All-Story Weekly, Vol. 112, No. 1 — page 13: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE ONE GIFT, green. They knew by experience, though, where the palmetto ripened first. That was up around the old clearing where the camp had stood, There was a rush in that direction, then a squeal, a halt, and silence. Standing there in the center of the clear- ing was a figure that appeared to be the figure of a ghost. It appeared to be the ghost of a woman. And, the woman was white. CHAPTER II. CIRCE. HERE was still a number of ruined chukos, or Seminole lodges, in the midst of the clearing, the cypress posts and platforms of these standing solidly, but the thatched roofs fallen in or. missing. Against the platform of one o these lodges the woman leaned. For a long time she did not move at all—nor the hogs, that stood there and watched her— _ while the trees dripped and the darkness faded still more. Over there beyond the eastern edge of the Everglades the sun was rising. The owls were still hooting, but now there was an occasional tinkle and chirp of music that meant that other birds were beginning to stir. The woman took a low step. The hogs wheeled as if they were on pivots and sped for ten or twenty paces through the brush. But here they pivoted and faced the camp agair. | The woman had half-collapsed on the cypress platform of the chuko, once more was motionless. It was as if the surrounding jungle itself looked on. In the dawning light, each tree emerged as an individual silhouette—like friendly but wondering and silent giants. They wept their tears of heavy dew. And well they might. As the light strengthened, it was revealed that the woman was very young, not much more than a girl. She had an abundance of light and wavy hair. This was in great disorder, as if long neglected. But nothing could destroy the beauty of it. You would have said that the same was true of her face. Her face was pinched. There were hollows about her eyes. But this merely served to bring out the fine configuration of it—the underlying grace and strength of cheek and chin. . She was dressed in what might have been a riding-suit—breeches and boots and a long coat—but the outfit was sogged and muddied almost past recognition, scratched and torn. Nor had the saw-grass and thorns spared her delicate flesh. There was a scratch across one of her milk-white temples. There were many scratches on her small left hand. So there may have been on her right hand, or a more serious hurt, for this was bound up in a rag of a cambric handkerchief. What had brought her here? There was no telling, unless a clue was furnished by the faded orchid that still garnished the lapel of her coat. It was easy to lose yourself in the Big Cypress Swamp, when lured away from the trail by flowers or butterflies. For most of the Big Cypress, during much of the year—during this part of the year, especially—was not so much like a wilderness as it was like a garden—a rich man’s garden, of countless acres, laid out by the master of all land- scape-gardeners. | . There were smiling prairies of level grass, these dotted with ornamental groups of palm and palmetto, with toy islands of oak and flowering shrubs, and these prairies shored like lakes with receding headlands where the cypress stood solid, in all the shades of purple and silver, green and blue. The whole Big Cypress was like a haunted garden, fit to turn the head of .anyone. . But the girl kept her mystery to herself, She seemed to be past the power of call- ing for help, past the power of anything except that last clinging grip on life and consciousness as she leaned there against the platform of the ruined Seminole lodge. Her face was down. But she stared up and away into the distance. She did not see the wild hogs that stood there alert on the edge of the clearing. The hogs stood in a wide half-circle, snouts uplifted, staring at her with their intelligent, malicious little eyes, ready to flee again at her slightest threat, but pos- sibly feeling within themselves the growth COmiIclooOo SS C©