The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-12-17
's @ @ ~sN<s<ezNsNstestu1I

ments. The long silver ear " l, rings and small portion of his T. knee ornaments. are still in the ~ possession of the writer Osceo- N la had two wives with him in ,e captivity. one of whom was N very lean and the other much x i fatter than Indians usually; K bringing 10 mind Campbell's I two monks of Dijon. One would
 scarce have made a wick to burn M the others tallow." .H At the time of Osceoia's cap- N | ture another Indian was taken A and confined with companion K 1 in the first cell to the left as you M
 enter the fort. This Indian was .e more savage and dangerous than ~ Osceola- He was young. strong C.
 and full of energy. His name Sy , was Wildcat
 The prison doors were thick N
 and strong. and the stone walls I were too massive to dig E through, yet Wildcat resolved Ae to make the effort to be free and breathe the pure fresh air once more. There was window or narrow slit in the wall of his cell, maybe fifteen or twenty feet from the floor, to admit light and air. A man must be desper- ate indeed to suppose that he could get through that hole. Wildcat was desperate and he determined to make the effort. With Q hunting knife, he dug holes in the rock for his toes and by standing on the shoulders of the other Indian. he reached the hole only to find it too small for his body. The other man was smaller than Wildcat and might succeed in getting through. but the window was forty or fifty feet from the bottom of the moat on the outside and sentinel walked back and forth on the meat wall. Wildcat came down moro determined than ever to escape from his prison. He found that 1t would take but very little reduction in his size to enable him to get through. He knew that if he attempted to peck at the wall. which was coated with hard cement, the sentinel would hear, so he con- cluded to reduce himself by starvation and found in a few days that he could squeeze through.
 One dark stormy night he tore his blankets into strips. tied them together by which to descend, so arranging 1t that after he had gotten through. his companion could follow
 What n dramatic picture that must have been! What q splendid struggle for freedomi The roar of the surf upon the beach, the whistling and bowling of tho winds around the angles of the fort, the bay trees Iash- | all prevented any other sound reach ing the sentinel and the night was too dark to see any distance. Every con dition seemed to favor the fugftives. The lightning was distant; the storm seemed raging on the ocean. With a firm grip upon his blanket,rope. Wild cat swung out of the window hand under hand he descended, his savage face fixed and determined. looking upward to the starless sky. He reach ed the bottom in safety: the moat has been dry, for many years and a thick growth of grass and weeds with a thick sprinkling of prickly ash bushes, then grew, where the salt water flowed to tho depth of six feet or more in the years previous.
 He shook the rope violently as a signal; and the other Indian squeezed through the aperture, swung out and began to descend. But he was not so fortunate; when about ten feet from the ground the rope broke and he came down ''by the rum" as the sailors say, striking foot foremost, barely missing Wildcats head. Fortunately for him, the sentinel was at the remotest point from them and did not hear the fall. One of the bones in his leg was broken by the fall causing much suffering, but they crept on their hands and knees across the moat to a point where they could climb up. They could now hear the sentinel's tread. and guiding them selves by the sound succeeded in reaching the top of the wall as the sentinel passed and they then began the descent of the grassy declivity leading westward toward the city gates. crawling still upon their hands and knees until the graveyard just north of the gates was reached There they rested little and then cont.s.ssed their Journey westward. Wildcat car rying his comrade in his arms most of the time, until they reached the mound at the western treminal of the moat, on the margin of the San Sabas- tian ruin. Through mud and marsh grass and over rough oyster beds, they gained the river and swamp across. reaching the pine, the palmetto and freedom.
 They were not pursued. for pursuit was not only useless but dangerous.