Noel Sainsbury

“ Instead of a wheelbarrow, now, Bill and Osceola were given shovels for the afternoon’s work. At first, Bill welcomed the change but soon found that it was quite as arduous as the morning’s toil. There was absolutely no let up. As soon as one barrow was filled, another took its place. The wet mud was slippery, the mosquitoes by the water even more tenacious. He began to feel that death was preferable to endless days of this kind of thing. ”

“ 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? ”

“ Directly on his tail came Commander Thomson’s PB-1, with the other four planes of the squadron bringing up the rear in V-formation.
Bill, of course, did not know the exact location in Big Cypress of Martinengo’s gold diggings, but here Osceola’s uncanny bump of direction came into play once more. Not ever did the young Seminole appear at a loss. On they sped, straight as an arrow shot from a bow.
The sun was three-quarters down the horizon when they caught sight of the lagoon in the cypress swamp, with the stockade close beside it. They had timed their arrival to a nicety. ”

“ Bill had not slept in a comfortable bed for some time. Then and there he determined to finish out the rest of the night in that bungalow!
Between the sentry-bench and the house there was no shelter of any kind. Floodlights streamed down on the hardbaked clay of the compound, bringing every rut or small unevenness of the surface into clear relief. Moreover, the ground was within the direct line of vision of the sentries.
“Do we crawl—or make a dash for it?” hissed Osceola.
“The sooner, the quicker. We’re more likely to attract attention moving fast, but we’re harder to hit!” ”

“ Bill nodded his satisfaction and the Indians followed him back into the canoe. Their next port of call was the seaplane, moored to the pier, where the same performance took place. When this aircraft had also been put out of commission, they turned their attention to the yacht.
As his canoe slid close to the long, black hull of Martinengo’s palatial craft, Bill dimly discerned the dark blotches on the waterline below the overhang of the stern. An instant later, his canoe nosed in among the Indian dugouts. ”

“ The gangster’s head smashed into the instrument board and he lay inert. Himself thrown forward by the amphibian’s dive, Bill caught at the seat to save his own head. The man’s unconscious body prevented any manipulation of elevators or ailerons. The plane was beyond his control, and racing earthward with wide open throttle at a hair-raising rate of speed. He must save himself if he could: within a second or so the big aircraft would be but a twisted mass of burning wood and metal flaming in the swamp below. Luckily, the pilot’s cockpit had no roof. ”

“ Soon the labor became a back-breaking, seemingly endless grind. Never once was the weary, sweating crew given a chance to rest. At the slightest lagging, the overseer’s wirebound lash descended upon the defenseless back of the transgressor. Loads were heavy and the strain on little-used muscles was terrific, especially on the stretch of planking from the incline up to the road. Before an hour had passed, Bill ached in every limb. ”

“ For all their sakes, he hoped so. A disabled companion in the middle of the Everglades, with no means of transport other than one’s two legs, would prove a problem that Bill did not care to contemplate.
Then he saw Sam disappear with his parachute in the high sawgrass. He was coming close to earth himself. In a very few minutes, he would land, and his gaze switched to the terrain directly below.
Osceola had landed on the firm ground of a large island. Sam had not been so lucky, for Bill knew that the Seminole name for the Everglades is Grassy-Water, and that sawgrass does not grow on dry land. ”

“ Fifteen or twenty miles away, he could make out the sea’s dim outline. But what interested Bill far more was the nature of the country below. Innumerable water-courses intersected a dense cloak of dark green foliage which seemed to be banded with a somber red along the waterways. Then as the plane’s pilot dropped her nose, seeking to avoid the increasingly strong headwind, Bill caught the sickening stench that he remembered so well.
“Mangrove!” he exclaimed aloud, his voice drowned in the roar of the engines. “We’re over the mangrove swamps of Florida, south of the Everglades! ”

“ Except for the lap of wavelets against the yacht’s hull, and stentorian snores from somewhere above their heads, the night was peculiarly silent. From afar came the dull boom of the surf. Then they heard the pop-pop of rifle fire from the interior of the island, more than a mile away.
Bill faced about. “If these gunsters show fight, shoot to kill!” he hissed in a tense whisper. “But if a man throws down his arms, he is to be bound and held prisoner. I will have no murdering of unarmed men. ”

“ Even the lead they were following was not free from obstruction, for huge patches of water lilies choked the way, and the power needed to force the canoe through the tangled masses of blooms came only by back-breaking effort.
“Bill, I think we’ll have to pass up the wreck,” declared Osceola from the stern of their little craft. “It would take us all day to push our way through the grass and we’d probably get some bad cuts into the bargain. It isn’t worth it.”
“I thought we might be able to salvage something,” said Bill, resting his paddle on the side of the dugout. ”

