June, 1918 
FOREST AND STREAM 
341 
tegrating vegetable matter, made breathing 
a hardship for all of the party. 
Catlow was feeling far from well. Some¬ 
thing he had eaten disagreed with him. 
That intermittent diet of lumpkin and bear 
and remnants of supplies had "thrown him 
off.” He attempted to smile through the 
unnerving hours—did his bit when called 
upon, but he seemed.to sense the approach¬ 
ing disaster. 
They pushed on, always to the South, 
but never in a direct course, for it was 
necessary to seek water ways for the boat. 
There were times when the shallow 
sloughs and ribs of rock threatened to mu¬ 
tilate their little craft. And it was at such 
periods that the three of them were com¬ 
pelled to drag or lift the skiff across grind¬ 
ing portages. 
T HE reader should have an adequate 
idea of this country over which they 
were passing. The eye’s range took 
in only a desolate and monotonous stretch 
of flat ’Glades, occasionally brightened by 
tiny myrtle chimps or larger hammocks. 
These offered no relief—no change of per¬ 
spective or prospect. One almost identical 
with the other, they were comprised of 
similar verdure—the myrtle and the bay, 
rising seldom higher than from twelve to 
twenty feet; the profusion of Boston fern, 
growing from dark masses of vine, poison 
ivy, and custard apple. Sawgrass 
girdled them and made access diffi¬ 
cult. There . were snakes beyond 
counting. Moccasins, venomous and 
unmoved, lay stretched upon rotting 
bay trunks or glided sinuously 
through the low water. The oozy 
“plolop” of ’gators, many eight feet 
in length, was continuous and at 
night they “barked” incessantly. They 
sleep—by a strange provision of na¬ 
ture—with one eye always open and 
these eyes glare like pocket search¬ 
lights with a burning prismatic in¬ 
tensity that never loses its uncanny fascin¬ 
ation to a watcher in the dark. 
At noon, a stop was made on a sizable 
hammock. It was necessary to clear the 
vegetation with machetes, so numerous 
I were the reptiles. A nest of tiny, wrig- 
j gling coral snakes provided exciting sport 
j for the boys, who slashed at them right 
j and left until the ground danced with 
I severed remnants. The coral specimen is 
peculiarly beautiful. Its body is a shiny 
gun-barrel blue, looped at the throat by a 
brilliant band of geranium yellow. 
On this hammock Mr. King pointed out 
several bushes of wild coffee. The small 
berries, when munched, give a faint hint of 
' the cultivated bean. Indians brew a far 
from delectable concoction from them. 
Long ago, coffee plants—a few of them— 
; were brought over from other Tropic 
j shores and birds carried stray seeds to 
1 ’Glades propagation, where they finally 
lost caste in the great wilderness. 
It was here, also, that the explorers saw 
! their first battle royal between an eight 
1 foot rattler and its mortal enemy, the In- 
| digo snake. Catlow was slashing away at 
ithe underbrush to complete the clearing, 
'when he saw the combatants and called ex- 
'citedlv to his companions to come and see 
,the sport. 
The reptiles were too far along with 
'their misunderstanding to brook interfer¬ 
ence or to take notice of the audience. 
S== 
Serious Old 
\ELICAU ON A 
DEAD TREE. 
The Indigo snake has a masterful method 
quite his own in dealing with his venomous 
foe. Their thrashing bodies created no end 
of rumpus in the brush until as fine a 
specimen of diamond back as ever raised a 
rattle sank back lifeless across the ferns. 
The Indigo, sleek, blue-black and un¬ 
harmed, lost no time in hustling to cover. 
He greatly resembles the chicken snake 
when it comes to conflict. This specimen 
was easily eight feet long. 
All afternoon the party worked to the 
South in desperate little forages against 
contesting sloughs. Catlow and King, Jr., 
would pull the boat over almost dry 
stretches, whilst Mr. King led the way, 
calling back a word of caution, when he 
discovered treacherous limestone ridges 
camouflaged by muck. That five miles 
was sheer torture. They began to gag at 
the drinking water taken either from 
sloughs or sink-holes. It 
was dark and cloudy and 
filled with vegetable fibre. 
Far from quenching thirst, it 
seemed to aggravate it. Nor 
were they willing to stop 
long enough to go through 
the laborious processes of 
boiling and primitive filter¬ 
ing. The minutes were too 
precious! 
There were periods when 
the going was better-—peri¬ 
ods when four feet of muck 
and water gave the boat back 
its mission, with no one 
aboard. And once Mr. 
King, his .face reflecting a 
happier frame of mind, 
plowed back through knee- 
deep muck, to dangle a pro¬ 
testing blue sea-crab under 
Catlow’s nose. They were 
nearing Harney and the salt 
water! That night John 
managed to kill an owl. Its 
barred wings and clean, fine 
head invited the taxidermist’s art, aside 
from food considerations. He saved all 
that was preservable of this queer ’Glade 
hooter and wrapped him methodically in 
a bit of paper. 
“You act as if you expected to be home 
in a day or so,” grunted Catlow, who had 
watched operations with the scowling pes¬ 
simism which comes with illness. 
“Sure I do-—sometime!” was John’s 
quick rejoinder, “cheer up, old scout, 
we’re not dead yet, you know, even if the 
owl is.” 
S UPPER was not de luxe that night. 
For the most part, it consisted of a 
mess of grits and corn meal in a pip¬ 
ing hot blend. But the portions were pa¬ 
thetically meagre. Owl, it may be men¬ 
tioned, in an aside, is a cultivated taste. 
As before, camp was made in a myrtle 
clump. The mosquitoes were barbarous 
and no half-way preparations for the 
night were thinkable. First came two 
sturdy bay poles, with notches, for the 
rope; then the four corner stakes and the 
rain-proof fly. Netting on four sides was 
tucked in at the ground beneath sleeping 
blankets, with shotgun and rifles as added 
weight. The lantern hung at one end, its 
yellow light weirdly radiant in this vast 
darkness. 
A heavy fall of dew, coupled with one 
i 
