Little did this cold-blooded man suspect, while relating his story to me, that his own end would be like Bridekirk’s, and that he would soon fall under an assassin’s hand.  I became thoroughly disgusted with my companion, who kept close to my side hour after hour as we trudged through the wilderness.  One of his arms was held stiffly to his side, and seemed to be almost useless.  He had attempted a piece of imposition on a man who lived near the creek we were approaching, and had received the contents of the settler’s shot-gun in his side.  Most of the charge had lodged in the shoulder and arm, and the cripple now inveighed against this man, and advised us to keep clear of him when we rowed down the creek.  “I have nothing against Mr. B.,” he said; “but he is no gentleman, and you better not camp near him.”

Before sunset we entered a heavily grassed country, where deer were abundant.  They sprung from their beds in the tall grass, and bounded away as we advanced.  At twilight the oxen finished their long pull on the banks of a little watercourse known as West Bay Creek, so called because it flows into the West Bay of St. Andrew’s Sound.  Here we camped for the night.

The two hired men left us to visit a friend who lived several miles distant; but the doctor remained with his oxen in our camp all night.  When the tent was pitched he was permitted to enjoy its shelter alone, for Saddles and I took to our boats, leaving the murderer to his own uneasy dreams.  I settled his bill before retiring, so he decamped at an early hour the next morning, having first found out where I had hidden my cordage, and purloining therefrom my longest and best rope.  This was a loss to me, for it was used to secure the boats when they were being hauled from place to place; but I would gladly have parted with any of my belongings to be free from the presence of my unwelcome guest; and how resigned his neighbors must have felt when, a few weeks later, they read in their newspapers that “W.  D. Holly was shot last week in his house, in Washington County, Florida, by some unknown parties”!

We made a hasty Sunday breakfast of cornstarch, and pulled down the creek, anxious to put some distance between ourselves and the doctor.  Four miles down the stream, where it debouched into West Bay, we found the homes of two settlers.  The one living on the right bank was the man who had given Mr. Holly his stiff arm, the other had built himself a rude but comfortable cabin on the opposite shore.  Though there was one delicate-looking woman only in this cabin, without any protector, she hospitably asked us to make our camp at her landing, adding, that when her husband returned from the woods she might be able to give us some meat.