ut that seemed to be his way of telling me to put my
mind at rest. Yet I persisted with another question:

"How do you know we haven't passed them already?"

"Me know," he grinned. "All right; you smoke."

He was a funny cuss, but I let it go at that.

Biscuits, bacon and coffee might properly be called the Woodsmen's
Ambrosia, but it is not a feast over which man is inclined to loiter,
and Smilax was soon re-wrapping the pack.

Up to this time I had walked practically empty handed, yet now I
conscientiously rebelled, insisting that a share of the load must rest
upon my shoulders. But here he showed himself as obdurate as a mule
until, arbitrarily, I strapped on our second automatic, took out our
second rifle, and filled my pockets with extra cartridges. He raised no
objection to this; he even approved it. We were getting down into the
Death river country and ready fire-arms made agreeable companions.
Furthermore, at his direction I tied the rather goodly supply of
buttonwood into a bundle and swung it to my back.

Toward evening we saw on our left evidences of open country and bore in
that direction, for when one has walked many hours in the shadows of
interlocking branches it is as natural to be drawn toward a spot of
sunlight as it would be to approach an open window after having been
confined in a dismal room. So we bore in that direction and came to the
edge of a vast prairie stretching before us as a sea of lifeless grass.

Except for a gray line on its horizon, marking, I afterward learned, the
boundary of the Great Cypress Swamp, there was but a single break on
this expansive waste. That was a rich growth of trees about two miles
out, to the southeast of us; an oasis, it would have been called in the
Sahara, but in the Florida prairies known as an "island." Whether this
term of "island" finds origin in the similarity of these verdant places
to real islands, seeming as they do to float upon an inland sea of
grass, or whether because, being of higher ground, they actually become
islands during rainy seasons when much of the prairie land is inundated,
the native "cracker" is unable to explain. At any rate, fanned by the
prairie breeze, they afford agreeable shelter where, in perfect
seclusion, one may look out upon the surrounding country for great
distances.

"We camp there," Smilax nodded.

"A good place," I affirmed.

"You stay hide," he said again. "Me find out if nobody 'round to see us
go."

"Wh