The three weary paddlers sent their dugout skimming down the open waterway toward the island. As they approached, Bill saw that Osceola was steering for an encampment that covered about an acre, in a clump of palmettoes near the water. He soon noticed that the dwellings were built of six upright poles, three on a side, and had gabled roofs of palmetto thatch. Later he was to learn that the floors were made of earth, and the main articles of furniture were large tables which nearly filled the interior. On these tables the Indians ate and slept. Usually there were chests that held their clothing and tools and firearms. Barrels and boxes for provisions and, in rare cases, a sewing machine, completed the essentials. An old sheet or blanket is generally hung at one side of the dwelling to keep out the wind and rain.

Soon the inhabitants of this colony began to crowd to the waterside, waving friendly greetings. A few of the men were dressed in store clothes, but most of them seemed to have an antipathy for trousers. The habits of the Seminole are so amphibious, they are in and out of the water all day long, so that they invariably prefer bare legs. The majority were costumed in the old Seminole manner, in knee-length tunics of banded red and yellow, tied with a sash at the waist. The heads of the braves were covered with red bandanna turbans.

The squaws were easily recognizable by their long calico dresses of blue or brown, gaily striped in red and yellow, and they all wore long strings of small beads, usually turquoise and crimson. Silver coins beaten into various designs decorated their head-dresses, and were worn as bracelets and necklets. The elder children were dressed exactly like their parents. The younger ones wore what nature had given them and nothing more.

The canoe drew closer to the bank. Osceola stood up in his place and shouted some words in a strange tongue. Immediately there came a change in the demeanor of the waiting Seminoles. The mild curiosity in the arrival of strangers, turned to shouts of jubilation as they recognized their Chief. The braves rushed into the shallow water, and raised the dugout with its occupants to their shoulders. Amid cries of welcome the men carried their heavy burden up the bank and into the center of the village.

Here Osceola made them a short speech. There was much handshaking, in which both Bill and Sam participated. Meanwhile, the women rushed off to a circular shed nearby where the cooking for the camp was done. There was a great clattering of pots and pans by the fire, from which logs radiated like the spokes of a wheel, and soon the appetizing odor of food was wafted to the tired travelers’ nostrils.

“My people understand and speak English readily enough,” Osceola told his friends. “But they like me to speak to them in the mother tongue. I’ve informed them that you are my friends, that we are weary and hungry and in need of sleep. Come now, we can make ourselves comfortable while the women prepare us a meal.”

“An’ whatever it is they’s fixin’, it sure do smell good—yes, mighty fine to dis heah chile!”

Sam grinned at Bill happily as they followed their host toward a dwelling somewhat larger and apart from the rest.

“Some of dem squaws sure is grand women,” chortled Sam, hobbling along in high glee at Bill’s side. “Dis is what I likes, Marse Bill—good eatin’s plenty of it, and a fine, strong woman to cook an’ work for you.” He waved at a two hundred pounder, and when the squaw waved back, he deliberately closed one rolling black eye in a wink.

“Why, you old rascal!” Bill broke into a shout of laughter. “I thought you told me you had a wife and family somewhere!”

Sam shook his woolly pate in mock pathos. “Done had, Marse Bill, done had. My ole woman b’leeve I’m dead years ago. If she’s alive she’s married, dat am certain. Liza were a sure goodlooker an’ a fine cook—an’ dat kind never am neglected—not for long anyhow.”

“Take my advice and stop flirting with the Seminole squaws, just the same, or some brave will bounce a tomahawk off that skull of yours.”

Sam spread his palms upward in a gesture of apology. “’Tain’t my fault, Marse Bill, really it ain’t.”

“Whose then?”

“It’s de wimmen, Marse Bill.”

“How do you make that out?”

Sam chuckled and brought his head near Bill’s.

“They’s always a-botherin’ the goodlookin’ men,” he whispered.

Osceola, who had the ears of a cat, turned and winked at the old darkey. “Well, that lets you out, Sam,” he laughed. “Come inside my house, and rest. Tomorrow or the next day, there is work to be done. After that you can come back here, Sam, and loaf for the rest of your life. And if you still want a squaw to look after you, I’ll see about it.”

Osceola’s house was in reality no different from the other shelters in the camp, except that it was larger, and more solidly constructed. They entered, and Osceola swung himself onto the central table, and the other two followed suit. A semi-circle of Seminole warriors squatted on the ground a few yards distant and talked together in low tones.

Presently two women came in, carrying a large kettle that swung on a stick between them. They placed this on the table, and from its open mouth protruded a single large spoon.

“When in Rome, you know—” smiled Osceola. “Help yourselves—take some, Bill, and pass it on. If you must have knife and fork and plate, they can be produced, but when I am with my people I like to conform to their customs. Hope you don’t mind.”

“The community spoon for me, old top,” and Bill reached for it. “Is this the national dish?”

“I reckon so. It’s a meat stew thickened with vegetables and meal. You ought to find it pretty good.”

“I do,” sighed Bill, blowing on a piece of hot meat. “This is the best grub I’ve tasted for a month of Sundays.”

