In the Wilds of Florida: A Tale of Warfare and Hunting

while I slept; but as soon as I awoke, Imade him lie down, and sat up by our fire with my rifle by my side,trying to keep my eyes open by throwing on sticks so as to maintain abright blaze which would keep wolves or pumas at a distance.

  My faithful Caesar crouched by my side, every now and then opening hiseyes and looking about to ascertain that no foe was near. Perhapstrusting to his vigilance, I made less strenuous efforts to keep myselffrom dozing; certain it is that, after a time, I sank down on theground. When I awoke, the fire had almost gone out, and my blanket wasnearly wet through. I jumped to my feet, and endeavoured to make thefire burn up again, puffing and blowing with all my might. I wasunwilling to call Tim to my assistance.

  While I was thus employed, day dawned. Though the light increased, thesame heavy fog hung over the face of nature, and it was impossible toascertain in what direction the sun was rising. We wrung out our wetblankets, and hung them on some sticks close to the fire to dry, whilewe breakfasted off some of the game we had cooked on the previousevening; but it was already high, and we knew that it would be uselessto carry the remainder with us, except for the sake of Caesar, who wouldnot object to it on that account.

  "It won't do to stay here doing nothing," I observed; "we must look outfor water, and try to kill some more game for our next meal."

  "Faith you're right, Mr. Maurice," said Tim. "I'm mighty thirsty as itis; an' though there is no sun, we shall find it hot enough when webegin to trudge on."

  We accordingly rolled up our blankets, strapped on our packs, andcommenced our march for the day. Our footsteps showed us the directionwhence we had come, and we hoped that we had been directing our courseeastward. As we marched on through the midst of a wide-extendingpine-barren, eagerly looking out for water, we allayed our burningthirst by sucking some leaves which still retained the moistureprecipitated on them during the night. Though the fog continued, theprecious drops soon dried up, and our thirst became almost intolerable.Poor Caesar followed with his tongue out, showing that he was sufferingas well as we were. No deer or other wild animals crossed our path.The fog prevented us from seeing more than a few yards off, so that itwas possible we might pass close to water without discovering it. Hadeither of us been alone, we should most likely have sunk down indespair; but as it was, we encouraged each other, though we did not talkmuch, for our tongues were too dry to speak.

  We were almost in despair of finding water, when Tim stopped, andwhispered, "See there!" pointing on one side, where I could just makeout dimly through the fog the form of a deer crossing the grass. Inanother instant it might disappear. We raised our rifles at the samemoment, and fired. As the smoke cleared away, we expected to see theanimal struggling on the ground, but it had vanished. We dashedforward, in vain looking out for it. When we reached the spot where webelieved that it had been standing, we could discover no traces of bloodto show that it had been wounded. We must have been deceived by thefog, for we could not suppose that we should otherwise both have missed.

  Caesar rushed on, and we followed, hoping that he had got upon the trailof the deer.

  "There it is! there it is!" cried Tim, after we had gone a considerabledistance, and either the same deer or another rose before us, asindistinctly seen as the first. We stopped to reload our rifles, thencautiously crept forward. But the animal must have discovered us; forscarcely had we raised our rifles to our shoulders and pulled thetriggers, than it vanished.

  "I hit it, Tim; I'm sure I did!" I exclaimed.

  But we were again doomed to disappointment; not a trace of the deercould we perceive. I cannot describe our sensations. It made us feelas if some phantom were mocking us. But it was by the fog alone we hadbeen deceived, and we had both probably fired too high. We resolvedthat, should we see another deer, only one should fire at a time; and itwas agreed that I should fire first, and should I miss, Tim should dashforward and try and get another shot before the animal had disappeared.In our eagerness to get up to the deer, we had not sufficiently markedthe direction we had come, and we had to stop and consider how we shoulddirect our course. We both thought that we were right, and once more wewent on. We were now feeling hungry as well as thirsty, and I was veryfaint; still, knowing that it would not do to give in, I struggled on aswell as I could. Had the fog cleared away, and enabled us to see thesun,--although the heat would have been increased,--we should have beenin better spirits, for we should have known whether or not we were inthe right direction. Now all was uncertain. We were uncertain but thatwe might be retracing our steps towards the lake, going west instead ofeast, as we wished to do. My watch told me that the day was advancing.Should we not obtain food and water before the morning, I felt I couldscarcely hold out until then.

