I heard these things in a lazy, contented way, but my thoughts were on another island--a real island surrounded by water, where waves lapped the beach and two eyes, that had given color to the iris, watched for deliverance. Then with a jerk I sat up. Smilax had turned his head to listen, and in his attitude dwelt a note of agitation. "What is it?" I whispered; for surely I had heard a sound that did not belong to these creatures living in the forest about us. He raised his hand to caution silence. Then came the sound again, slowly: one--two--three--four-- "Axe," he said, his eyes shining as beads and his finger pointing into the southwest from where the breeze was coming. "You wait; me go see." "I'll go, too," I announced. "No; maybe make too much noise. Smilax go." "Who d'you suppose it is that close to us?" I excitedly asked. "Not them, surely?" He looked at me with grave eyes and answered: "No can say; maybe hunters find way in here. You smoke; me go see." Yet his sudden gravity left little doubt in my mind of what, at least, he suspected; for he well knew that hunters did not find their way into this unsurveyed wilderness! Then, too, there was something in the stillness of the night that seemed to portend great things. The leaves transmitted their restlessness to my yawning nerves, as iron dust springs to a magnet. Intending to wave good luck as he melted into the darkness, without being observed I walked silently behind him to the prairie's edge; but there he stopped, opened his arms, raised his face to the sky, standing motionless. And a great peace came over me, for I saw that, in the simple way of the old-time Seminoles who invariably turned to their Great Spirit on the eve of hopes or fears or dangers, Smilax was praying. Religion is the poetry of the savages' existence. Alas, that we are civilized! He does not spend his nights poring over The Laws and The Prophets, and his days peppering a neighbor across the head with a new-born creed. No, he puts an abiding faith in some Great Spirit, be it the sun, the moon, the stars; or fashioned of stone, or clay, or wood. But his soul looks into the Infinite as his physical sight, less far reaching, feasts upon the Symbol. And what does he lose? He loses the privilege of bickering with evangelists; he loses the acid frequently to be found in church organization--the feeling of pity or contempt of one denomination for another, each of which stands upon the Holy Rock searching for motes and waving a princely disregard to beams. And, because he remains benighted and in darkness, he also loses doubt; wherefore, as a trusting child, he touches the hand of God. I had long since finished my second pipe when Smilax returned. He came out of the darkness as he had gone into it, with the stealth of a panther, and was close to me before I knew it. But a striking change had taken place in him. His breathing was fast, though not from exertion, and pointing back he hurriedly whispered: