The natural prison: How hostile geography becomes an instrument of confinement

“ In the desert, spirituous liquors excite only disgust. There is a keen enjoyment in a mere animal existence.” They who have been traveling long on the steppes of Tartary say, “On reentering cultivated lands, the agitation, perplexity, and turmoil of civilization oppressed and suffocated us; the air seemed to fail us, and we felt every moment as if about to die of asphyxia.” When I would recreate myself, I seek the darkest wood, the thickest and most interminable and, to the citizen, most dismal, swamp. I enter a swamp as a sacred place,—a sanctum sanctorum. ”

“ Modern society may be fitly compared to a magnificent palace reared in a miasmatic swamp, which fills the air with its death-dealing exhalations. No cunning artifices of builders or engineers can afford protection in such a case. In like manner, society cannot hope to escape from the influences which make for corruption and ultimate dissolution whilst it suffers poverty to remain in its midst.
It is, indeed, unnecessary to insist upon the evils and the national dangers arising from poverty ”

“ Louise said in surprise. “We just ate.”
“Ye can git mighty hongry and thirsty, rowin’ in a broiling hot sun. When I go into the swamp, I always takes rations along jest in case.”
“Surely you don’t expect to lose your way,” Penny said teasingly. “An old timer like you!”
“I’m an old timer ’cause I always prepares fer the wust,” the trapper retorted witheringly. “Many a young punk’s give his life being show-off and foolhardy in that swamp. ”

“ Although there were more than a dozen species of snakes, only three needed to be feared, the rattlers, the coral snake, and the cottonmouth.
“Ye have to be keerful when yer passin’ under tunnels o’ overhanging limbs,” Old Joe explained. “Sometimes they’ll be hangin’ solid with little snakes.”
“Don’t tell us any more,” Louise pleaded. “I’m rapidly losing enthusiasm for this place!”
“Snakes mostly minds their own business ’less a feller goes botherin’ ’em,” Trapper Joe remarked. “Too bad more folks ain’t that way.” ”

“ The police evidently are hot on Deevers’ trail, but if they don’t get him, he may try to seek revenge. It’s odd he turns up today—and those men talking in the swamp—”
Louise’s eyes opened wide. “Penny, you don’t think Danny Deevers could have taken refuge in the swamp!”
“It’s possible. Wouldn’t it be a good hideout?”
[18]
“Only for a very courageous person,” Louise shivered. “At night, all sorts of wild animals must prowl about. And one easily could be bitten by a poisonous snake and could die before help came.”
“I’m not saying Danny Deevers was on the island today, Lou. But it’s a thought. ”

“ Penny replied.
“You hain’t been in the swamp?”
“Why, yes,” answered Louise, eager to relate details of their adventure. “We gathered flowers, and then met a horrid man with red whiskers! He drove us away from the island before I could get my dog.”
The woman gazed at the girls in an odd way.
“Sarved you’uns right to be driv off,” she said in a grim voice. “The swamp’s no place fer young gals. You might o’ been et by a beast or bit by a snake.” ”

“ It had occurred to her early that in her position—that of a young person spending, in framed and wired confinement, the life of a guinea-pig or a magpie—she should know a great many persons without their recognising the acquaintance. That made it an emotion the more lively—though singularly rare and always, even then, with opportunity still very much smothered—to see any one come in whom she knew outside, as she called it, any one who could add anything to the meanness of her function. Her function was to sit there with two young men—the other telegraphist and the counter-clerk ”

“ It consists in care and worry; in police regulation and all the compromises of civilization; in co-operation to sustain institutions, and in voluntary submission to law. The instruments of the new servitude are the means which served to emancipate us from the old one; the rich man, if he gets more of the emancipation, gets also more of the new servitude. Liberty has not been found yet. We are like men mired in a swamp, who, in pulling out one leg or one arm, only plunge others more deeply in—so long as we follow this chimæra of liberty here on earth to do as we please. ”

“ Jerry positively identified him after studying the photograph a minute. “I don’t recognize the driver of the car.”
“We’re almost sure he’s one of the Hawkins’ boys,” Penny declared. “You know, the swamper we told you about.”
Jerry nodded. “In that case, putting the finger on Deevers should be easy for the police. The Hawkins family could be arrested on suspicion. Like as not, Deevers is hiding in the swamp just as Penny suspected!”
“If he is, it won’t be easy to capture him,” commented Salt. “They say a man could hide there a year without being found. ”

