The Project Gutenberg EBook of Kastle Krags, by Absalom Martin

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: Kastle Krags
A Story of Mystery

Author: Absalom Martin

Release Date: August 29, 2010 [EBook #33569]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KASTLE KRAGS ***

Produced by D Alexander and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive)

KASTLE KRAGS

A STORY OF MYSTERY

BY
ABSALOM MARTIN

NEW YORK
DUFFIELD AND COMPANY
1922

Copyright, 1921, 1922
BY DUFFIELD & COMPANY

Printed in U. S. A.

KASTLE KRAGS

CHAPTER I

Who could forget the Ochakee River, and the valley through which it
flows! The river itself rises in one of those lost and nameless lakes in
the Floridan central ridge, then is hidden at once in the live oak and
cypress forests that creep inland from the coasts. But it can never be
said truly to flow. Over the billiard-table flatness of that land it
moves so slowly and silently that it gives the effect of a lake stirred
by the wind. These dark waters, and the moss-draped woodlands through
which they move, are the especial treasure-field and delight of the
naturalist and scientist from the great universities of the North.

It is a lost river; and it is still a common thing to see a brown,
lifeless, floating log suddenly flash, strike, and galvanize into a
diving alligator. The manatee, that grotesque, hair-lipped caricature of
a sea-lion, still paddles in the lower waters; and the great gar, who
could remember, if he would, the days when the nightmare wings of the
pterodactyls whipped and hummed over his native waters, makes deadly
hunting-trips up and down the stream, sword-like jaws all set and ready;
and all manner of smaller fry offer pleasing possibilities to the
sportsmen. The water-fowl swarm in countless numbers: fleet-winged
travelers such as ducks and geese, long-legged dignitaries of the crane
and heron tribe, gay-colored birds that flash by and out of sight before
the eye can identify them, and bitterns, like town-criers, booming the
river new