In a certain part of the wilderness of this region a tract of savanna and pine lands approached near to the waters of the Gulf, and was known as the “Devil’s Wood Pile.”  Superstition has made this much-dreaded forest the scene of wild and horrible tales.  Fishermen had warned me of its dismal shades, and of the wild cattle which roamed unheeded through its dreary recesses.  Hunters, they said, had entered it in strong force, but the wild bulls were so fierce that the bravest were driven back, and the dangerous task abandoned.  Calves had been born in the fastnesses of the “Devil’s Wood Pile,” and had grown old without being branded by their owners, who feared the sharp horns of the paternal bulls, the courageous defenders of their native pastures.

Skirting the marshy savannas of His Satanic Majesty’s earthly dominion, I ascended the Steinhatchee River, when a clearing with a rough house and store gave unmistakable signs of the proximity of the settler of whom I had heard.  I was preparing to make my camp near the landing, when the proprietor made his appearance, courteously inviting me to his house, where he held me a willing prisoner for three days, giving me much information in regard to life in the woods.  He had been a soldier in the Seminole war, and had passed through varied experiences, but had “settled down,” as he expressed it, to the red-cedar business.  Six long years had this man and his wife delved and toiled in the desolate region of Deadman’s Bay, seeing no one except a few cedar-cutters from the interior, who stocked up at his store before going into the wilderness.

A great deal of red cedar is cut on the shores and in the back country of the Steinhatchee River.  The squatters and small farmers, called crackers, engaged in this work, are not hampered by the eighth commandment, and Uncle Sam has to suffer in consequence, most of the timber being cut on United States government reserves.  It finds its way to the cedar warehouses of merchants in the town of Cedar Keys.  I have seen whole rafts of this valuable red cedar towed into Cedar Keys and sold there, when the parties purchasing knew it to be stolen from the government lands.  My kind host, Mr. James H. Stephens, was the first honest purchaser of this government cedar I had met, for he cheerfully and promptly paid the requisite tax upon it, and seemed to be endeavoring to protect the property of the government.

From Mr. Stephens’s hospitable home I proceeded along the Gulf, past Rocky Creek, to Frog Island, a treeless bit of territory where a little shanty had been erected by the Coast Survey officers to shelter a tide-gauge watcher.  The island was now deserted.  The coast was indeed desolate, and it was a cheering sight in the middle of the afternoon to catch a glimpse of signs of the past presence of man on Pepperfish Key, an island a little distance from land, rising out of the sparkling sea, and crowned with a rough but picturesque shanty,—­ another reminder of the untiring efforts of our Coast Survey Bureau.