“ Hain’t we got a fool-proof system? If anyone starts this way, Maw’ll spot ’em and give us the signal.”
“Folkses is gittin’ wise, and we hain’t none too popular hereabouts. We’re moving this stuff out tonight.”
“Jest as you say, Pappy.” Coon stirred reluctantly.
“An we hain’t operatin’ the still no more till things quiets down. I don’t like it that gal snoopin’ around here, claimin’ to be lookin’ fer her dawg.”
“Ye should have kilt the dawg, stead o’ keepin’ him,” Hod spoke up as he dumped a sack of mash into a tub. “Tole ye it would make us trouble.”
“Yer always tellin’ me!” Ezekiel retorted. ”

“ Danny, ’fore you go, there’s a matter o’ money to be settled between us. Ye got $50,000 hid somewheres close, and we want our cut fer hidin’ ye out from the police.”
Danny laughed unpleasantly.
“You leeches won’t get a penny! Not a penny! No one but me knows where that money is, and I’m not telling!”
“Then I calculate Hod and Coon cain’t guide ye through the swamp tonight,” Ezekiel said coolly. “We got word today the police got a hint ye’r here. We’ll help ’em, by turning you in. Hod, git to the phone and call Sheriff Burtwell. Tell ’im we cotched this feller hidin’ in the swamp.” ”

“ We dock New York; I hide under bunk; all G.I.’s leava boat. Boat go to other dock. Sailor friend giva me clothes. Sailors leave-a boat. I slippa out. No one geta wise.”
“Then where did you go?”
“Stay in-a New York only two—three days. Go hitchhike into country. Work-a on farm. No like it. Hear Immigration men-a come, so I go. Come-a one day to swamp. Good place; I stay.”
“You’ve not had an easy time keeping alive in this dismal place,” Penny said sympathetically. “Isn’t that Trapper Joe’s gun?” ”

“ Overhead on a bare tree branch, two racoons drowsed after their midday meal.
“In this swamp there’s places where no man has ever set foot,” the guide continued. “Beyond Black Island, in the heart o’ the swamp, it’s as wild as when everything belonged to the Indians.”
[111]
“How does one reach Black Island?” Louise inquired.
“Only a few swampers that knows all the runs would dast go that far,” said Old Joe. “If ye take a wrong turn, ye kin float around fer days without findin’ yer way out.”
“Is there only one exit—the way we came in?” Penny asked. ”

“ Leastwise, not beyond Lookout Point.”
“Says who?” retorted the widow, already untying the boat.
[147]
“That young ’un’s talked you into goin’ to Black Island! Ye can’t do it. You’ll git lost in one o’ the false channels. The hyacinths are bad this year.”
The widow hesitated, then tossed her head as she dropped the package of lunch into the skiff.
“Ye forgit I was swamp raised! Git me the paddles and a pole, Joe. Don’t stand there gawkin’.”
“No wimmin ever went as far as Black Island. It hain’t safe!” ”

“ Penny corrected with a grin. “See those beautiful Cherokee roses growing over there on the island point? They’re nicer than anything we have.”
“Also harder to get.”
[2]
Louise craned her neck to gaze at the wild, tangled growth which rose densely from the water’s edge.
“Remember,” she admonished, “when Trapper Joe rented us this boat his last words were: ‘Don’t go far, and stay in the skiff.’”
“After we gather the flowers, we’ll start straight home, Lou. We’re too near the edge of the swamp to lose our way.” ”

“ Jones by the arm. “The channel!” she cried. “I can see it now! If we move fast, we still may get out of the swamp before night!”
[175] CHAPTER
23
LOST IN THE HYACINTHS
Mrs. Jones shaded her eyes from the slanting rays of the low-hung sun to gaze for a long moment at the almost motionless hyacinth bed blanketing the water.
“Right ye are, Penelope!” she exclaimed jubilantly. “The channel’s plain to see now! Help me git to the boat, and we’ll be out o’ this tangle.”
Once in the skiff, the widow again seized the paddle.
“We gotta inch our way along fer a little,” she explained. ”

“ They got a hide so tough even the rattlers can’t kill ’em. It’s most likely yer dogs been et by one.”
“Oh, no!” Louise protested in horror.
“Rooters’ll go straight fer a dog or a deer or a lamb. They’ll attack a man too if they’re hongry enough. Their tusks are sharp as daggers.”
Penny quickly changed the subject by asking Trapper Joe if he thought Pretty Boy Danny Deevers might be hiding in the swamp. ”

“ Watching the oncoming boat for a moment, Louise said: “It’s Joe all right, and he’s coming fast. Something must be wrong.”
Soon the guide brought the skiff alongside the sagging boardwalk.
“I heard a shot and started back,” he explained. “I sure am glad to see both o’ ye safe.”
Before Penny could do so, Louise told Joe what had befallen her chum.
“Ye could have been kilt by that old boar,” he said soberly. “It was the package o’ meat that drew them rooters to the tree. They hain’t likely to attack a human lest they’re half starved.” ”

