'And
now,' said he, 'how many acres of land have
you "logged" since you put your lumbermen
into the forest?'
"Mr. X declared himself unable to answer
this question, but generously offered to permit
the agent to put down any number of acres he
thought would represent a fair thing between
a kind government and one of its unfortunate
citizens. Intending to do his duty faithfully, the
officer settled upon two thousand acres as having
been trespassed upon; but to his astonishment the
incomprehensible offender stoutly affirmed that he
had logged fully five thousand acres, and at once
settled the matter in full by paying twenty-five
hundred dollars, taking a receipt for the same.
"When this enterprising business-man visited
Jacksonville, his friends rallied him upon
confessing judgment to government for three
thousand acres of timber more than had been claimed
by the agent. This true patriot winked as he
replied:
"'It is true I hold a receipt from the
government for the timber on five thousand acres at
the very low rate of fifty cents an acre. As I
have not yet cut logs from more than one-fifth
of the tract, I intend to work off the timber on
the other four thousand acres at my leisure, and
no power can stop me now I have the
government receipt to show it's paid for.'"
The sloop and the canoe had left Columbus a
little before noon, and at six P. M. we passed
Charles' Ferry, where the old St. Augustine
and Tallahassee forest road crosses the river.
At this lonely place an old man, now dead,
owned a subterranean spring, which he called
"Mediterranean passage." This spring is
powerful enough to run a rickety, "up-and-down"
saw-mill. The great height of the water
allowed me to paddle into the mill with my canoe.
At half past seven o'clock a deserted log
cabin at Barrington's Ferry offered us shelter for
the night. The whole of the next day we rowed
through the same immense forests, finding no
more cultivated land than during our first day's
voyage. We landed at a log cabin in a small
clearing to purchase eggs of a poor woman,
whose husband had shot her brother a few days
before. As the wife's brother had visited the
cabin with the intention of killing the husband,
the woman seemed to think the murdered man
had "got his desarts," and, as a coroner's jury
had returned a verdict of "justifiable homicide,"
the affair was considered settled.
Below this cabin we came to Island No. 1,
where rapids trouble boatmen in the summer
months. Now we glided gently but swiftly over
the deep current.
