We lay in silence till at last, faintly, came the call of post one. I listened, trying to catch the quality of his voice, knowing I soon should have to imitate it. To the call of the next man I also listened. The third did not concern us more than to know he was on duty. No others called, so the guard had not been strengthened. These voices seemed to arouse Smilax, for he raised himself up on one elbow, whispering:

"What time they say?"

"Ten o'clock," I answered.

"Good. We fix 'em 'leven; come."

So the game was on! I followed silently—and savagely; for, as I have said, the human pawns who stood between me and my maid held no more value than the ants.

For about ten minutes our progress went reasonably well, then Smilax slowed to a pace of extreme caution and finally sank to his hands and knees. In this manner we crawled a few hundred yards farther.

"Here your place," he put his lips close to my ear and whispered. "First man not ve'y far; straight. You find out when he call once more, or flash light. Watch when Two man call so you know where go next. No let 'em call 'leven. Good. Me go now." And he was off like a snake to take up a position behind post two.

I felt about me and, finding the ground clear of any growth that might produce a noise, moved stealthily forward, still on my hands and knees; but, after each step, pausing and feeling ahead until my fingers seemed to have grown as long and sensitive as antennÆ. In this way I must have gone another two hundred feet when I saw a glimmer of white light. It was the electric torch, and I knew the sentry must be looking at his watch.

Fleeting as it had been it showed me that between us lay a patch of saw-palmetto, and this was awkward as I could get no idea of its depth. But since he did not call the post I knew that he would soon be taking another look at the time, and kept warily on, my eyes alert to ascertain the dimensions of that patch the instant his torch should flare. For I must crawl around it; to go through would be impossible. Smilax could have achieved it, but Smilax was a wonder.

The light showed again. I was within fifty feet of the patch now and saw with a feeling of relief that it ended almost at the spot where my man stood, or sat, or whatever he was doing. Still, the time had not come for him to call the half hour, when I should be able to advance more rapidly during the few seconds that his voice would make him insensible to other slight sounds. Inch by inch, almost holding my breath, I crawled. The pine needles let me slide along as though on a greased floor. My left hand touched a saw-toothed stem, so I veered slightly to the right, getting closer, all the while closer.

At the next flash I heard him clear his throat—that had ever been his prelude to a call—and by the time his sing-song "Post-one-half-past-ten-and-all's-well" ended I had made good progress. Now, close up behind the point of palmettoes which acted as a screen but was too sparse to offer interference, I realized that he could be not more than ten feet away; and this was the best I could hope to do, surely as close as I dared get.

But ten feet was too great a space to be crossed at a bound before he might utter one cry that would alarm the camp. One cry, even half a cry, meant ruin to us. It was not enough that this sentry die; he must die without having uttered the merest sound. I determined, therefore, to wait until his senses became focused, his breathing centered, on the eleven o'clock call; for, so occupied, his mind would be a fraction of a second slower in responding to an outside thought which came unawares to him than if he were standing on the alert for sounds. This seemed to be good psychology. When he cleared his throat to call eleven, therefore, I would spring—and the gods be with me!

I own that for a little while my heart did pound unmercifully, but with even less mercy I willed it to be calm. For the moment I almost regretted having come so near, because it seemed preposterous to suppose that he would not discover me. I could distinctly hear the slightest move he made—but it must be remembered that I was listening to him, whereas he did not suspect my existence. Once he knocked the dead ashes from his pipe against the heel of his boot; then I thought he was getting ready for a smoke, and soon after this he struck a match.

As the flame, sheltered by his two hands held cup-wise, flickered above the bowl I got a look at him. He impressed me as being a well put up fellow of considerable strength, who would not be conquered without trouble. But never have I seen a face present a pantomime of more brutal indifference. It was seamed with lines of cruelty; the coarse lips were hideously puckered about the pipe stem; his eyes drooped in bestial satisfaction as he sucked at it. While he was getting the light, thus creating a noise in his own ears that would drown a slighter noise from me, I took the opportunity to arrange my position somewhat, and now felt satisfied. With clean ground beneath me, with only a thin screen of palmetto leaves between us, how better could I have planned!

Minutes sped, and my senses seemed to have accumulated into a little ball between my eyes. I may have trembled; I know that my nerves were stretched to the very highest fighting pitch, they were in tune with my determination. The next half hour would decide the salvation or destruction of the girl I loved.

