across the Sound. His purpose was to try to reach some revenue guards or others who could help him to overtake the Treasure Belle. They were not to meet their chief again for some time! They dressed when their clothes were dried. The first effort they made to retrace the way down the trail was met by the appearance of the Seminole; he was on guard if not always visible.

Seated, dejectedly idle, the chums waited. A brief exploration by Cliff toward the side of the trail they had not traversed yielded no way of escape. It ended at another water path, this one going off from what might be a transfer and landing dock, off toward the North.

“That’s where the Indians come with their own canoes,” Cliff told his companions.

“But where do they take the liquor?” Nicky wondered. “Up at the north of the Everglades there isn’t anything much.”

“Just the place to load trucks, I suppose,” Cliff surmised. The afternoon dragged. They were not fed and no offer was made by the Seminole to converse. He seemed not to understand Nicky’s attempt to address him in English but shook his head, waved the youth back, and touched his belt significantly. Night came and still they were in their uncomfortably hard position, and growing very hungry indeed.

“If he means to starve us, why I’m going to make a break as soon as it gets pitchy dark,” Nicky whispered. But as soon as it got pitchy dark there came a peculiar call from the dock where Indians were supposed to arrive, and the young adventurers soon found themselves the center of a small group of the Indians, one about their own age, but not at all approachable. With the green-glassed ship’s lantern to show them, their captor made an explanation in his guttural dialect and then left the younger member of the party on watch while, with the others, began transferring the cases from the further end of the trail to the dock, and thence, the chums inferred, to canoes.

Cliff tried to establish a conversation with their young guard. “No-chit-pay-lon-es-chay!” he said. They did not comprehend that he ordered them to lie down and sleep and kept eagerly arguing that they were hungry, pointing to their open mouths, in the dim light, and rubbing their stomachs. “So-toke-kee-aw-mun-chee!” he said, holding out his hand, palm up. He meant, “Give me money,” but they had none and so the negotiations were suspended.

Finally, when, as Nicky declared, their backbones were shaking hands with their stomachs, a new voice was heard on the trail. Preceded by their earlier captor, bearing the lantern, whose queer light he threw 

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