While with these men, we were treated with the generous hospitality known only in the forest, but Saddles did not improve.  He seemed to be suffering from a low form of intermittent fever, and looked like anything but a subject for a long row.  Captain F. insisted upon sending the invalid in his wagon sixteen miles to his home, where he promised to nurse the unfortunate man until he was able to travel forty miles further to a railroad station.  On the 15th of March, the party, having made their final arrangements, were ready to make the start for home.  It was our last day together.

Circumstances over which I had no control forced me to part from Saddles.  I furnished him with a liberal supply of funds to enable him to reach Fernandina, Florida, by rail, and afterwards sent him a draft for an amount sufficient to pay his expenses from Cedar Keys to New Orleans, as he abandoned all his previous intentions of returning to his old home in the north.

The Riddle with its outfit, and about sixty pounds of shot and a large supply of powder, I presented to the good captain who had so generously offered to care for my unfortunate companion.  As I was to traverse the most desolate part of the coast between Spring Creek and Cedar Keys alone, I deemed it prudent to divest myself of everything that could be spared from my boat’s outfit, in order to lighten the hull.  I had made an estimate of chances, and concluded that four or five days would carry me to the end of my voyage, if the weather continued favorable; so, on the evening of March 15, the little duck-boat was prepared for future duty.

The hunters and fishermen brought into camp the spoils of the forest and the treasures of the sea, while the grinning negress exerted herself to prepare the parting feast.  Deep in the recesses of the wild swamp our camp-fire crackled and blazed, sending up its flaming tongues until they almost met the dense foliage above our heads, while seated upon the ground we feasted, and told tales of the past.  Poor Saddles tried to be cheerful, but made a miserable failure of it; and his pale face was the skeleton at our banquet, for human nature is so constituted that a suffering man gains sympathy, even though he be only paying the penalty of his own past misdemeanors.

My boat was tied alongside the bank of the creek, close to the palmetto huts.  There were only two feet of water in the stream as I sat in the little sneak-box at midnight and went through the usual preparations for stowing my self away for the night.  I touched the clear water with my hands as it laved the sides of my floating home, but my gaze could not penetrate the limpid current, for the heavy shades of the palms gave it a dark hue.  I thought of the duties of the morrow, and also of poor Saddles, who was tossing uneasily upon the blankets in his tent near by, when there was a mysterious movement in the water under the boat.  Some thing unusual was there, for its presence was betrayed by the large bubbles of air which came up from the bottom and floated upon the surface of the water.  Being too sleepy to make an investigation, I coiled myself in my nest, and drew the hatch-cover over the hold.