CHAPTER V
MAROONED IN A SWAMP
"Hey, Tad!"
"Yes, what is it?" asked Tad Butler, wide awake in an instant inresponse to Stacy's quiet call.
"What's that roaring?"
"Rain, you silly."
"Oh, is that all?"
"Yes, what did you think it was?"
"I--I thought it was a tornado," answered the fat boy sleepily."Goodness, it is coming down, at that!"
"I should say it is. At this rate we'll all get wet feet."
"We're lucky if we don't get more than our feet wet," returned Chunky."I'm sleepy." In the next breath Stacy was snoring.
Tad lay quiet, watching the rain drown out the campfire that was nowsteaming and throwing off great clouds of fog. Soon there would benothing left of their big campfire but the blackened, ill-smellingembers. The others evidently had not been awakened by the rain, or,if they had, they had not aroused themselves to discuss it as hadStacy and Tad. Little by little Tad dropped off, but it seemed as ifhe had no more than closed his eyes when he was awakened by the voiceof Ichabod.
"Hey, Boss, Ah reckon, sah, you'd bettah pull in youah feet, sah.They's in de wet, sah."
Tad's feet, which had somehow got thrust out under the side of thetent, were in a puddle of water more than ankle deep. But so warmwas the water and so soundly had he slept that the boy was whollyunconscious of his condition. Tad found, upon drawing in his feet,that they were not any too clean either. The black muck of theforest had smeared them.
"Have you any clean water, Ichabod?" he asked.
"Yes, sah. Ah done kotched a bucket full ob de rain. Dat am clean,sah."
"Thank you," said Tad, proceeding to scrub his feet. "I am almost asmuch of a sleepy-head as Stacy. No, I don't know enough to get thewhole of me in out of the rain. What if a snake had chanced alongand discovered my feet out there?"
Tad could not repress a shiver at the thought. After scrubbinghimself and putting on his stockings and boots the lad, still in hispajamas, stepped to the door of the tent. In his amazement atfinding his feet outdoors he had neglected to take note of the stateof the weather. The rain was still falling in torrents.
Tad judged from the faint light that day had only just dawned. Fromwhere he sat he could see the fog rising from the swamp. He couldsmell it, too, that fresh odor of wet vegetation, always so marked onthe low lands.
Tad rubbed his eyes and looked again. Their camp was pitched on avery slight rise of ground, and to his amazement the camp nowoccupied a small island, all about it a lake of muddy water. The boywondered, for the moment, if the Mississippi had overflowed anddrowned out the jungle, but upon second thought he understood thatthe heavy rain was responsible for the flood. The ground was sosaturated with moisture that it could hold no more.
From the water rose the knees of the cypress trees, like giant crabsrearing their bodies to get free of the water--knees twisted andgnarled, assuming all sorts of fantastic shapes. One could imaginethat they were dragons and centipedes, while one formation lookedlike a camel kneeling. From beneath one of these knees the boy saw adark spot wriggling through the water. Tad saw that it was a snake,but what kind he did not know.
Stepping back into his tent, he picked up his rifle, then returningto the door, scanned the water keenly.
"There he is. I see him." The lad raised his weapon, took carefulaim at the black speck swaying from side to side as the reptile swamhastily away. Tad pulled the trigger.
The report of his rifle sounded to him like the firing of aneight-pounder cannon. When the smoke cleared away there was no signof the black wriggling head. But on the other hand there was anuproar in the tents. The Pony Rider Boys, awake on the instant,leaped out into the open, in most instances splashing into the waterup to their ankles, and as quickly leaping back into their tents,uttering yells.
Stacy Brown was not so fortunate. When he landed outside his tent hestepped on a sharp stub and in trying to recover himself, fell facedown in the water with a loud splash. He scrambled up, choking andsputtering.
"Oh, wow!" howled the fat boy.
Chunky's face was streaked with black muck and his pajamas looked asif they had been dyed black.
"Oh, wow! Somebody pushed me! You did it on purpose."
"Oh, keep still," rebuked Ned. "Don't you see what has happened?"
"We've moved. Why didn't you wake me up before you moved the camp?What lake is this?"
"You evidently haven't got your eyes open yet, Chunky," answered Tadwith a laugh. "Don't you see, we are marooned?"
"Why, so we are," cried Ned Rector.
"Surrounded by water?" exclaimed the Professor.
"Yes, that's the definition of an island," nodded Ned. "Entirelysurrounded by water."
"But--but, who shot? I heard a gun go off," insisted Walter.
"I did," answered Tad.
"What were you shooting at?" questioned the guide, who, having pulledon his boots, had splashed out in front of the camp.
"I was trying my skill on something floating in the water overyonder."
"Funny time of day to be shooting at things," grumbled Ned.
"Did you hit the mark?" asked the guide, surmising that Tad had shotat a snake.
Butler nodded, and went back to put his rifle where it would keep dry.
"What are we going to do for firewood?" asked the Professorapprehensively.
"I have some dry wood in my tent," answered the guide.
"Oh, you have? So have I," grinned Tad, whereat Lilly tugged somemore at his tawny moustache.
"They have got to wake up in the morning to get ahead of you, haven'tthey?" he nodded.
"I don't know. I am not so sure of that. If you had seen me whenIchabod awakened me, you wouldn't think so," replied Tad with asheepish grin.
