, what with the soggy sloughs and 
the lanes that were cluttered with saw 
grass, but they finally made it, and pull- 
ing the skiff up on shore, waded through 
the muck to more firm ground. 
Hendry made a discovery. 
“Indian camp been here,” said he, “big 
one. See path — see lime trees and wild 
orange.” This was based on the shadow 
of a path or trail that led, not from the 
very edge of the hammock, but from a se- 
creted point fifty feet inland, and wound 
its circuitous length under the wildest 
sort of jungle brush. It required a 
Hendry eye to know that there ever had 
been a trail. He forged ahead, slashing 
with his machete and occasionally whack- 
ing in twain some giant vine as thick 
through as his wrist. 
Nor were the guide’s reckonings in er- 
ror. An abandoned Seminole village was 
found some distance further on, gone 
into decay, yet still possessing interest for 
the trio. Nature had outlived the primi- 
tive dwellings, for there were no less 
than twenty sturdy lime trees, bearing 
fruit, of a kind and the guavas were dis- 
covered in greater abundance. There 
were guava trees of startling size — four- 
teen inches, perhaps, at the base, and 
palm, oaks, cabbage palm and fig. 
What a place for a habitation! 
“Why do they keep moving all the 
while?” John demanded, “you’d think 
they’d stay here, after clearing the 
ground and planting lime, orange, fig and 
guava trees.” 
Hendry shook his head solemnly and 
observed : — “No Indian always stay in one 
place. Go. Nobody know why. Some- 
time Head of Tribe die. Then everybody 
leave. No stay.” 
Small souvenirs were collected, and a 
venomous rattler shot on the outskirts 
of the hammock, just after Hendry had 
leaped backward to avoid its fangs. He 
stopped long enough to save the skin and 
roll it compactly for John’s collection, for 
it was a beauty. 
By easy stages, the party returned to 
the boat, lifted the glade skiff aboard and 
without further stops, eased back with 
the current into Dr. Tiger’s Lake. It was 
nightfall and they turned in early. 
(continued on page 92) 