  "It will be a pity," I heard Tim muttering; "but it must be done soonerthan let the young master die."

  "What's that you say?" I asked.

  "I'm just thinkin' that we must kill Caesar an' eat him. If we die,he'll die; for the wolves an' painters, or maybe the rattlesnakes, willbe puttin' an end to his life, so that it'll be no cruelty to kill himan' save ourselves."

  "I should not have the heart to do that," I said. As my hungerincreased, however, I began to think it would be better to eat poorCaesar than to die of starvation. Still, watching the faithful animalas he trotted on beside me, unconscious of the subject of ourconversation, I resolved that it should only be done when we werereduced to the direst extremity. "We must wait until nightfall, Tim. Ithink I can hold out another day. I'll try my best, at all events," Isaid.

  We walked on some way further, scarcely exchanging a word, when I saw acreature moving in the grass before me. I thought it was a snake, andwas about to lift my gun to blow off its head, knowing that it wouldserve us for food, when I perceived that it was a tortoise.

  "Hurrah!" cried Tim; "there's something that will keep us and Caesaralive for a day at least." And he rushed forward with his axe uplifted,intending to kill the animal.

  "Stay!" I exclaimed. "See, it is evidently going steadily forward, asif making its way to water. It will lead us to it if we follow it; andwhen it has performed that service, we may kill it if necessary."

  I had to hold back Caesar, who would have attacked the tortoise, whichwent steadily on, as I expected. Afraid of getting too close, lest wemight alarm it and make it conceal itself, we kept at some distance.Our impatience, however, made us wish that it would move faster than itwas doing. It went on in a straight line, apparently not discoveringus, as we followed behind. How we longed that it would break into arun. I remembered the fable, however, of the hare and the tortoise:"Sure and steady wins the race." Parched with thirst as we were, it wasa hard matter for us to restrain our eagerness. On went the tortoise,turning neither to the right nor to the left. It seemed to us that theground was sloping, and that we were on the edge of a pine-barren.Perhaps it was making its way to some bottom or hummock, where we shouldfind not only water but game. Tim and Caesar, however, became veryimpatient at the tortoise, which crawled on, taking no pains to hurryitself. I confess I myself had the greatest difficulty in not runningon and giving it a shove with the muzzle of my rifle.

  At length some palmetto-scrub appeared, and palmetto-palms and othertrees which cannot exist without moisture. How thankful we felt when,just before the gloom of evening came on, a pool appeared before us. Weforgot the tortoise, and dashed forward, eager to quench our thirst.While we were stooping down to do so, and Caesar was busy lapping therefreshing liquid, our slow-moving guide reached the water. I thoughtthat it would put in its head, and drink as we were doing; instead ofwhich, before we could catch it, the creature plunged into the pool anddisappeared. However, I scarcely regretted this, as, by destroying it,we should have ill requited the valuable service it had performed to us.

  The water greatly revived us, and we felt we could endure hunger forsome hours longer, should no animal come in our way. As there would,however, still be some few minutes of daylight, we might be able to killa bi
rd or two for supper. Rising to our feet, we lost no time inlooking out for game. We saw several birds,--green paroquets,woodpeckers, blue-birds, and red-birds; but we had frightened them fromthe spot where we had at first appeared. We accordingly made our wayalong the pool, Tim going in one direction, I in the other. I was veryunwilling to throw away ammunition on small birds; but we had agreed tokill no more than we wanted. I soon shot a couple, and heard Tim firetwice. Just as I was reloading, I saw, through the thickening gloom, ahuge brown bear descending a cabbage-palm, up which it had climbed toobtain the bunches of ripe fruit growing on the boughs. Though alone, Idetermined to attack it; so I dropped in a ball instead of small shot,as I was about to do. Creeping closer, I took, as I thought, a steadyaim, and fired. Unfortunately,