t in cabin. Old woman live with her; Injun squaw; me know by way she
walk. Before day we go hide in good place on shore. Watch all day and
see. Must watch all day, or they see us if we leave 'fore dark. Now you
smoke; then we go 'sleep l'il while."

Sleep! How could I sleep while she was within three miles of me,
surrounded by ten or a dozen devils the combined virtues of whom would
not fill a gnat's eye! Of course, she had lived in this situation for
years, but I had not heard of it until very recently, and that makes a
world of difference.

But after we got back to camp and I had stretched out on my blanket to
let the telescope of my fancies pierce the realm of hopes, sleep did
come. I would not have believed it, but it did; for soon I realized that
some one was shaking my arm, while a voice said over and over:

"Time we go; time we go!"

It was yet night when I opened my eyes, but Smilax had lit a small
buttonwood fire and breakfast was waiting. While I stumbled to the pool
to drive the cobwebs from my brain he took the canteens and filled them
at the spring; for, in the all-day strain ahead of us--and few things
are more trying than to lie concealed and watch from the gray of dawn
till the black of night--we should need a liberal supply of water.

"Shall we take rifles?" I asked, when everything was ready and each of
us had our snack of food.

"No," he answered. "Too hard to crawl like snake. They no see us to-day.
We take l'il crack-crack."

"Little crack-crack" meant an automatic revolver, greatly admired by
Smilax and, since Tommy's coaching, handled by him with no mean skill.
So I swung one of these to the small of my back, into position when we
should begin crawling, and handed him the other; whereupon, without
further ado, we traversed the "island" and melted into the prairie.
Forty minutes later Smilax moving slowly and cautiously ahead, entered
the narrow strip of forest. Another ten minutes, and we got to our hands
and knees. In this way we proceeded perhaps a hundred yards when,
putting his lips close to my ear, he whispered:

"We hide here; come still like snake."

I put out my hand and felt the ragged edge of saw-palmetto, then slipped
in behind him, moving scarcely more than a yard a minute. Heaven help
us, I thought, if we had to lie on that torturous stuff for fifteen
hours! But Smilax was equal to every occasion. When we reached the far
side of the patch, leaving only a fringe of leaves to