Beadle's Dime Library No. 247 — page 6: what you’re looking at

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

6 have myself not a little curiosity about the in- Alligator Ike. Grey flushed slightly as he answered: terior of Florida, and my son Julian is feisly " ‘* Well, did I not? But for me you would have e crazy to explore that mysterious lake, of whic we have all heard so much, that goes by the name of Okeechobee.” en hunted down, ten years ago, when the Ku Klux Klan was raiding through all the South- ern States. Irecognized your handiwork and He stopped and looked at Ike, but the bunter | could have laid my hand upon you.” only refilled his pipe and smoked on, At last the colonel said: ‘*T have made up my mind, if possible, to re- move the vail that lies between our country and this mysterious lake. Here we are in an age of progres:, and we Americans know as little of the interior of Florida and the Everglades as if it lay in the middle of Africa.” ‘*Hum!” observed the alligator-hunter, ‘I reckon ye ain’t fur wrong, far as Yanks is con- cerned. And what’s more, ye ain’t likely to know much more nuther, cunne!,” His black beard curled scornfully as he spoke, and Julian replied innocently: ‘*But if you'll guide us to the lake, we are willing to pay well.” Alligator Ike shook his head. ‘°Tain’t no use, boy. The lake ain’t in my keepin’. Them as lives round it won’t stand no Yanks trapesin’’bout ’em. Anywhar else ye like. Thar’s Injun river—why don’t ye go thar? That's the place fur sick folk; have to move to the next county to die; can’t die on Injun river. Good fishing, hunting, anything ye want. Oranges and bananas for the trouble of picking. Pll guide ye there any time ye say.” ** Ay. ay,” returned Colonel Grey more heart- ily; ‘‘ I’ve heard a good deal of Indian river. lt’s a very charming place, they say. But that’s on the coast, isn’t it? How could we get there with the yacht? She’s not large enough to go outside, you know.” ‘*Pon’t want her,” retorted Alligator Ike. **Go up beyond Mellonville a way with the boat till there’s no more water, and then we’ll find wagons to go’cross the sand flats to Smyrna or Fort Canaveral. It’s better for the ladies. They couldn’t never get to Okeechobee, nor you nuther,” **T tell you what we’d better do,” remarked Julian, eagerly. ‘‘Supposs we go to Indian river, which you say is such a nice place and leave the girls at the hotel? Send the yacht round alone.”’ Alligator Ike chuckled rudely. ** Hotel! Well, Yank, and whar’s the hotel to come from? Nary hotel will you find thar, only afew planters like Dummits, who live in log houses and eat hog and hominy. Ain’t no hotels nearer’n Jacksonville and St, Augustine.” ** Then what are we to do if we don’t take the yacht with us?’ asked Julian, puzzled. ‘‘Hum! Ask yer dad. He never had no hotels for four year or so, did he?” Colonel Gray smiled. ‘* No, Wecan be independent of hotels in a climate like this, Julian. You know I had some tents packed away in the hold, I think we can get along at Indian river.” ‘*But when we get there,” pursued Julian, ‘‘T don’t want to stay there. I want tosee the lake that every one talks about and no one has seen. Alligator Ike shook his head. ‘*Some’s seen it and didn’t think it what it was cracked up to be. Mebbe you'll say the same when you git thar, if you ever do.” ** T’ll get there if you guide me,” said Julian. ** Will you do it?” ’ Colonel Grey interposed. ** We won’t ask him yet. Wait till we get to Indian river, and then we'll see. In the mean time, I suppose you can put us in the way of hunting, Ike?” Ike nodded indifferently. ** Ay, ay; all ye want. hit anything if ye don’t shoot straight. d’ye want to go to-morrow?’ ‘** As high up the river as we can, and thence to Indian river,” said the colonel. Ike nodded and resumed his pipe. “ Allright; Dil be thar with ye.” Then he leaned back against the tree and closed his eyes in a manner that showed plainly he did not intend to be disturbed any further. ; The colonel looked at him a moment and then made a signal to Julian to goaway. The young man obeyed in silence, and Grey remained seated on his piece of coquina rock, lookin into the fire till the footsteps of his son had di Then he looked at Alligator Ike and found that the dark, glittering eyes of the hunter had open- ed again, and that Ike was looking at him from under his bent brows. Grey coughed slightly as if embarrassed, but Ike said nothing, and it was the Massachusetts man who began at last. ‘**Colonel Pey—” ‘“*] told ye once that name was dropped,” said Alligator Ike, harshly. ‘‘ My name’s Ike Strang, or Alligator Ike, whichever ye choose.” ‘* Well then, Ike, what is the reason that you repodinte my kindness in this way?” asked the colonel, mildly. ‘‘I wish to befriend