ADVENTURES IN 
COMRADESHIP 
(Continued from page 71) 
too dense to attempt a bold forage 
through its heart, and we consequently 
bore off to the right, coming out on the 
former shore line, to the southward. 
It was comparatively easy walking 
here, because we had the benefit of the 
sandy beach, now high and dry. 
For two miles we kept to the narrow 
strip of hammock beach, a million tiny 
crustaceans crunching under foot. At 
our left, dancing under the sun, lay 
flat, island-dotted country to the point 
where it met the horizon. Sometimes, 
when the wind blew in from those terri- 
ble ’gator holes, or muck-filled sloughs, 
the stench was almost more than we 
could bear—the stench of decaying fish. 
The receding water had left wide areas 
of alternate projecting marl and limc- 
stone and dazzling sand, to say noth- 
ing of the criss-cross patterns of the 
sloughs, now clearly seen in the sun- 
light, now disappearing into the great 
oceans of sawegrass. 
Tragedies there were on every side, 
but it was the sloughs which seemed to 
provide the grim drama, the pathos. 
The muck was often dotted in half-mile 
zones, with the husks of fish—mere 
sun-dried shells from which vultures 
had long since torn all meat. Con- 
spicuous were the cylindrical, metallic 
shapes of the sinister Gar, their long 
snouts, serrated and vicious, yawning 
to the glow of the insistent heat. Oc- 
casionally we came upon a black and 
ooze-chocked ditch down which many 
Seminoles shad poled their cypress 
*glade skiffs and canoes, in days gone 
by, a fact which could be easily sub- 
stantiated by the parted sawgrass and 
the snow-white pig-weed, bent ever so 
little by slaps from poles. The pig- 
weed is made to mark the trail, but it 
is done with such infinite skill that 
only an Indian would detect these 
twisting, deviously - fashioned water 
lanes through miles of grass. 
No part of this tragic picture es- 
caped Sonnyboy, who was fascinated 
and impressed by the drama _ being 
enacted. Now the real Everglades 
asserted their claim to mystery and 
tropic delight. It was one thing to 
motor along a marl road, and quite 
another to explore a large hammock. 
On our right the wall of jungle 
rose, the myrtle and bay predominat- 
ing. But lack of water was beginning 
to tell and the scrub oaks were the 
first to suffer. Their topmost plumage 
was beginning to turn a= sickly, 
anemic, brownish green. On rounding 
sharp turns, we surprised flocks of 
aquatic fowl and up they scurried at 
our unexpected approach, herons and 
gulls, lumbering vultures and mincing 
little spindle-legged, pointed-bill birds 
with an amazing penchant for forag- 
ing food on the damp muck-banks of 
the sloughs. 
“In the midst of life we are in 
death.” 
The thought was recurrent. For an 
inexorable Fate had settled over this ~ 
majestic place. Things which since the 
beginning of Time had subsisted on 
water—the pure, fresh water of the 
Everglades, when uncontaminated by 
outside influences—the healing, life- 
giving six- to eight-foot flow, were 
doomed! Now that Tamiami Trail 
Canal sucked the very heart out of 
the area. 
A sizeable ridge of hard marl per- 
mitted us to walk several hundred feet 
out from the hammock, at this junc- 
ture, and I led the way to an immense 
depression, flanked by sawgrass almost 

ALONG THE ROUTE OF THE CANAL, WHERE HOMESTEADERS ARE ALREADY 
BEGINNING TO GATHER, WITH AN EYE TO THE RICH MUCK LANDS OF THE HAM- 
MOCKS, SUCH MOTOR EQUIPMENT AS THIS IS OFTEN SEEN. 
SONNYBOY WAS 
ALL FOR TRYING A TOUR IN THIS MANNER 
Page 95 


a 
SONNYBOY WEARING THE FLORIDA 
SMILE THAT REFUSES TO BE ERASED. 
HE LOVED WATERWAYS AND BOATS 
as high as our heads. In the center of 
it a little mucky water, like a paste, 
remained. Here was one squirming 
mass of large and small fish in their 
last death struggle! Mud-daubed gar 
thrashed and snapped at their fellow 
sufferers, mean-dispositioned as_ al- 
ways. A pitiful collection of minnows, 
in one congested and solidified “stew,” 
seemed almost to rise and fall with the 
regularity of breathing. On the far 
side, lazily coiled in the cool shadows 
of the grass and a single myrtle clump, 
was an enormous water moccasin. 
“Kill it,’ I said to Sonnyboy, “good 
practice.” 
The rifle went to his shoulder and 
for a nervous minute he remained 
poised. Then there was a report, a 
tiny puff of smoke against the gold of 
the sunshine, and the repulsive reptile 
slumped flat upon the bed of muck, shot 
through the head! It was a perfect 
example of marksmanship. 
But Sonnyboy could not keep his eyes 
from the dying fish. 
“There’s no way to save them?” he 
inquired. 
“No,” I assured him, “there are two 
conflicting forces at work out here: 
Nature and Man. And Man appears 
to be winning. All of this great Ever- 
glade country has meant nothing to 
Florida—ever. It was a realm of 
muck, water and wilderness. Now it 
is being’ reclaimed and will be put to 
practical use. We are living to see the 
