CHAPTER XIX.
THE OLD FORT.
NOT long after leaving Indiantown the boys passed into a highercountry, where the road wound in and out among great towering liveoaks, under which the ground was thickly strewed with acorns.Multitudes of gray squirrels frisked among the branches and made theair noisy with their chattering.
"I'll bet this is a great game country," Charley remarked, as theystopped to water their ponies at the edge of a clear-running brook."There ought to be bear and turkeys around where there are so manyacorns. Listen! if I am not mistaken, those are turkeys drumming now."From a point a little to the left of the road came a hollow thumpingsound, repeated at frequent intervals. "It's turkeys," said Charley,with conviction. "Come on, let's see if we can get a shot at them."
The two lads dismounted, and, tying their ponies to convenient trees,took their guns and picked their way softly toward the sound. A hundredfeet brought them to where they could look out from the shelter of theoaks into a little glade or clearing a couple of acres in extent. Whatthey saw caused them to pause and stare in admiration and amusement. Inthe center of the glade was a bunch of some twenty turkeys. The sun,shining down, lit up their plumage with a thousand colors, and made ofthem a picture well worth remembering, but it was the antics that theywere going through that drew a smile from the two lads.
The leader of the flock, a huge gobbler with ruffled feathers anddrumming wings, was going through a sort of strutting, mincing dance,every motion of his being closely followed by each of the flock, movingwith slow, stately dignity.
"Gee!" grinned Walter. "They are doing the 'turkey trot.' It costs fivedollars to see that dance in New York."
"The ministers say it's immoral," said Charley laughingly, "so let'sput a stop to it. Be sure to pick out one of the younger birds. Wenever could cook that gobbler tender. I'll bet he is ten years old."
The lads fired almost together, and two of the smaller turkeys sank tothe ground, while the rest of the flock rose in flight, but only tosettle again within easy gun-shot.
"No use killing any more," Walter said, as the two lads emerged frombehind the oaks and picked up the dead birds.
"No," Charley agreed. "These will be all we can use. They would spoilbefore we got back to camp. But say, I am tickled to see game soplentiful. When we get the machine and camp out here, it will make abig difference in our grub bills."
"Hold on a minute," said Walter, as his chum turned to retrace hissteps to the road. "Doesn't it strike you as queer--this bare space inthe heart of a great oak forest?"
"It is odd," admitted Charley. "I never thought of that until youmentioned it. Let's look around a bit."
The boys, up to now, had barely noticed the clearing, all theirinterest being centered on the turkeys. As they advanced into it theywere surprised to note that it was not a freak of nature, but had beencarefully cleared by hand. The indestructible live oak stumps stillbore evidence of the axe. Wonderingly, the lads made their way forward.
"Those are not live oak trees at the other end of the clearing,"declared Charley, who was looking around with eager eyes. "Let's seewhat they are."
A few minutes' walk brought them to the fringe of trees that haddrawn the lads' attention. Here they paused, with an exclamation ofastonishment.
"Gee!" Charley cried, "they are orange trees, and, from their size,they must be hundreds of years old."
"And there's another clearing beyond this one," cried Walter, who hadentered the fringe of trees to pluck some of the golden fruit. "Comeon, let's have a look at it. The oranges can wait until we come back."
With all of boys' healthy love of mystery and discovery, the two ladspushed eagerly through the fringe of orange trees and found themselvesin another but smaller clearing, in the center of which rose up highposts, forming four sides of a square enclosure.
"A stockade!" exclaimed Charley excitedly. "Let's see what's inside. Itought to be easy to break down one of those posts."
But their united efforts failed to crack any of the posts. They wereall of live oak, which successfully resists the wear of centuries.