“ But why not get busy and take off right now? If there are any passengers, they’re likely to spot us for what we are. I’m not eager to shirk a fight, you know, but things are sure to become hectic when they find out we’re not bound for Shell Island.”
“True,” said Bill. “But I reckon we’ve got to go through with it. Your idea’s a good one, Osceola, but it just won’t work. I thought of the same thing on the way down here. Cast your eye yonder, old sport. Martinengo’s minions are taking no chances with pilots pulling anything phoney on their own hook!” ”

“ Bolton’s voice showed a trace of nervousness for the first time. “If we put the cover on the cockpit, we’ll be drowned like rats in a trap if the plane goes down. I confess I’m not keen on the idea.”
“If the plane founders, we’ll drown anyway,” was his son’s business-like reply. “No swimmer could live more than a minute in water like this. We’re in a tight fix, Dad, and our only chance is to ride out the gale. This plane will sink like a stone, once the real hurricane hits us, unless she is pretty near watertight overall. Let’s get busy before the wind makes the job impossible.” ”

“ The tree trunks were heavy and the men so weak that it took eight or ten of them to carry a single log.
Slowly the sun sank toward the western end of the lagoon and Bill knew that within five or ten minutes they would be forced to knock off for want of light. Then Osceola slipped in the muck and fell flat.
Before the poor youth could get to his feet, the overseer’s lash felled him again. But instead of desisting in his cruelty, the man continued to rain blows on the prostrate and half-unconscious body of the Indian. ”

“ Bill finished his bread and the last drop of his water.
“I should think it would pay Martinengo to feed us better,” he muttered wearily. “No wonder the men die off quickly, forced to such labor and undernourished this way.”
“It costs him little to kidnap new slaves,” grunted the Seminole. “All supplies have to be flown here by plane from Shell Island. But I’m too tired to talk, Bill. Better get what rest you can—the afternoon is always worse than the morning grind.” ”

“ But unlike the populous New England state, the only human inhabitants of the Everglades are a few hundred Indians who thread its lonely water-paths in primitive dugout canoes.
Evidently the plane’s pilot did not intend to cross the Everglades. They were still heading north, but the amphibian’s nose had been swung to starboard. By the time they left the Ten Thousand Isles, Bill realized that they were traveling a point or two east of north. Could it be that they were making for those dark, watery woodlands known as the Big Cypress? ”

“ Osceola answered slowly, “the mines are made doubly profitable by using slave labor.”
“What!” exploded Bill, leaning forward.
“Slave labor, my friend. And you and I are two of the slaves. It is cheaper for that gangster Martinengo and his brothers to kidnap negroes, Indians and poor whites than to hire miners. The work is terrific and the climate frightfully unhealthy. These devils would have to pay a very high wage to legitimate workmen. As it is, we don’t live long, here. ”

“ Osceola shook his head thoughtfully. “It’s a long, long hike from the island to the gold workings—twice as far from there as it is from here. Even if we are able to capture the island, some of the men are sure to slip through our hands, get away in one of the planes, perhaps and by the time we travel on to Big Cypress, that gang there will have been warned, they’ll be ready and waiting for us. The chances are, in that case, we’d be cleaned out. A surprise attack is one thing, Bill, but a pitched battle with trained gunsters—I’d simply be throwing away the lives of my men who trust me. ”

“ The fearful punishment meted out for failure would stop all but the most courageous from joining a concentrated revolt against their masters—the slim chances of success would deter the others.
Bill discarded all thoughts of such a plan. If he and Osceola were to escape, they must go it alone. Yet how could it be accomplished? He was still cogitating the matter, when the head overseer raised a police whistle to his lips and blew a sharp blast. Barrows and shovels were immediately stacked and the men lined up for their noonday meal. ”

“ Once on the road, tramping back toward the settlement below, Mr. Bolton passed his arm through Bill’s.
“Your Naval Academy training has put a head on your shoulders, son,” he said affectionately. “You have developed better control of your temper under stress than I have. I’m glad you stopped me. Ordinarily a man of my position in the world is in the habit of speaking his mind when provoked.” ”

“ Instead, when his part of the line moved up to where the head overseer was issuing directions, the man pointed to a stack of iron wheelbarrows. After taking an empty barrow apiece, the two friends trundled them in a long line of barrow men down a planked incline to the muck heap formed by the gold dredges. Men with shovels were already stationed here and Bill found that with the impetus of the guards’ whips behind them, each man had his barrow filled with mud and rubble in less than no time. ”

“ Don’t move if they come underneath us. Some of those guards have ears like their hounds.”
Bill had no difficulty in performing this feat, for the branch was thicker than his own body and he wriggled along until he lay fifteen or twenty feet from the trunk of the tree. His eyes had at last grown used to the inky darkness of this forest in the swamp. Peering down through the heavy screen of foliage and vines, the gnarled roots, underbrush and stagnant water below became dimly visible. To the left, possibly ten feet away and slightly above him, was the branch on which his Indian friend lay. ”