you, if I can, as you once befriended me—” Alligator Ike interrupted him with a low, bit- ter laugh. ** Yes, you befriended me—you did.” But I can’t make ye har ** And why did you not?” asked the hunter in | a tone of some scorn. | “You know well why. Because you had been my friend in the days gone by, and because my wife was a Southern woman and related to you. ‘““Indeed. A great reason truly,” retorted the hunter, in the same disdainful way. ‘* You’re sure there was no other?” ‘* What other could. there be?” asked Grey. Miter that you couldn’t have taken me,” returned Ike, in his most sarcastic tones, “I never yet surrendered to a Yankee, and it’s too late to begin now. If ye think I would, call on all your men out yonder. I’m one, and you are five or six. There’s a price on my head yet, I believe. Earn it, if ye dare.” ‘You know well enough that I wouldn't do any such thing,” said Grey, warmly. ‘‘In the first place, it’s all nonsense talking of a reward being put on your head, Jt has lapsed long ago under the Scatute of Limitations. The war ended nearly twenty years since, and we are quite satisfied to let the issues rest, Why can’t you do the same? You have property yet, plenty of it, which you could get for the mere formality of coming in and taking the oath. Why should you doom yourself to the life of a hermit, out here in the cedar swamps, when you might be a civilized man among men, in the en- joyment of full citizenship?” ‘You ask why,” said Alligator Ike, in a pecu- liar tone. ‘As if you didn’t know—you, the only man of all your cursed section that does,” ‘Upon my soul,” returned Grey, earnestly; *‘on my word as a man, Ido not know any rea- son why you should not come in, take the oath and resume possession of your property.” Alligator Ike curled his lip. **Yes, I suppose I might, at the cost of giving up all I once held dear, confessing myself to be worthy of death, and swearing allegiance to the cause I hate; but I shall never do it, Grey. You mean well, but you don’t knowall. You’ve forced me to become your guide, but I told you you’d be sorry forit. Tis not toolate to retreat now. Iwish younoill. Let me go away,” ** Pll do no such thing,” returned Grey, firm- ly. ‘Pll stick to you now till [ bring you back under the flag, or I'll lose my life,” CHAPTER VIIL. INDIAN RIVER. ALITTLE train vf wagons,three in number, was making itsslow and tedious way through the pine barrens between the St. John’s and Indian rivers a few days after the meeting of Qolonel Grey and Alligator Ike, accompanied by three mounted men, when one of them, who bad been riding ahead, drew up his pony, waved his hat in the air, and cried out: ‘* Here we are, father! Here’s Indian river!” The speaker was Julian Grey, and the glitter of water before them was that celebrated inlet that goes by the name of Indian river. If you will take a good-sized map of the Southeastern States and look at Florida, you will notice that the St. John’s river rises in a great marshy tract marked “‘Cedar Swamp,” runs nearly nortb- west, ar to the coast, for about a hundred and fifty miles, and then falls into the Atlantic near the border of Georgia, at Jacksonville, the great head-quarters of the Southern lumber trade. Looking along the Atlantic coast from the rhouth of the St. John’s to Cape Florida, you will sce that it is protected from storms all the way by barrier reefs and sandspits, which form long, narrow inlets. One of these, south of Anastasia Island and St. Augustine, is called Mosquito Inlet; and the next south of that, with a length of a bundred miles or more, is known as Indian river, and is famous for the most entirely lovely winter cli- mate in the Union, The Grey family were stowed away, with all or most of their belongings, in Conestoga wagons, drawn by mules and oxen, as the owner of the wagon happened to have them, in the true slovenly, shiftless ‘‘ cracker” style. The ladies and the cook rode in the wagons, and, by scouring the whole wig for some twenty miles, three ponies were finally procured for the use of Alligator Ike, the colonel and Julian. They were little, scrubby, unkempt beasts, that had roamed the pine barrens for years, and, being seldom ridden, were full of tricks and vice, but a few hours’ riding under heavy weights had reduced them to comparative quiet, and they had behaved quite well on the road, after the first fight for su Derg fs The road from Mellonville, head o navige tion on the St. John’s river, if road it could called, was an old wagon-track over deep sand, with a desolate waste of pines stretching all round, as far as vision extended. The trees were large and handsome to be sure; many of them rising a bundred feet in the clear, with boles six feet fa | Le Sn but little shade with their thin spiky foliage, | and