Linda Carlton's Island Adventure

"Alive with snakes and wild animals, and alligators, I suppose," she mused. Yet nothing savage could be worse than those three fiends in human flesh who were holding her captive. She determined to face anything rather than them. Yes; she would run away, if it meant swimming the swamp!

There was no use loading herself down with food, she concluded, for most of her trip would be through the water. She would stop at her plane and take out some chocolate, and her knife; thus lightly equipped, she would face the wilderness alone.

"Linda," said Susie, interrupting these thoughts, "will you go to my tent and get me a magazine I have there? I think it's under the cot."

Linda nodded, repressing a smile. She would go, but she would not come back!

Stepping into the smaller tent, she dropped the flap, and picked up her flash-light. Then, raising the wall on the other side, she crept out through the trees to the edge of the island and circled about until she reached the autogiro. This would give her a few minutes extra before Susie should realize that she had gone.

As she stood there beside her plane for a moment, wondering whether she would ever see it again, she had her first real sight of the Okefenokee Swamp from the ground. Cypress and slash pine trees grew in abundance, and heavy moss hung about. In the water all around her, she noticed rushes and water-lilies, and ferns grew everywhere in profusion. Beneath the surface, she could see thick vegetation; would this, she wondered, support her weight if she were to attempt to walk in it?

In the afternoon sunlight the water, the trees, were perfectly still; except for the birds, the silence was profound. How desolate it was! Her wrist-watch informed her that it was already four o'clock. Five hours more, and darkness would come on, enveloping everything in a blackness such as a city-dweller never sees. Even the sky might be hidden by the trees, and the wild animals would be prowling stealthily about in search of food. She shuddered and hesitated.

"But I have an even chance with the animals," she thought. "And with those thieves, I am sure to lose!" So valiantly, she stepped out into the water.

The depth was not great at this point, and she discovered that, though the soft muck sunk beneath her feet, she could still make progress. The hard rains of July and August had not yet set in, and the "bays," as the stretches of shallow water were called, had not risen to any great height.

Laboriously she waded onward, choosing a thick growth of trees in the distance as her goal. Surely, she thought, where the trees could grow there must be some dry land. If she could make that spot by nightfall, she could hide in their depths and sleep. Then tomorrow she could press on to the westward, and perhaps reach the end of the swamp.

It was a slow, weary progress that she accomplished, and she had to pick her way carefully, measuring the depth of the water with a stick which she had cut from a pine on Black Jack Island, but she kept resolutely on until her watch registered seven o'clock. Then, all of a sudden, the stick sunk so deeply into the muck that she knew she would have to swim, and she hastily ate the chocolate which was to be her evening meal, and plunged forward to swim.

As the time slowly passed, she watched Black Jack Island fading in the distance, and hope swelled in her heart. She was nearing land at last – perhaps only an island – but even if she were not out of the swamp, at least she would be away from her enemies. She smiled when she pictured the consternation and anger of the men at finding her gone.

She swam on for some distance, now and then pausing to cut the grasses that became entangled about her legs. Her shoes were heavy, but she hated to take them off, for they were a help in the shallow water.

After an hour of this exercise, she was utterly exhausted, and she looked about her in dismay. What if she should drown now, in the midst of her own country – after she had conquered the Atlantic Ocean successfully? The thought was absurd; she steeled herself to press forward, for she was coming nearer to that bank of trees. Surely, there lay safety!

Had she but known it, she was now entering one of the so-called "Gator Roads" of the swamp – channels of water which the alligators followed. But it looked promising to the tired, hungry girl.

The foliage was growing thicker now, and the water-way narrowing. Some distance on, the trees met overhead, and beautiful moss hung from their branches, shutting out the setting sunlight, and forming a lovely green bower. But Linda was scarcely conscious of this beauty, for she was breathing with difficulty, panting with fatigue. If she could only make that bank – where the land seemed firm!

A big tree had fallen across the water, and she managed to reach it, and to cling to it for support while she rested. Her feet hung down in the muck, and she realized that the water was comparatively shallow. She wanted to laugh aloud in her relief.

Pulling herself up by her hands, she decided to walk the log to the bank, and had just poised herself upon its rather perilous round surface, when she encountered the greatest shock in her life thus far. Not ten yards away, in the very water where she would have been now, had she not mounted the log – was an alligator, at least eight feet long! Brave as she was usually in the face of other dangers, she let out a piercing scream of terror at the sight of this horrible monster.

"Now I've got to walk the log!" she thought. "It's death if I fall off!"

She watched the alligator a minute or two while she regained her self-control, and made sure that he was not moving. Then, with eyes straight ahead, she started to walk the log.

Once, toward the middle, she swayed, but it was only for a second. She straightened herself staunchly and marched on – to dry land.

Oh, the joy of feeling her feet on firm ground again! To know that whatever misfortune might come on the morrow, she was safe for that night at least! She could not drown, or be tortured by enemies; her only danger would come from snakes. She would take the precaution to explore her sleeping-place thoroughly before she lay down.