The electric torch flashed on a silver watch in his huge, dirty hand. I held my breath, ready—but he did not call. Again I had to will my heart to stop its sudden thumping; again I settled down to wait—though with my legs crouched and my fingers resting on the sand, as I had "set" many a time for a hundred yard dash. All I needed now was the word "Go!"

More minutes sped. At last he moved, and I guessed that he was reaching into his pocket for the torch. It flashed, shining on the silver watch as before. I heard the cover snap to with a click of finality; he cleared his throat—and I bounded into the air.

He had no time to cry out before my fingers locked upon his throat as jaws of iron. He staggered and caught my wrists, but did not immediately begin the frantic struggle I expected. His rifle fell to the soft earth with hardly a sound and, like a dead weight, he crumpled up; falling so quickly that I nearly came down on top of him.

At first, suspecting this might be a ruse to break my grip, I squeezed the tighter, holding his head up as far as my knees and shaking it with the savageness that a terrier would shake a rat. There was no room for compromises here. Grimly believing him to be beyond the point of giving an alarm, I was not prepared for an attack when he came to life with an energy born of desperation, wrapped his arms about my legs and with tremendous strength jerked me forward, at the same instant striking me in the back with his knee. Thus, to keep from pitching over his head, I involuntarily lost my hold—the last of all things I would have done!

Yet the effect to so violent a choking seemed for the moment to have paralyzed his power to call, and swiftly, as a darting hawk, I made another grab for the throat that must at all costs be silenced. He had covered it with his own hands and I could not pry away his fingers. Again and again I tried, and now, with growing strength, he caught my wrists and held them. Maddened by the specter of failure, I heard him drawing in a labored breath that I knew would come out in a hideous yell.

Success lay upon the fraction of a second. In a frenzy jerking one of my hands free, and throwing the full weight of my body across his face to momentarily smother the outcry, I twisted around, drew my knife, and plunged it deep into his side. There was a convulsive tremor, and silence. Yet, as the king snake had done, I also drew back warily, listening. It had been enough.

Springing up, and trying to calm my breathing, I called:

"Post one, 'leven o'clock, and all's-er-well!"

The last word had no more than been pronounced when I was moving swiftly, silently on post number two. True to his intention, Smilax had prepared the way.

"Post two, 'leven o'clock, and all's-er-well!" I called in an altered voice.

The sentry at post three, doubtless having a vein of humor or finding any variation of his tedious duty agreeable, dwelt in his turn long and almost lovingly over the "er-well," making it sound "e-e-er-well."

"How you like that?" he called, in a guarded tone, and receiving no answer, laughed: "Then go ter hell with yer perlite manners."

A few minutes elapsed before I was conscious of a movement in the water, slight, barely distinguishable. But my eyes had grown more and more accustomed to the darkness and I thought that I made out something coming toward the shore. Creeping a little forward and listening, I felt that it was Smilax carrying Sylvia, and became certain of this when someone was deposited there who began cautiously to climb the bank. Smilax, evidently, had turned back for Echochee. But along this section of the mainland the bank was steep, and the climber came with difficulty—once slipping and making what I thought to be an awful racket. Even the humorous sentry on post three heard it and, providentially unsuspicious, called:

"Yer ain't bit yerse'f, have yer?"

I made no answer to this, trusting him to be satisfied with his own wit. Yet now, following a most natural impulse, forgetting in our extreme peril that Sylvia was unaware of my presence, I leaned above the top and reached down to her; when, to my utter consternation, she gave a piercing scream of terror. Quick as a flash the sentry at post three yelled and fired his gun, and the sleeping camp became a bedlam of cursing men.

"For God's sake," I whispered—but Smilax had turned back to us and was beside her.

"Him friend," he said, hurriedly. "Only friend we got! Go with him quick! Me get Echochee!"

While saying this he was pushing her up to me, at the same time holding out a bag, or kind of traveling case, that she had dropped. I seized it with one hand, and her arm with the other.

"Quick; go to camp," Smilax was saying. "Me get Echochee and give 'em chase up coast. Be back soon; you wait there."

He had taken to the water again and was making for the Indian woman, who I thought had started out to meet him. So I knew he would rescue her, as surely as he was six and a half feet of muscle and endurance. The camp had become thoroughly aroused by now, and lights were everywhere. Hoping to reassure Sylvia, I whispered as Smilax would have spoken:

"Me friend; come quick!"

Above the confusion we could hear the voice of Efaw Kotee bellowing:

"Get the punts, you fools! Which way is she?"