had that peculiar dried-up dusty appear- | | | | ance, which has given the tract in which they grow the name of “ Barrens.” The ground was white sand, carpeted under the trees with a Jayer of brown spines and dead cones, slippery and hot to the touch. few grayish-green spears of thin wiry grass grew in the open spots; but nowhere did there seem to be any good, honest green turf. The road was easily traced far ahead by the line of old tracks, but vanished as the wagons rolled nearer, though the slight depression could still be traced ahead, and Alligator Ike seemed to be confident of his way. The wagons toiled slowly along, the wheels sinking deep into the sand, the axles creaking sadly in a monotonous and mournful cry that had its effect in damping the spirits of the party. Alligator Ike told them that the distance | from Mellonville to Mosquito Inlet was only about ten miles, but wey preferred to go & little south of this, to the head of Indian river inlet, nearly double the distance, as be assured them that there was at least a house | | | | i eS pega (e0) there, where dwelt a ‘* Yank,” as he expressed it, who kept a sailboat and had a house where he took boarders if they chanced to come his way. And that twenty miles cost them two long and weary days’ journey, with a night camp in the pine barrens, by the border of a dark and dismal-looking pool, where they heard the cry of wolves all night long, with the wailing note of the panther, as the hunter told them, when they asked him what it was, The ladies of the party were frightened até the idea of wolves and panthers, but Ike told them they ran no danger as long as they kept up good fires, and this was an easy matter in the pine barrens, where the dry trees stood round them for the mere trouble of cutting, and fallen branches, dry as tinder, were ready to start a blaze. Alice Grey and Inez Zuniga were especially timid at their lonely and unaccustomed position, but Mrs, Grey, for some reason, seemed to havo no fear, and Alice declared that her mother looked as if she was used to it, and rather liked it than not, The white-haired lady smiled rather sadly, and told her daughter: ‘*Tt is true, Alice, times,” ‘Old times!” echoed Alice. were you ever here before?” ‘I was, dear, lor than you are now. Never mind asking questions, I'll tell you, some day. Hark! what’s that?” It was thecry of a panther, close to the camp, and all the men gathered by the fire to heap on wood and watch for the animal, which they coul? see prowling about like a ghost, steslthy and noiseless, just outside the line of the fire- light, its green eyes glaring hungrily at them. Julian had brought out a Winchester rifle and wanted to fire at it, but Alligator Ike dryly sa It reminds me of old ‘Whvr, mother, id: **Don’t ye do it, young feller, Ye don’t know painters as we do in Florriddy. They ain’t like your Yankee painters.” ‘* What do you mean?” asked Julian, nei tled at the comparison, and ready to stand up for the honor of his section, even in wild beasts, Alligator Ike er a dry sniff, ‘*] mean that Yankee painters is cowed down by the crowds round them. They get shot at so often, they know the danger. These fellows don’t. You send a shot into that painter, and he’ll charge, like a hull company of raging devils.” ‘*¢ But surely we can shoot him,” said Julian. ‘“Mebbe you kin, mebbe you'll miss him. He won’t miss you; that’s one sart’in thing. And if he begins to chaw any one in this party, you kin bet your boots he’ll leave bis murk,” Julian looked at the brown, stealthily-moving beast, and concluded it might be better not to disturb it, in which he was wise, The panther of Florida is a very different beast from his cousin in the Northern woods, crowded by settlements, and accustomed to be hunted by man, In a country where the population averages less than four people to the square mile, where nearly half the available territory is vini.r water part of the year, and there are maa thousands of square miles entirely unoccupied, the wild beasts are bold, and none bolder than the panther or painter, which will face man in broad daylight, and hunt bim at night as if he were its legitimate prey. The tourists were compelled to keep awake most of the night to feed their fires, and counted three brown, stealthily gliding brutes, sneaking round the camp. : When they went on in the morning, they found the tracks in the sand, all round their camp, and found from the size of one of them that they had missed seeing the “ largest pain- ter,” as lke said, ‘‘ he’d ever known to be hang- in’ round,” : Julian was wild to organize a hunt, but the alligator-killer told him they would have time iad but they gave ' enough for that after they got to Indian river, } ago, when I was younger micboo (E S) - Gans ‘