When I got that
far I got mighty careful, an' the way I coaxed that little craft in
between them cypresses was so quiet that I didn't even wake up the
water moccasins asleep on the roots. When I came near the outer edge
of the cypress, I fastened the canoe to a root and crept forward on
hands an' feet from one cypress tussock to another, sorter calculatin'
that I'd make less noise that way than in the boat. At last, I got
where I could glimpse out between the trees and get a view of the fire.
There was the whole twelve of them rascals workin' away as hard as
honest men. I watched them quite a while afore I caught on to what
they was doing, an', when I found out, it didn't make me feel any
easier. Lads, they was hollowing out the biggest dugout you ever seed.
They had got a giant of a cypress chopped down, hewed it sharp at both
ends and were burning it out inside with fire. While I was watchin',
that varmint of an Injin, Charley, left the gang an' struck into the
cypress an' passed by so close to where I was hid that I was sartin
sure he'd see me, but he didn't. I lay still there for hours, afeard
to move for fear I'd meet him comin' back. It was most sundown when he
returned, and I stayed on quite a bit after that listenin' to the
conversation. As I guessed, he had been out scouting an' had found out
that we were on the island an' that his tribe was too far away to
interfere with any plans he had in his head. Cute as he was, though,
he hadn't learned that the old chief was dead and the young one gone
for help. When I had learned all I could, I crawled back to the canoe
and struck out for the island. It was being cramped up so long in one
position in the cypress and in the canoe, that made me so stiff and
sore."

"They surely can't be so reckless as to think of entering this swamp!"
exclaimed Charley.

"'Tain't so very reckless, the way they look at it," observed the
captain. "You see they think that the Indians are all far off an'
ain't likely to come back for some weeks. When the redskins started on
their hunt they left plenty of signs behind to tell where they had
gone, and them signs are plainer than print to Injin Charley. Now,
them fellows figures they can drop down on this island, kill off all
hands but the chief, an' torture him 'till he gives up the plumes he's
counted on havin', an' be off, an' safe out of reach afore the
Seminoles return from their hunt. No, it ain't such a foolish sort of
u