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KASTLE KRAGS
A STORY OF MYSTERY
BY ABSALOM MARTIN
NEW YORK DUFFIELD AND COMPANY 1922
Copyright, 1921, 1922 BY DUFFIELD & COMPANY
Printed in U. S. A.
KASTLE KRAGS
CHAPTER I
Who could forget the Ochakee River, and the valley through which itflows! The river itself rises in one of those lost and nameless lakes inthe Floridan central ridge, then is hidden at once in the live oak andcypress forests that creep inland from the coasts. But it can never besaid truly to flow. Over the billiard-table flatness of that land itmoves so slowly and silently that it gives the effect of a lake stirredby the wind. These dark waters, and the moss-draped woodlands throughwhich they move, are the especial treasure-field and delight of thenaturalist and scientist from the great universities of the North.
It is a lost river; and it is still a common thing to see a brown,lifeless, floating log suddenly flash, strike, and galvanize into adiving alligator. The manatee, that grotesque, hair-lipped caricature ofa sea-lion, still paddles in the lower waters; and the great gar, whocould remember, if he would, the days when the nightmare wings of thepterodactyls whipped and hummed over his native waters, makes deadlyhunting-trips up and down the stream, sword-like jaws all set and ready;and all manner of smaller fry offer pleasing possibilities to thesportsmen. The water-fowl swarm in countless numbers: fleet-wingedtravelers such as ducks and geese, long-legged dignitaries of the craneand heron tribe, gay-colored birds that flash by and out of sight beforethe eye can identify them, and bitterns, like town-criers, booming theriver news for miles up and down the shores. And of course the littleperchers are past all counting in the arching trees of the river-bank.
In the forests the fleet, under-sized Floridan deer is watchful andfurtive because of the activities of that tawny killer, the "catamount"of the frontier; and the black bear sometimes grunts and soliloquizesand gobbles persimmons in the thickets. The lynx that mews in thetwilight, the raccoon that creeps like a furtive shadow through thevelvet darkness, the pink-nosed 'possum that can only sleep when dangerthreatens, and such lesser folk as rabbit and squirrel, weasel andskunk, all have their part in the drama of the woods. Then there are thegame-birds: wild turkey, pheasant, and that little red quail, the BobWhite known to Southern sportsmen.
Yet the Ochakee country conveys no message of brightness and cheer. Someway, there are too many shadows. The river itself is a moving sea ofshadows; and if the sun ever gets to them, it is just an unhappy glimpsethrough the trees in the long, still afternoons. The trees are mostlydraped with Spanish moss that sways like dark tresses in the littlewinds that creep in from the gulf, and the trees creak and complain andmurmur one to another throughout the night. The air is dank, lifeless,heavy with the odors of vegetation decaying underfoot. There is moredeath than life in the forest, and all travelers know it, and not onecan tell why. It is easier to imagine death than life, the trail growsdarker instead of brighter, a murky mystery dwells between the distanttrunks.... Ordinarily such abundant wild-life relieves the somber,unhappy tone of the woods, but here it some way fails to do so. Nowoodsman has to be told how much more cheerful it makes him feel, howless lonely and depressed, to catch sight of a doe and fawn, feeding inthe downs, or even a raccoon stealing down a creek-bank in the mysteryof the moon; but here the wild things always seem to hide when you wantthem most; and if they show themselves at all, it is just as a fleetshadow at the edge of the camp-fire. These are cautious, furtive things,fleet as shadows, hidden as the little flowers that blossom among thegrass-stems; and such woodsfolk as do make their presence manifest donot add, especially, to the pleasure of one's visit. These are two inparticular--the water-moccasin that hangs like a growing thing in thewisteria, and the great, diamond-back rattlesnake whose bite is death.
The river flows into the gulf about half-way down the peninsula, andhere is the particular field of the geologist, rather than thenaturalist. For miles along the shore the underlying limestone andcoraline rocks crop up above the blue-green water, forming a naturalsea-wall. Here, in certain districts, the thickets have been clearedaway, wide areas planted to rice, and a few ancient colonial homes standfronting the sea. Also the sportsman fishes for tarpon beyond thelagoons.
A strange, unhappy land of mystery; a misty, enchanted place whosetragic beauty no artist can trace and whose disconsolate appeal no mancan fathom! Forests are never cheerful, silent and steeped in shadow asthey are, but these moss-grown copses beside the Ochakee, and crowdingdown to the very shores of the gulf, have an actual weight of sadness,like a curse laid down when the world was just beginning. Yet GroverNealman defied the disconsolate spirit of the land. He dared to disturbthe cathedral silence of those mossy woods with the laughter of carefreeguests, and to hold high revelry on the shores of that dismal sea.
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