It now grew hot upon the water. They had come many hundreds of miles since the start, and they were in a warmer climate. The character of the vegetation was changing. The cypress and the magnolia became frequent on the banks, and now and then they saw great, drooping live oaks. The soil seemed to grow softer and the water was more deeply permeated with mud. Although the flood was gone, the river spread out in places to a vast width, and even at its narrowest it was a gigantic stream. Other great, lazy rivers poured in their volume from east and west. Narrow, deep inlets, half-hidden in vegetation, extended from either side. There were bayous, although the five had not yet heard the name, and many of them swarmed with fish. The warm air was heavy and languorous and now Shif'less Sol confessed. "I'm gittin' too much o' it, even fur a lazy man," he said. "'Pears to me I'm always wantin' to sleep. Now, I like about sixteen hours sleepin' out o' the twenty-four, but when it comes to keepin' awake jest long enough to eat three meals a day I ain't in favor o' it." "It must be a rich country, though," said Tom Ross. "No wonder them Spaniards want to keep it." That day they passed at some distance three canoes containing Indians, but the canoes showed no wish to come near and investigate. Henry said that the Indians in them looked sprawling and dirty, unlike the alert, clean-limbed natives of the North. "They probably belong," said Paul, "to the Natchez tribe who were beaten into submission long ago by the French, and who doubtless lack energy anyhow." The Indian canoes went lazily on, and soon were lost to sight. Now a serious problem arose. They were approaching the settled parts of Louisiana. It is true, it was only the thinnest fringe of white people extending along either shore of the river a short distance above New Orleans, but they were coming to a region in which they would be noticed, and they might have to explain their presence before they wished to do so. Nor had they found any opportunity to capture Braxton Wyatt and his maps and plans. Nevertheless, they hung so closely on the trail of Alvarez that every night and morning they could see the smoke of his camp fire. They stopped one evening in a cove of the river, sheltered by great mournful cypresses, and Henry and Shif'less Sol went out again to scrutinize the Spanish camp. They returned before midnight with unusual news. Alvarez with his whole force had turned from the Mississippi and had gone up a bayou about four miles. There he had landed some of his small cannon and stores at a rude wharf, and showed all the signs of making a stay, but whether short or long they could not tell. "Alvarez must have a place, a plantation, I believe they call it, near here," said Paul intuitively, "and he's going to stop at it. As he wants to get Spain into a war with us he could plot a lot of mischief in a house of his own away from New Orleans."