“ Louise declared, stepping out on the dock. “Bones is gone for good, I guess.”
She quickly told the old trapper what had happened on the island. He listened attentively, making no comment until she had finished.
“’Pears like you must have run afoul of Ezekiel Hawkins,” he said then. “Leastwise, he’s the only one hereabouts with a grizzly red beard.”
“Is he a crook or a fugitive from the law?” Penny demanded.
“Not that nobody ever heard of. Ezekiel and his two boys, Hod and Coon, tend purty much to their own business. But they don’t go fer strangers hangin’ around.” ”

“ Knowin’ too much kin be dangerous.”
Penny scarcely could hide her annoyance, for several times now the guide had made similar hints.
“I don’t trust the Hawkins’ family at all,” she announced. “If they’re not involved with Danny Deevers, they’re up to something here in the swamp. Otherwise, why would they be so mean?”
“The Hawkins’ family always has been mean an’ ornery.”
“Another thing—” Penny started to mention how she and Salt had seen large containers of some unknown product being removed from the swamp, but broke off as she decided to keep the information to herself. ”

“ Penny asked eagerly.
The old guide gazed at her quizzically as he dipped his paddle. “Hain’t ye had enough o’ the swamp after today, young’un?”
“When that old boar came for me, I told myself if ever I got safely away, I’d never come again. But that was only a passing impulse. Black Island interests me.”
“It’s the most dangerous part of the swamp.”
“Because of wild animals, you mean?”
[134]
“There’s lots wuss things than animals,” said the old guide soberly.
“For instance?”
Trapper Joe ignored Penny’s question. Becoming as one deaf, he propelled the skiff with powerful strokes. ”

“ Penny declared. She was tempted to reveal what she and Salt had seen a few nights before on the swamp road, but held her tongue.
“After all, what do I know about Joe?” she reflected. “He may be a close friend of the Hawkins family for all his talk about them being a shiftless lot.”
Penny remained silent. Sensing her disappointment because he had not talked more freely, Trapper Joe presently remarked:
“You know, things goes on in the swamp that it’s best not to see. Sometimes it hain’t healthy to know too much.” ”

“ The slightest symptom of inertia or of feebleness in the Federal Government at this time, will, therefore, expose the border States to great perils, and, through them, the whole Confederation. As easy as it would have been, with a little energy, to prevent the evil, to confine secession within its natural limits, and to weaken the chances of civil war, so difficult has it become, at present, to attain the same end. ”

“ Now, labour being in itself a pain, and man being naturally inclined to avoid pain, it follows, and history proves it, that wherever plunder is less burdensome than labour, it prevails; and neither religion nor morality can, in this case, prevent it from prevailing.
When does plunder cease, then? When it becomes less burdensome and more dangerous than labour. It is very evident that the proper aim of law is to oppose the powerful obstacle of collective force to this fatal tendency; that all its measures should be in favour of property, and against plunder. ”

“ Penny knew it was Danny Deevers who spoke. “I’m staying right here!”
“Coon and Hod’ll guide ye through the swamp, so ye’ll be safe enough till ye git to the other side,” Ezekiel argued. “We hain’t keepin’ ye here another day. You got clothes and food and a good chanst to git away.” ”

“ Penny instantly became all ears, listening intently to Coon’s reply:
“Now ye’r talkin’, Pappy. Takin’ him in was a big mistake. Hit’s apt ter land us in jail if them city officers come snoopin’ around here agin.”
“There wouldn’t have been no risk, if Hod and Danny hadn’t taken the widder’s car and drive into town. Didn’t ye have no sense, Hod?”
“Danny wanted to go,” Hod whined. “How was we ter know another car was goin’ to smash into us? Thet fool newspaper camera man an’ the girl had to be there!” ”

“ As the boat drifted on, she watched stolidly.
“Never did like that woman,” Mrs. Jones commented when the skiff had rounded a bend. “She’s got sharp eyes, and she don’t approve ’cause we’re goin’ inter the swamp together.”
“Why should she care?” Penny asked.
“I wonder myself.”
“I’ve noticed that she always seems to be watching the entrance channel into the swamp,” Penny said thoughtfully. “Perhaps she is the one who taps out those signals!”
“Signals? What do you mean, young’un?”
Penny told of the strange pounding noises she had heard during her previous trip through the swamp. ”

