Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 212, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 September 1911 — Bloodstained Aigrette [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Bloodstained Aigrette

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By JULIAN A DIMOCK

1 \ Jii EAR the top of A mancM grove tree three baby egrets lay in a nest made carefully of twigs. They \Knßkl were not beautiful to look upon. Their scrawny bodies had scarcely a sign of feathers. Their heads were too big for Mj£w’ them and their ■ legs r were too long and so ’ wobbly and weak that the poor little babies

could only lie still and wait for their parents to feed them. But, oh, how hungry they were! When their mother came to the nest with a fish or a frog, three yawning throats awaited her, and she had to decide to which she would give the morsel. It seemed impossible that from such poor beginnings anything beautiful could grow. But Mother Nature had given them wonderful appetites, and in such a few weeks the frogs and the fish and the snails would be changed to feathers and bone and flesh. The weak little babies would get strong and able to walk and fly and to catch fish for themselves. For those few weeks the mother and father bird must work early and late to bring food for their babies. Away up in the air the mother egret came flying to her nest. Her legs were held close to her body, her long neck was folded over itself and lay flat on her back, her snowy plumes floated in the air. She was as beautiful as a white-robed angel. Straight she came to the nest where (hree yellow throats were opened wide and three little birds called a welcome. Perhaps she was already trying to decide to which baby she would give the green frog in her beak. Up tipped hfer wings, out went her neck and her feet were thrust down to take bold of the edge of the nest. Her lovely plumes waved in the air. She was just reaching out to drop the green frog down the throat of , when bang! went a gun. A terrible pain in her breast, a dizzy feeling and she fell, fell, fell to the ground.

Two canoes slowly pushed their way through the mass of lily pads that marked the slough leading from the Glades to the head of the river. A man stood in the stern of each and with a long pole forced the heavy craft ahead. The one in the forward canoe was not an especially heroic figure. Face, neck and hands were tanned to the copper color-of the Seminole. His feet were bare, the brim of his old straw hat was ragged and one sjde hung down until it hid the side of his face. Across the heap of camping supplies, Indian specimens and tins of food, sprawled a man burned even darker than his conn panion. He was stripped to a sleeveless undershirt and a pair of khaki trousers. A small canvas hat that once had been white rested upon his head and completed the picture of disreputableness. His face was redeemed by a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles. Not handsome, tjy any standard, but alert, receptive and thoughtful. In a word, a German studentscientist. To supply a vacancy in the collection of representative aboriginal tribes, this curator had' Invaded the Big Cypress swamp and explored the Everglades of Florida to their innermost recesses. He had followed the Seminoles to their camps and beguiled from them costumes, implements and ornaments. He had risked his life that the vacant niche In his museum might be filled. "Which way now, Frank?” he asked the man with the pole. "Through the crookedest creek you ever saw. Over logs and under trees until you’all’d wish we hadn’t come.” The canoe turned toward the north, crossed a little circular bay and entered a patch of wods. There was no sign of creek or passageway from the bay. Trees were as thick and .hung as low as elsewhere on the green-encompassed shore. The men lay on the bottom of the canoe and pulled themselves forward by the branches overhead. Bump! went the maoe on a hidden io*. Both man

got out and, balancing on the log, worked the canoe across it. A swarm of mosquitoes settled down on them. Not a breath of wind could reach them and the perspiration poured from their bodies. Pushing, pulling, poling and paddling, they advanced their craft. Lifting it over sunken logs and forcing it under low-hanging branches, they gained ground by inches. And all this time they were fighting a cloud of vicious, bloodhungry insects. The handle of the professor’s paddle hit a limb just over his head and, from a hornet’s nest at its further end poured forth a war party of these merciless fighters. “Overboard, quick!” yelled Frank, and both men tumbled into the water and sank out of sight, rising again just enough to keep nose and mouth above the surface, while the angry hornets buzzed around the canoe and crawled over its contents.

