All-Story Weekly, Vol. 112, No. 1 — page 55: what you’re looking at

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THE ONE GIFT. a deer. And there was something about him that gave them a shiver of fear, kept them silent. CHAPTER XXV. BEFORE THE FLOOD. T was near that creation of the white man’s magic, the flying-iron, that Blue Otter took up his stand on a slab of lime-rock free from the mud where the water came barely to his ankles. The plane lay there huge and cumbrous, awk- ward. At the side of it stood the Indian, silhouetted against the pale swamp-light, a sort of a wingless angel. To have seen them there like that one would have been moved to say: “Here is the masterpiece of man; and here is the masterpiece of God.” _ Blue Otter was worthy of his Maker, naked and clean, and free from blemish, in the flower of his strength, slender and thewed like an athlete. In his movements there was a perfect and natural grace, as in the movements of a stag. “* Hesukatemeesee!” he called. Spirit! Great Spirit!” He clenched his fists and brought them to his shoulders. He threw his head far back. He crouched a little and drew up first one knee, then another, as if he were performing the first step of some sacred dance. ““Why am I thus hurt?” He threw his arms down and back and held them rigid, and gradually there was no more movement about him except the straining rise and fall of his breast. “You tell me that I have my choice. What is my choice? I may have the one gift. Which shall it be? Her? AHer? HER? Or the water to free the flying- iron and send her away in this other’s arms?” ; ‘“’ Great The meteorological reports for lower Florida will show you that on this night there had been local showers, accompanied by some electrical disturbance, along most of the southerly coasts and outlying keys. Yet these showers could scarcely have ac- 45 counted for what happened. Perhaps more to the point would be the report of Profes- sor Studebaker, of the New York Botani- cal Gardens, who had been cactus hunting in the region of Madeira Bay. For days, according to him, there had been such a drift of water from the coast (in response to a northerly wind) that the whole bay had gone dry. Then the wind had sud- denly veered, and “zt looked as if all the water in the Gulf were piling back upon us in a tidal wave.” The Seminoles have a different explana- tion: “Big medicine! Blue Otter, he talked to the great serpent, and the great serpent had to obey; for from Hesukatemeesee, did not Blue Otter have the gift?” Blind Heron sits at the side of the camp- fire and tells the tale. The children, the women, and the other men sit around in ‘the light of the fire, silent and touched with awe. Their eyes shine. They listen. Blind Heron’s voice is like a murmur of leaves. He is old and sad, but he smiles. Suddenly, out of his dreaming, Lieuten- ant Lathrop uttered a little cry. His first glance about him told him that it was al- most dawn. ‘What is it?” asked the girl. She also had slept. She started up and looked about her. She saw nothing but the level Everglades in the fading dark- ness. The night had gone. There for a moment she thought she heard a chant; she thought she heard the lulling, pathetic voice of Blue Otter. But, just then an owl hooted, and a whole Niagara of sound was let loose—the billion frogs and crickets that feared nothing, the challenging bellow of the big alligators, scattered and far away. ° Lathrop leaned forward. “Water!” he cried. ‘See! The water is rushing back. It is-rising fast.” “Blue Otter!” She was smitten by some thought that stopped her voice. But Lathrop had swiftly, almost brusk- ly, disengaged himself from the girl. He was the fighting man. At a monent like this there was emotion for nothing but victory. comiclboolk C©