“An’ could you all please hurry up an’ pass dat spoon,” Sam broke in eagerly. “My mouf sure am waterin’ for dat stew and my stummick he say ‘hasten, brother, hasten’!”

All three enjoyed the feast immensely and it is to be feared that as the stew grew cooler, fingers were quite as often in use as the common spoon. Although it was still broad daylight when they found the bottom of the pot, they turned in, on the table, and slept like logs, rolled up in blankets, until morning.

The early sun came streaming in through the open front of Osceola’s house. It shone in Bill’s face and woke him. He stretched, yawned and sat up. The young chief and Sam were going through the same motions at opposite ends of the table.

“Morning, men!” he saluted them, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “Am I still dreaming, Osceola, or has your village grown during the night? There seem to be three or four times as many people around.”

The chief swung off his table bed. “There are probably five times as many,” he answered. “The villages of my people are small, but there are many of them. Last night, while we slept, signal fires flashed the news of my return. Come along, and let’s get a wash before breakfast. Afterward, there will be a big pow-wow. I am going to put my plan up to the warriors. You can do likewise.”

“But I can’t speak Seminole,” Bill reminded him as they started toward the shore.

“Don’t worry, this conference will be held in English. You see,” he explained, “our villages only run to a few families because an island can support only a few people. Over there, beyond those trees, you will find a clearing where our crops are raised; corn, squashes, sweet potatoes, sugar-cane and so on. As you may have noticed, chickens and razor-back hogs run about wild.”

“Oh, yes, and in all the big cities of Florida, too,” said Bill with a straight face. Then they both roared with laughter at Sam’s perplexed frown.

“Humph! You tryin’ to joke dis nigger,” the darkey rolled his eyes, “but dat’s over my head, suh, over my head!”

“You think it is now, but you’ll see!” warned Bill with a twinkling grin. Then he joined Osceola in his morning ablutions.

An hour after breakfast, the men of the tribe gathered in the open space between the shore and the village. They sat in a wide circle on the ground, with their squaws and children in the background. Bill and Sam, led by Osceola, were escorted to places in the center of this group. The young chief lighted a long pipe of tobacco, took a puff of the pungent smoke and passed it to his white friend. Bill choked over the pipe, then handed it to Sam. From the old negro it went the round of the braves.

When the pipe was laid aside, a deep silence fell over the gathering, broken only by the raucous call of birds in the treetops, or the sudden splash of a leaping fish. This lasted for fully ten minutes, then Osceola arose and with quiet dignity began to speak. This time he used English, and in simple words, but with the art of the born story-teller that seems inherent in all tribes of North American Indians, he told the tale of his disappearance from the village.

First he spoke of his capture by the Martinengo gang, and how he had been taken to Shell Island. Then came his trip by plane with other prisoners to the gold diggings in the Cypress Swamp. In graphic language he told of his slavedom and of the pitiless cruelty of his taskmasters.

Outwardly calm, the warriors of his tribe sat listening with faces devoid of all expression. Yet if one looked closely, one saw clenched fists and tightened muscles, and could realize that this stoic behavior was but a poise that was part and parcel of their tribal training. Actually these Seminoles resented keenly the insult which had been placed upon their young chief. Sometime in the future their deeds would prove their loyalty—now, he must not be interrupted, he had more to tell.

Osceola then went on to describe the coming of Bill, the feeling of the overseer, their subsequent escape and the crash of the amphibian.

“My white brother who sits beside me here,” he concluded, “downed the man who struck me, thereby risking not only death for his act, but the terrible torture of the lash. He is an officer in the White Father’s great navy, a flyer of airplanes, a person of importance among his own people; yet he did that for a Seminole he had known less than a day. Without his knowledge of flying, escape from the Great Cypress would have been impossible: and again, when death at the hands of those gangsters stared us in the face aboard the flying ship, he arranged for the safety of this black man and myself while he stayed behind to battle with them. That is why I take him by the hand now and thank him in the name of the once-great Seminole nation!”

“How! how!” chanted the warriors, while Osceola bent down and grasped Bill’s hand.

“Now,” he continued, his thrilling tones chaining the eyes of his audience to him, “what are we going to do? Are we going to sit quietly on our islands, and let these devils incarnate continue to enslave our brothers and other defenseless people? Have we become women now that the number of our braves is small? Have we forgotten the deeds of our heroes in the past? Are we content to stand aside, content to let this scum from the big cities offer insult day by day to our once proud nation? Answer me—are we men—or something more pitiful than the weakest of women?”

“We are men!!” shouted the braves, a hundred hands beating the air while their voices rang resonantly in the stillness. “Lead us, Great Chief. We will follow!”

“Good. Go to your homes now. Come back here on the third day from this. Let every man come armed for battle and let him come with food that will last for a week. Go now my brothers, warriors of the Great Seminole Nation—I have spoken.”

Without a word, the men got to their feet, collected their wives and children, and launched their dugout canoes.

“Now let’s hear your plan of campaign,” suggested Bill, as he and Osceola stood watching the departing flotilla. “That was some speech you made just now, even though you did lay it on a bit thick about me. I’m keen to know exactly what you intend to do, now that you’ve got your little army in back of you.”