“ Hawkins will wait until we’re a safe distance away, and then signal!” the girl went on. “Don’t I wish I could catch her though!”
“Maybe ye kin. We could shut off the motor and drift back and watch.”
[150]
Penny’s eyes began to sparkle with excitement. “I’d love to do it. But won’t she be listening for the sound of our motor as we go deeper into the swamp? If she doesn’t hear it, she’s apt to suspect something.”
“Ye’ve got a real head on yer shoulders,” said the widow approvingly. “By the way, I don’t like to keep callin’ ye young’un now we’re good friends. What’s yer name?” ”

“ Mr. Parker signaled Jerry to row back out of range. “We’ve trapped ourselves between two fires!” he muttered in disgust. “Ezekiel stayed here on purpose to guard the channel while the others make their getaway.”
“Danny could be captured easily if only we could get word to Salt and the police,” Jerry added.
Penny and her father nodded gloomily. Salt, they knew, would follow their trail into the swamp as soon as police reached the Hawkins’ farm. But Ezekiel from his point of vantage, would fire upon them before they realized they were running into danger. ”

“ Alligator or shark—A shooting expedition—We witness the death of a scout—Make our escape—Preparations for our voyage up the river—Night—Aroused by an attack on the Fort—Indians enter it—Escape to the boat—Followed by the doctor—Voyage across the lakes—Camp on the shore of the lake—The doctor shoots an alligator—Pursued by Indians—Enter the Magdalena—Beautiful scenery—Magnificent trees—Gay flowers—Gorgeous plumage of birds—The doctor catches an alligator—Voyage continued—Mountains in sight—A tempest at night—End of voyage—We part with the doctor. ”

“ It will spring from the bough, along which it lies crouching, on the back of the thick-skinned tapir, which, with those powerful claws clinging to its hide, dashes terror—stricken through the thickets, endeavouring to shake off its foe. It will even fearlessly attack the alligator, in spite of the latter’s enormous jaws,—avoiding which, by its agility, it will tear open the reptile’s side, and devour it before life is extinct. ”

“ As has already been noted there is, besides certain structural differences, a marked difference in [38] the dispositions of the Florida alligator and crocodile. While an alligator may snap its jaws, hiss, and swing its tail from side to side, it is not difficult for a couple of men with ropes and a pole to safely tie up a large specimen. The struggles of a crocodile are of a more serious nature. Ditmars thus describes an encounter with a captive Florida crocodile: “The writer well remembers his first acquaintance with a big fellow from Florida. ”

“ In daylight, with no glaring light to hypnotize it, the alligator is difficult to approach within range and it usually disappears into its cave before the hunter can get a shot at it. The daylight hunter, then, should be supplied not, of course, with a light, but with a ten- or fifteen-foot pole with a large iron hook at the end. If the alligator be vigorously prodded with this mammoth fishhook he will usually finally seize it with his mouth and can be pulled out of his hole alive. It is then an easy matter to kill him with a bullet through the base of the brain. ”

“ An eight-foot alligator will often be all that two men can manage to drag out of his cave in this way; and, in the torrid heat of the Southern swamp, this violent exercise is not to the liking of the usually not very energetic hunter.
While the manufacture of leather gives the chief [34] value to the alligator there are other ways in which it has some economic importance. Chief of these is probably the sale of alligator goods to tourists. In 1891 there were in Jacksonville, Florida, twelve dealers in live and stuffed alligators. ”

“ At the present time it is usually necessary to travel far from the usual routes of the Northern tourists to find alligators in any abundance.
At Palm Beach, Florida, lived, a few years ago, and probably still lives, a well-known hunter and guide, “Alligator Joe.” Just what nationality he may be is difficult to determine, but that he knows that trackless waste, the Everglades, at least in the region of Palm Beach, is evident. ”

“ Those from the east coast of Mexico are the best, being lighter in color and with neat and attractively shaped scales. The west coast skins are yellowish [31] in color when in the green state, and the scales are larger and not so artistically formed. The Florida and Louisiana skins are almost invariably split down the back, or rather along each side of the back, so as to preserve the under side in a solid piece, but most of the Mexican skins are split down the middle of the abdomen, keeping the back intact, making what is commonly known as ‘horn alligator.’ (See Fig. 15.) ”

“ The widow sighed and pulled aside a kitchen curtain to gaze thoughtfully toward the swamp. “Well, I reckon the last bit o’ evil’s been driv’ away from Black Island. From now on, the land’ll jest lie there and belong to the wind and the rain.”
“And to us,” Penny added softly.
The widow nodded as her gaze lingered long on the fringe of towering pines. “One o’ these days, when the spirit moves us, we’ll go back there,” she promised. “The swamp always belongs to them that loves it!” ”