When the boys went to the Osceola camp of Seminoles with Tommy they found a people as stolid and taciturn as those of any Indian tribe of which they had read.  After four days, during which all hospitality was extended to them, they left behind them a kindly group of untaught native Americans, who went out of their way to show friendliness to their guests.  Johnny nearly cried over the parting, and would have bartered his hopes of the hereafter to have been allowed to accompany the boys, while Tommy, clothed again in his native costume and in his right mind, preceded them for two miles in his canoe to show them a blind, side trail which they were to take.  When they turned to take their last look at him, the Seminole was standing in his canoe, leaning on his long pole and looking fixedly at them.

[Illustration:  “THE SEMINOLE WAS STANDING IN HIS CANOE LOOKING FIXEDLY AT US”]

For a few miles the trail was easy, but then became too dry for paddles, and Dick pushed with an oar, while Ned used a pole which he had brought along for use with a harpoon.  As the trail grew dryer, it became impossible to pole the canoe, and Ned took the painter and, stepping into the nearly dry ditch in front of the canoe, dragged the craft, while Billy got overboard and pushed from behind.  Sometimes Ned stopped to kick something out of his path, and at last Dick called to him: 

“What are you kicking, Ned?”

“Nothing but yellow-bellies and once in a while a brown moccasin.  I used to worry myself half sick over them, but after seeing Chris Meyer wade through bunches of them in the Big Cypress without paying any attention to them, I got ashamed of being afraid, and now I don’t mind moccasins much unless they are cotton-mouths.”

“But they have all got fangs, are all poisonous, and all seem anxious to bite,” said Dick.

“But their bite isn’t fatal.  Tommy told me that he had been bitten six times, and when I asked if the bites made him sick, he said:  ‘Lilly bit, one moon.’  I asked him about rattlesnake bites, and he said:  ’Make sick ojus (heap), think so big sleep come pretty quick.’  He told me that the moccasins bit him while he was pushing his canoe and stepped on them.”

“Neddy, Johnny used to talk just as you do, and Mr. Streeter said a lot more, but it makes me sick to hear it.  I can feel the little squirmy beasts under my feet every step I take.”

About noon the boys struck a creek, where their paddles came into play, and very glad they both were.  For a time grass troubled them, and their progress was slow, but the stream gradually broadened and deepened, while its banks became covered with trees and vines, and the very sound of their paddles dipping into the clear water was a joy to them.  Again the brook widened, this time into a shallow bay, but a narrow, deep channel remained, which soon led the boys into a tidal river.