The war party dissipated its energy by flying hither and thicker and making the air vibrate with muttered threats of vengeance. At last they quieted down and returned to the nest. Slowly Frank lifted himself from the water, reached for his shotgun in the canoe, fired both barrels point blank beneath the water. But there was no need of the second submersion, for the shots had destroyed nest and inhabitants. <i Donnerwetter! Let’s go back, Frank!” exclaimed the dripping man at the bow of the canoe as he climbed aboard. "Isn’t there some other way to the rookery?” “Nope. The plume hunters keep the creek blocked up, so’s to shut out other fellers. We’re over the worst now, we’ll soon be in the bay.” Even obstructed creeks of corkscrew tendencies have a beginning and an end. We finally emerged in a bay about a mile in diameter. In the middle were two small mangrove keys, over which a multitude of birds were soaring. The shores of the bay were an unbroken line of green; neither entrance nor exit was visible, for the mangrove trees extended to the water’s edge. Even as we looked a puff of smoke came from the little island, followed a second later by the report of a gun. We saw a stricken bird fall to the water ahd a cloud of white, blue and pink ones rise suddenly from the trees of the key. "Gosh! The plume hunters ’re here now!" exclaimed Frank, excitedly; "look’s like we mought have trouble. You-all better get in t’other canoe and lemme go alone and talk to ’em.’’, Frank paddled toward the island. A charge of shot spattered the water ahead of him. "Heigh, Jackson! Don’t you know me? I’m Frank Brown. Put up yo’ gun, we’re not after you!” shouted Frank, standing up in his canoe with arms outstretched. A gruff voice mumbled something that didn’t reach us and we heard Frank say: “Put up yo’ gun! I’m coming to talk to you. You know me." A skiff, swiftly coming from behind the island, just showed as it rounded a point. "They’re two to one, now," remarked the professor. "I wish I were in that canoe.” "You’re a good sight better off right here, and so is Frank," commented the man at the stern of my canoe. "Frank knows those fellers and can talk to ’em, but they would load you with shot first and talk afterward.” At last Frank appeared paddling bls craft over our way. t "Fellers, it’s all right. They say we can come and camp with ’em one night, but I’ll be a sight easier in my mind when we’re clear of ’em. I didn’t expect to find ’em here or I wouldn’t ’a’ come.; That’s the livin’ truth. That feller Jdckson is wanted by the sheriff somethin* fierce, and he’s a bad ’un all right However, we’re four and they ain’t likely to do nothin’ foolish. We took as few things as possible out of the canoe and even forebore, to exhibit our rubber mattresses. “Well nee your fire, if you-all don’t

mind, Jackson, and then invite you to grub,” said Frank. , “ ’Taln’t no use rustlin’’ any more wood that I knows of. Go ahead and use it. If you fellers has got airy milk and sugar ’n’ will pass out some coffee with ’em I’ll be mighty glad yer come. Hog and hominy’s all right fer a spell, but it gets sickenin’. Got er plug o’ terbaccy?” / Not only did Frank get out the canned cow and sugar, but he made biscuits in the Dutch oven and the eyes of the hunters fairly glistened at visions of the feast. "Come ahead, grub’s ready," said he; “bring your cups, we haven’t enough to go ’round.” Never before in any warm country have I seen such appetites. “I/ve got ter go over ter th’ island now,” said Jackson, after eating until there was nothing more to eat. "I’d ask you fellers ter grub with us es we had 1 anythin' fer yer." As his boat approached the island a cloud of birds filled the air. Two shots were fired and two birds fell to the water. At intervals through the afternoon the sound of shots floated over us, and after each one there was a sudden-burst of flying birds from tree tops. That evening we sat in the lee of the camp fire, for the mosquitoes were legion and the' smoke less of an evil. The professor repeated his question of the morning, this time to Jackson.

"Are the mosquitoes always as bad as this?” “Nope, not al’ers, but som’tlmes they is a heap worse’n this 'ere. Redbugs worries Us sometimes, too, and b’tween ’em things is tough.” "I don’t like the killing of birds, but I sure think you earn the money if you live through this sort of thing,” replied the professor. "Yep, we do, every cent." “Can’t you get an easier job?” "They ain’t no other way fer me ter make er livin’ an’ I do it thlsaway. I ain’t erlowed ter do it out’r this beastly place, so I does it here. No, sir, I want ter live jes’s much as iyou do!” "If. you can’t leave the place, how can you carry on the trade?” asked the curator. There was genuine sympathy in his tone, and softened by this and the spell of the camp fire, the man went on:

"Why, I'm staked fer this work. A man comes down here and puts this gun inter my hand, gives me hog ’n’ hominy, a little coffee *n* a. lot er shells. Then he pays me fer the plumes I brings him. ’Tln’t healthy fer me ter go none outside, so he arranges things, so’s I don’t have ter.” "Rotten business —who’s at the bottom of it anyhow?” "Yer wlmmen folk. What does they keer fer us fellers livin’ In this hell down here, er fer the little birds thet starve ter death because I’ve shot their pappys and mammys? I swear I’d like nothin’ buetter’n to show them wlmmen how us fellers got them plumes. But Lor* ’tln’t no manner er use, they gotter look purty, and they’s goln’ ter do it. Let th’ young*uns starve ter death.” "I’m dead set against the whole business, Jackson, but When I get back home I’m going to tell some people where I think the trouble lies —and it’s not with you hunters, either!” That night the mosquitoes held a concert around my bar. I could hardly sleep because of the noise and—because I remembered two hunters with' bars filled with boles. When we left the camp in the morning all the sullen, suspicious look had cotne back to the faces of the hunters. They were glad to have us go, but I wondered If they didn’t think if might be safer to "plant” us right there. I felt sure they regretted the thawing out of the night before under the Influence of the camp fire. "What a life! Can anything be worse?" said the curator, thinking out loud. "Have you-all ever heard tell o’ ths chain jams?” asked Frank.