Arizona republican., 1899-02-16
CHAPTER KY.
THE FIRST BLOW.

1 was so pleased &t having given the
 slip to Long John that I began to enj joy
 myself and look around me with some interest cn the strange land that I was in.
 I had crossed a marshy tract full Of willows, bulrUsEes, and odd outland- ish, swampy trees, and had now come out upon the skirts of an open piece Of undulatinG, sandy country, about q mile long, dotted with few pines, and a great number Of contortcd trees, not unlike the oak in growth, but pale ir the foliage, like willows. On the far side of the open stood one of the hills, with two quaint, craggy peaks, shining vividly in the sun.
 I now felt for the first time the joy of exploration. The isle was uninhab- ited; my shipmatcs I had left behind, and nothing lived in front of me but dumb brutes and fowls. I turned hither and thithcr among the trees. Here and there were Towering plants unknown to ne; here and there 1 saw snakes, and one raised his head from a ledge of q rock and hissed at me with a noise not unlike the spinning of top. Little did I suppose that he was deadly enemy, and that the noise was the famous rattle.
 Then I came to long thicbet of these oak-like trees-live CT evergreen oaks, I heard afterward they should be called which grew low along the sand like brambles, the boughs curiously twist ed, the foliage compact, like thatch. The thicl<et stretched down from the top one Of the sandy lInolls, spreading and growing taller as it went, until it reached the margin of the bread, reedy fen, through which the nearest of the little rivers soaked it's way into the an- chorage. The marsh was steamirg in the strong sun, and the outline of the Spy-glass trembled through the haze.
 All at once there began to go a sort of hustle among the bulrushes; a wild duck flew up with quack, another fol- lowed, and soon over the whole surface of the marsh great cloud of birds hung screaming and circling in the air. I judged at once that some of my must be drawing near along the borders of the fen. Nor was de- ceived; for soon I heard the very dis tant and low tones of a human voice, WHICH cS l COnllHuG(l lO SIfC 0dT, grew steadily louder and nearer.
 This put me in great fear, and I crawled under cover of the nearest live oak and sqUatted there, hearkenipg, as silent as a mouse.
 Another voice answered.; and then the first voice, which now recognized to be Silver's, once more took up the story, and ran Cn for q lCng while in a stream, only now and again interrupt ed by the other. By tho sound they must have been talking earnestly, and almost ficrcely; hut no distinct word came to my hearing.
 At last the speakers seemed to have paused, and perhaps to have sat down; for not only did they cease to draw any nearer, but the birds themselves began to grow more quiet, and to settle again i to their places in the swamp.
 And now I began to feel that I was leglecting my business; that since had been so foClhardy as to come ashore l with these desperadoes. the least I | could do was to oyerhear them at their | councils; and my plain and obvious | duty was to draw as close as I could 1 manage, under the favorable ambush | of the crouching trees.
 could tell the direction of the speak CTS pretty exactly, not only by the sound of their voices, but by the be- havior Of the few birds that still hung { n alarm above the heads of the in- Iruders.
 Crawling on all-fours, I made steadily but slowly toward them; till |