"On the mainland," someone yelled.

"Then catch her," he bellowed again, with a string of blasphemous oaths.

This decided her, and she whispered wildly:

"Hurry! Take me where Tachachobee said!"

We dashed through the forest, I leading, she close behind. Nor had we any time to spare, for before we had gone a hundred yards two quick shots rang out. It was "li'l crack-crack" speaking, I felt sure of it.

Shots answered rapidly in threes and fours. The automatic spoke again, this time farther to the north, drawing more shots from the angry pursuers; but I knew that among trees so thick and in darkness so impenetrable Smilax and Echochee ran little chance of being hit. At the prairie, made vaguely lighter by a hazy, half grown moon, we crouched in the grass and waited.

You have never, I suppose, been afraid to breathe, flattened against a wall, or huddled in a shadowy place, listening to the growls and grunts and sniffs of the man-beast hunting you? No, of course not.

Men were now tearing through the forest like a herd of stampeded horses, shooting, yelling, cursing, while at brief intervals the automatic told them which way to go. Farther and farther the chase went, all the time following the coast and leading away from us till, after twenty minutes, the yells were hardly discernible and the shots sounded like faint little pops of a nursery gun. But they were as rapid as ever, telling us that the pursuit had in no way diminished. Smilax, undoubtedly master of the situation, would lead them on and on; either close by Big Cove so those aboard the Whim—had she made harbor—could take a hand, or finally lose them somewhere in the treacherous Everglades. Then he would came back for us. I felt no great uncertainty for Smilax and Echochee.

I now straightened up—taking care that she should not see my face—and listened to satisfy myself that no one had stayed behind to be roaming in the forest near us, then whispered:

"Come!"

In silence, she following, we crossed the two mile space, and I drew a deep breath of thankfulness when we at last stepped beneath the black trees of my "island."

I knew that she had taken me for a Seminole—at least, the probability seemed to be strong in that direction. The darkness again was too intense for her to see my features, and, since I had been fairly successful in speaking the choppy English of the Indian, I determined to continue the deception until morning. For she had become somewhat accustomed to the "trusted friend" by now, whereas re-introductions at this hour would be exceedingly awkward, if not quite disastrous to her peace of mind. So, without a halt, I walked on through the trees until we came to her tent. At the door of this I put down her bag, then stepped back and for a second at arm's length flashed my electric torch on it, again being careful to keep my face in shadow.

"You safe here," I said. "Tachachobee make this camp for you. Me and him camp little way off. To-night me watch to see when him and Echochee come. No one find you; you sleep well. Tachachobee good man; me and him friends. You no be 'fraid."

"Thank you," she said wearily. Ah, how tired her voice did seem!

"There water; good to drink. You hungry?" I asked.

"No, thank you,—what is your name?"

This was a poser, for I had not thought up a name. But, of course, Jack came first into my mind, so I answered:

"Jackachobee."

"No, thank you, Jackachobee," she said, "I'm not hungry."

"You want gun?" I asked again.

"I have one," she answered.

"Good. Then you sleep; no one find you here. In morning take time; when ready for breakfast walk back this way a hundred steps and whistle like plover. Then me come and show you way. Sleep good."

Thus, feeling very well satisfied with my Indian impersonation—which, nevertheless, had its faults—I left her; turning and going to the fort, there choosing a place where I could keep guard all night against possible danger.

Long and earnestly did I listen for some sound of the chase, but the night had grown absolutely still except for a soft breeze rustling the palm fronds above my head and the prairie grass in front of me. Yet I felt secure in the belief that Smilax had not been taken. Without question, he and Echochee were still in flight, heading toward some safe refuge; coaxing, by shot or cry, the furious pack that tore hopefully after them. I knew that my vigil here was unnecessary—that with all senses focused on the chase no straggler would by any chance be coming this far out into the prairie—but I had told Sylvia it would be kept.

As I sat there, joyous over the conquest we had made, but more supremely happy because she was safe and near me, thinking tumultuous things which were a credit to mankind, hoping hopes that man has never realized, I raised my face to the sky and thanked God.

Creature of incongruities! I thanked God for putting her safely into my keeping, when my fingers had not yet been washed after their bath in a fellow creature's blood! The cave man had gone abroad at dusk to find a mate, and human pawns who stood in his way had been of no more consequence than ants!

Thus it has always been for the women we love. Thus it should be.