Two mornings afterward I made another early and foggy start, this time
for Lake Bradford. My instructions were to follow the railway for a mile
or so beyond the station, and then take a road bearing away sharply to
the left. This I did, making sure I was on the right road by inquiring
of the first man I saw--a negro at work before his cabin. I had gone
perhaps half a mile further when a white man, on his way after a load of
wood, as I judged, drove up behind me. "Won't you ride?" he asked. "You
are going to Lake Bradford, I believe, and I am going a piece in the
same direction." I jumped up behind (the wagon consisting of two long
planks fastened to the two axles), thankful, but not without a little
bewilderment. The good-hearted negro, it appeared, had asked the man to
look out for me; and he, on his part, seemed glad to do a kindness as
well as to find company. We jolted along, chatting at arm's length, as
it were, about this and that. He knew nothing of the ivory-bill; but
wild turkeys--oh, yes, he had seen a flock of eight, as well as he could
count, not long before, crossing the road in the very woods through
which I was going. As for snakes, they were plenty enough, he guessed.
One of his horses was bitten while ploughing, and died in half an hour.
(A Florida man who cannot tell at least one snake story may be set down
as having land to sell.) He thought it a pretty good jaunt to the lake,
and the road wasn't any too plain, though no doubt I should get there;
but I began to perceive that a white man who traveled such distances on
foot in that country was more of a _rara avis_ than any woodpecker.
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