"What was it?" asked Ned.
"My feet were outdoors in the water, while the rest of me was inside."
"Ho, ho," jeered Chunky, poking his streaked face from his tentopening for an instant. "Lucky none of those savage pigs was aboutat that time or you might have lost half a pound or so of toes."
Chunky dodged back to avoid being hit by a handful of black muck thatNed shied at him, and which spattered over the front of the tent.
"You will have to clean that off," rebuked Tad.
"We will make Chunky do that. He was to blame for it," declared Ned.
"You will have a fine time making him clean the mud from the tent.By the way, what has become of my pig?" questioned Tad.
Lilly swung a hand in the direction of the bayou, a narrow channelnow unrecognizable because of the water that covered the ground oneither shore. Tad nodded his understanding of the gesture. Some ofthe reptiles there had made away with the dead pig.
"I was going to have that wild pig for my own breakfast," said theboy reflectively.
"You must have good teeth," smiled Lilly. "Those wild ones are toughas boot leather. We will have some bear meat one of these days."
"That's nothing," answered Ned. "We have had lots of that on ourtrips."
"How about venison?"
"That always is a luxury," smiled Tad. "Are there deer here?"
"Yes, but you will find shooting them in the brake is not the same asletting go at them in comparatively open woods. Here, it is a caseof shoot quickly or miss your game."
"We can shoot quickly, but the next question is, can we hit?" laughedTad.
"That's the mighty question," agreed Lilly. "If you boys can shootas well as you ride and do other things, I reckon there isn't a deerin the brake that could get away from you."
"I guess I will practise on those horrible owls," said Ned.
"By the way, are they all drowned out?" asked Tad.
"Oh, no. They are here. If you want to see one, look up in thatcypress yonder," answered the guide, pointing. "You will see whatbirds of prey they are. They are the worst in the woods, and thenoisiest," added Lilly.
Tad and Ned
looked. High up on a swaying limb was perched one of thelong-beaked barred owls. The bird was having a desperate battle withsomething. At first the youngsters were at a loss to understand whatthat something was.
"It is a snake!" cried Tad.
"That's what it is. You have guessed right," nodded Lilly.
The boys watched with fascinated gaze this battle high in the air.
"What kind of snake is it?" questioned Ned in an awed tone.
"I reckon I don't know. Ichabod, what is that snake the owl has upthere?"
"Ah doan' know, sah. Ah reckon it am jest snake."
"That is as near as a nigger can get to a direct answer," snortedLilly.
"He doesn't know. That was what he was trying to tell us," said Tad.
Preparations for breakfast were well along by this time, though itwas with difficulty that they had kept the fire up sufficiently to dothe cooking. The rain was still beating down in torrents and a heavymist hung over the jungle, a mist that would not be dispelled untilthe sun had come out and licked up the surplus water in the greatswamp.
To the left and rear of the camp, though they could hardly make outthe shore lines now, lay a small lake. Tensas it was called. Thewaters were always foul and muddy, and alive underneath the surface,though the boys could only surmise this. They had observed no signsof life on the surface, but then they had had little opportunity toobserve much of anything except the rain.
On beyond the camp they were now able to make out faintly the straightstems of the canebrake that stood row upon row in straight lines, asif they had been arranged by human hands on the lines run out byengineers.
Afterward the lads sat down to breakfast, which, of course, was eateninside the tents. The boys now wanted to know what was to be doneabout their situation.
"Nothing at present," answered Mr. Lilly. "The water will not risemuch more. You see it is running off in a pretty swift currentalready. Of course the water wouldn't interfere much, but the goingwould be sloppy. You wouldn't enjoy it."
"Is there water in the canebrake?" asked Tad.
"Oh, no. The cane is on higher ground, as I have already told you.There is one thing to be thankful for--the rain drives away themosquitoes," smiled Lilly.
"Yes, but I dread to think what they will do when the rain stops andthe sun comes out," answered Tad.
Everyone was wet. The rain had found its way through the littletents, and a constant drip, drip, drip was heard above the roaring ofthe deluge on the roofs. The interiors of the tents were steaming;the heat was greater than before the rain. The tents smelled stuffy,but the boys were good-natured. No one except Stacy utteredcomplaint. Being used to Stacy's growls, they gave no heed to him.
Later in the day the boys wrapped themselves in their rubber blanketsand went to sleep.
For three full days did this state of affairs exist. Then the skiescleared as suddenly as they had become overcast. A burning sunblazed down, and the heavy mists rose in clouds. One felt thatNature was pluming herself after her long bath. Black squirrelschattered in the tops of the tall cypress, thrushes broke out into anincessant clucking, mockingbirds and finches burst into song, abovewhich was heard the twitterings of thousands of sparrows.
One could not believe that he was in a forest so full of perils, withthese sweet songs in his ears, the fresh odors of luxuriantvegetation in his nostrils. It did not seem possible that the canejust ahead of them was the haunt of savage beasts, that the littlelakes and bayous were alive with alligators, savage garfish andmonstrous snapping turtles, heavy as a man; that thick-bodiedmoccasin snakes, foul and dangerous, lurked near the shores, whilefurther back in the forests lay copperheads and rattlers in greatnumbers.
This was the country into which the Pony Rider Boys had come insearch of new experiences and thrills, and they were destined to havetheir full share of these ere they had finished their journey andreached the outer world again.