Higgins sat facing the silent Seminole, who swiftly paddled the long dugout out of the little lake before the house and into a sluggish creek running into it from the northeast. The Indian wore the mauve-tinted, gaudily embroidered dress shirt of his tribe, but as a concession to civilization he had donned a pair of overalls so much too large for him that the belt was high round his strapping chest.

"What name did she call you by, Willy?" asked the engineer.

"Me Willy Tiger."

"Tiger doesn't fit you, Willy."

Higgins dipped his hand overboard and sprinkled water on the Indian's head.

"I hereby christen you Willy High Pockets. And may they never be empty."

An awful contortion took place upon the Seminole's mahogany features.
He was trying to grin.

"You give good Seminole why-o-me," he said, ceasing his paddling to rub his stomach. "Willy Tiger——"

"High Pockets!"

"Willy High Pock' sick. Why-o-me make strong."

"So that's how they miscall hooch down in this country," ruminated Higgins. "No, Willy; we don't pack any liquor. Shall I give him a piece of plug?"

"Suit yourself—if you've got any."

"Got any? Never go into an Indian country without it."

Higgins produced from his bag a slab of plug tobacco which made Willy's mouth water.

"Willy," said Payne suddenly, "who is Mr. Garman?"

"Donno."

"Put your tobacco away, Higgins."

"Garman big boss," said the Indian swiftly. "Esoka-bonus-che-tobacco. You give."

"Boss of what?"

Without taking his eyes from the plug Willy's right arm described an eloquent arc embracing the earth, the water, the sky, about them.

"Big boss—all country! Good tobacco. Strong——"

"Boss of the whole country, eh? What business is he in?"

"Donno."

"Where is he now?"

"Donno."

"What makes him boss of this country?"

"Donno."

"And there you are," laughed Higgins. "Willy looks different from a regular Indian; but they're all alike. He loosened up to get this piece of plug; now he 'dunno' anything."

"Donno," repeated Willy monotonously.

As the dugout scraped and stuck on the bottom the Indian doffed his overalls and displayed the full gorgeousness of the Seminole dress shirt. Payne wondered how in the souls of these swamp dwellers there had developed a taste for a hue as delicate as the pink of the flamingo. Bands of red, yellow, scarlet, mauve and black were embroidered upon the cloth, and upon the shoulders were scarlet tufts resembling epaulets. Willy stepped overboard, barefooted and nude save for his rolled up shirt, and began to shove. A three-foot water moccasin lay coiled on a mud bank in his path and the Indian's bare foot flung it aside as one might kick away a stick. Presently he paused, deep in liquid mud to his thighs, his feet working on something below.

"Alpate," he said. "'Gator."

A commotion followed in the mud; a dark knob appeared above water. There was a thrashing and upheaval and the Indian threw a half-grown alligator upon the bank and dispatched it with a blow from his camp ax.

A few rods farther on the canoe was over the shallows and floating easily in a flooded jungle of saw grass which stretched away as far as the eye could reach.

"What's this?" demanded Payne.

"Oko make river end."

"What?"

"Oko—lake. River end here. We there."

Payne drew out his maps and studied them.

"Where's Deer Hammock?"

"Echu Hammock there." The Indian pointed to a cluster of palmettos that reared its tops above the saw grass to the north.

"Go there."

They shoved their way through the grass; and as he contemplated the drowned land all round Payne grew warm and then cold with anger. Mile after mile to the east, north and south the watery waste stretched. Here and there a hammock bearing a few trees stood out, like tiny islands in a vast sea. Save for this there was only the uninhabited desolation of the water and grass; and the brilliant sky above.

There was no word spoken as they pushed toward the hammock. Higgins had noted the change on Payne's countenance and saw it was no time for careless words. Payne drove his pole into the bottom and drew it out for inspection.

"Limestone bottom; a thin scum of muck on top of it; and water."

The saw grass grew thicker. Only a water trail worn by dugouts permitted them to go through. Higgins probed the bottom.

"About six inches of muck here," he reported, "and a foot of water on it."

The water grew shallow on both sides of the channel and the grass more dense. The Indian rose to his toes and peered above the grass tops as they neared the hammock.

"Echu!" he said presently, reaching for his rifle. "Deer ojus on hammock."

Silently the dugout crept toward the high ground, the Indian parting the saw grass to peer ahead. They were fifty yards from it when Willy began to fire and at the third shot a tiny buck leaped up and crashed down in the palmetto scrub, where it had fancied itself concealed.

It was near the end of the day now and the phenomena of the tropical sunset served to add to the desolation of the scene. Tiny clouds rode in the sky, multicolored from the sun, for all the world as if painted upon the blue above. The west was livid with scarlet and orange flame, and on the hammock the tops of the trees were rosy in the sunset.

Higgins and Payne set to work to dress the deer while Willy proceeded to build a Seminole camp. On the highest ground of the hammock he dug a fire hole, and radiating from it like spokes from the hub of a wheel he dug three small ditches. With his ax he swiftly constructed three sleeping benches of branches, building them close to the central fire hole. Then he built his main fire of short logs in the fire hole. In each of the little ditches he threw long logs, their ends in the fire.

Payne and Higgins watched him, expertly appreciative of his novel woodcraft.

"It was a shame to take this country away from his kind," said Higgins.
"They know how to live in it—and like it."

Payne nodded. He was looking back over the watery waste through which they had come.

"You got your tract located?" asked Higgins.

Payne pointed out over the saw grass waving above the drowned land on the southern side of the hammock.

"That's it."