Santa Rosa Island, stretching itself along its whole southern border, in the white-crested waters of the Gulf of Mexico, seems to stand as a sentry to guard its serf-beaten coast. The county is more than half the size of the State of Delaware. It embraces 1,260 square miles of territory, and has a population of only 7,500, or about six persons to every square mile, and the major portion of this population is confined to Milton, the county seat, and other towns lying along the Pensacola and Atlantic Railway. Yellow, East Bay, Juniper and Blackwater Rivers all find their channels to the estuaries of the Gulf through Santa Rosa. In this isolated and uninhabited district, amid the hooting of owls, the hissing of reptiles, and the snarling of wild beasts, as ever and anon they were startled from their dark coverts, Detective Jackson quietly but persistently followed the outlaw. On February 15th, about twenty miles north of Broxton’s ferry, Jackson found Rube’s trail, and reaching a landing on Yellow River, ascertained that a boy had taken him across about one hour before his arrival. Learning that the boy had been instructed to pull the boat half a mile down stream before landing on the opposite shore, Jackson, being afoot and finding no other boat could be secured, swam the stream, and making his way, with great difficulty, through the canebrake, down the river’s bank, found, on meeting the boy, that Rube was only half an hour ahead of him. Pushing forward, he pursued the trail, though without result, until darkness compelled him to abandon it and shelter himself, as best he could, in the marshy bottoms of Yellow River. Some weeks after this the outlaw was located in the vicinity of East Bay, about four miles from the Gulf coast, in one of the wildest of Florida’s jungles. Here lived Charles Wells, with his two sons and two daughters, in a dilapidated cabin, whose roof was thatched with cane from the brake not twenty paces distant. Wells bore a very unsavory reputation throughout all that section, and was known to harbor criminals of every class and type. His fealty to the criminal classes who sought refuge in the wilds of Santa Rosa had been tested full many a time, and Rube was not long in ascertaining that in the person of Wells he would find a friend, whose dark record of crime gave ample surety of his zeal in the cause of lawlessness. In this secluded spot Rube found shelter during the spring and summer of 1890, never venturing, at any time, however, to trust himself in the cabin of Wells. He lived in the canebrakes like a beast, and defied the most vigilant efforts of the detectives to dislodge him. Meantime Detective Jackson was withdrawn from Florida early in July to look after Brock, _alias_ Jackson, and his capture having been effected the detective returned about August 1st to Florida, to renew his pursuit of Rube.