Weary as she was, she did not stop until she had gone farther into the island. The trees were denser here than they had been at Black Jack; it would be more difficult to land an autogiro, if by chance Susie should follow her. Nevertheless, she resolved to stay hidden as much as possible.

Away from the shore, she finally dropped to the ground and took off her wet shoes and stockings.

"Not that it will do me much good in the morning to start off dry," she thought bitterly. "But anyhow, I don't want to sleep in them." And then she removed her outer garments.

"Wouldn't supper taste good!" she said aloud, envying Susie that well-filled larder at the camp. But Linda knew that there was no danger of her starving so soon, after that big noon-day meal, and she put the thought of food from her mind. Water she could not forget so easily. After half an hour's thirst, she decided to risk a drink from the swamp. Had she but known that the water of the Okefenokee is not poisonous, she would have enjoyed her drink more. The "peat" gives it a queer taste, but it is harmless.

She was relieved, in her return to the water, to see that the alligator had gone – which way, she could not tell. Though she was desolately lonely in that vast abandoned wilderness, she did not care for the companionship of so ugly a beast!

When she returned to the spot which she had selected for her camp, she took her knife from its wet case and cut a few stout sticks from a tree. With these she would explore the ground before she lay down, and keep them at her side while she slept, as some sort of protection from snakes.

As with the water, however, Linda's fears regarding snakes proved unnecessary, for the report of a large number of these in the Okefenokee Swamp had been proved by hunters to have been exaggerated. As a matter of fact, Linda did not see one during her entire visit to the swamp.

She waited until the daylight had faded, and darkness completely enveloped the landscape before she lay down to rest. The stars were still visible here and there through the trees, and, as upon the occasion of her lonely flight to Paris, they somehow seemed friendly. After an hour or so, she slipped off to sleep.

Only once during that strange, desolate night did she awaken, and that was when something cold and wet suddenly touched her face. She started up fearfully, seizing a stick with one hand and her knife with the other, squinting her eyes for snakes. Her flash-light had of course been thrown away during her swim, so she could not immediately identify the enemy that had awakened her.

She laughed out loud when she finally saw what it was. She had rolled over against her shoes, which were still cold and clammy with water!

She went back to sleep again, and did not awaken until the sun was well up in the sky. She had no way of telling the exact time, for her watch refused to go after its bath in the swamp, but Linda judged from the sun that it must be nine o'clock at least. Her clothing was dry, at any rate, and her shoes only a little damp. But what a sight she was, she thought, after that long swim!

She went down to the water's edge to wash, and to drink the water that must serve as her breakfast, and looked carefully about her – into the sky, and on the water – for the sight of her enemies. For she had no doubt that as soon as the thieves returned, they would go in search of her, believing that she could not have gotten far away.

She was relieved to see nothing, no sign of human beings anywhere, and she paused to watch some wild birds fly past overhead. Everything was peaceful and quiet – like a Sunday morning in the country. It was hard to believe that wickedness existed in such a beautiful world.

Then, abruptly, she noticed the soft swish of water not far away from her, and she looked up quickly, expecting to see the alligator again. In that awful second, her worst fears were realized. A canoe, with two men aboard, was coming straight towards her. The thieves! They had sighted her – they were wildly waving their arms.

It was too late to hide!

Chapter VI

The Enemy in the Autogiro

Defeated, miserable, hopeless, Linda sank to the ground and buried her face in her hands, waiting for the dreaded approach of her enemies. Oh, the cruelty of fate, to deliver her to them again, after her superhuman effort to escape! Bitter tears rushed to her eyes, scalding her face, and she sat as one expecting death, listening to the rhythmic dip of the paddles, as the canoe came closer and closer.

She kept her face hidden until the sound ceased, informing her thereby that the craft had stopped at her side. Tensely she waited for the harsh snarl of her captor's voice. But to her incredulous amazement, she heard instead the soft, deep, well-bred tones of a Southerner!

"Can we be of any help to you, Miss?" inquired the speaker.

Linda looked up instantly into the kind eyes of two exceedingly attractive young men.

"Oh! Please!" she gasped, the tears still running from her eyes. "Yes, please!"

And then, for the first time in her life, Linda Carlton fainted.

When she came to, she was lying on the ground, with two strangers bending over her, one offering her water, and the other hot coffee from a thermos bottle. A warm glow of happiness surged over her as she realized that she was among real human beings – not animals, or criminals. Though not naturally impulsive, she longed to throw her arms about these boys and weep with gratitude. If they had been girls, she would not have hesitated a moment.

Instead, she sat up and smiled her sweetest smile, so that, bedraggled as she was, she was still beautiful. The boys, man-like, each urged his particular offering upon her.

"Put that coffee down, Hal!" commanded the tall, fair youth at her right. "A lady who has just fainted doesn't want coffee."

"I do, though," Linda assured him. "I want water, and coffee – and anything else you have to eat. I fainted from hunger as much as from anything else."

The boy called "Hal" looked pleased at her acceptance of his gift, and he hurried back to the canoe for some food.