"It's no use tiring ourselves out for nothing," Charley said, afterthey had tried several of the posts without any success. "There mustbe an opening somewhere, and we have only to follow up the poststo find it." This they did, and, rounding the first corner of thestockade, came upon an opening in the wall, where had evidently oncehung a strong gate. Pushing through the opening, they stood inside ofthe stockade, and, pausing, gazed around with a feeling of awe. Thelittle enclosure was perhaps a half acre in extent. In the middle ofit stood a small fort, cunningly constructed of big blocks of coquinarock. Around the little fort were grouped what had once been dwellings,but of which nothing now remained but their upright live-oak posts. Ahole, in one side of the fort, which likely in some past age had beenclosed by a massive door, showed the enclosure to the fortress. Passingthrough the hole, the boys found themselves in a dim room, some fortyfeet square. The only light was the few rays that filtered through theloopholes, and the two lads had to pause to accustom their eyes to thedim twilight.
"My, but look here!" cried Charley, as his vision cleared.
Walter backed nervously toward the door, as he, too, began to perceivethe grewsome objects grouped around them. Directly in front of themstood a gigantic, man-like form. Gaping holes, where the eyes shouldhave been, stared upon them, and one long arm pointed directly at them.
"Whew, that gave me a shock at first!" exclaimed Charley, with anervous laugh of relief. "One does not expect to stumble upon dead menin armor in the wilds of Florida. Look! there's another and anotherand another," he continued, pointing to the other motionless figuressprawled in all sorts of attitudes about the room. At the foot of acunningly constructed stone stairway, the suits of armor lay so closetogether that the boys could hardly pick their way between them.
"The defenders evidently made a brave stand here at the foot of thestairway," Charley observed. "Let's go up and see what's in the upperchamber."
With but little relish for further investigation, Walter followed hischum as he climbed up the stone stairs.
The scene in the upper chamber was but a repetition of that below,only the floor was more thickly strewn with the suits of mail. Charleylifted the rust-encrusted visor of one, but let it drop hastily as hiseyes encountered the grinning skeleton within.
"They were Spaniards who made this clearing and built this fort,"he explained to his chum. "It may have been part of one of DeSoto'sexpeditions, or they may have been one of the treasure-hunting partiesthat were so numerous in the fifteenth century. Likely they becamedisgusted with tramping through swamps, and, when they came to thispleasant spot, they decided to stay for a time at least. So they,probably, made captives of many of the Indians, and put them to work,clearing, planting and building. But the Indians had their revenge inthe end."
"You can stay here as long as you want to, but I am going to get outin the fresh air," said Walter, shuddering as he watched a hairy ratcreep out from one of the suits of armor. "I will wait for you justoutside the fort."
"All right," Charley agreed. "I'll be out in a few minutes."
Left to himself, the lad searched around in the corners for a fewminutes, trying to find something to carry away with him as a souvenirof their strange discovery, but, finding nothing, he soon gave up thehunt, and, gathering up his game bag and gun, he made his way back downthe stairs and out of the fort, glad to be in the sunshine and freshair once more.
Walter was not in sight, and, after calling him a couple of times,Charley decided that he had probably grown tired of waiting, and hadreturned to the orange trees to eat his fill, and for them the ladhastened. But his chum was not there, and, with a vague feeling ofalarm, the lad hurried on to where they had left their ponies, butWalter was not there. Now thoroughly alarmed, the lad fired off his gunfour times in rapid succession, then waited and listened, but therecame no answering report.
After a moment's consideration, Char
ley turned around and hastened backto the ancient clearing. He made the round outside of the stockade, andthen, entering the gate, searched the inside thoroughly, but no signcould he find of the missing one. Again he fired the distress signalof four shots, but there was no reply.
The thoroughly frightened lad sat down on a block of stone, and stroveto master his nervous fears and gather together his scattered wits.The whole thing was incomprehensible. Not fifteen minutes had elapsedsince he had parted with Walter in the upper chamber of the fort, andnow his chum was gone. He could not have gotten lost in the woods, forthe way back to the ponies could be followed by a child, with its plainlandmarks of orange trees and the other clearings. Besides, in thatshort length of time, Walter could not have got beyond the sound of thegun signal, to which he would certainly have replied.