Then we began to realize that we were not entirely alone in this
wilderness of water. We saw evidence of another's passage, in broken
cat-tails and blazed trees. In many places he had pushed into the
thickets. We concluded it must be a trapper. At last, to our surprise,
we saw a telephone equipment, sheltered in a box nailed on a
water-surrounded tree. The line ran directly across the stream. Here
also we could see where a boat had forced a way through, and the water
plants had been cut with a sharp instrument. What could it be? We were
certain no line ran to the only ranch at the Gulf. We had information
of another ranch directly on the border line, but did not think it
came below the levee, and as far as we had learned, there were no
homes but the wickiups of the Cocopah in the jungles. It was like one
of those thrilling stories of Old Sleuth and Dead Shot Dick which we
read, concealed in our schoolbooks, when we were supposed to be
studying the physical geography of Mexico. But the telephone was no
fiction, and had recently been repaired, but for what purpose it was
there we could not imagine. After leaving the lake there was no dry
land. At night our boat, filled with green tules for a bed, was tied
to a willow tree, with its roots submerged in ten feet of water. Never
were there such swarms of mosquitos. In the morning our faces were
corrugated with lumps, not a single exposed spot remaining unbitten.
The loops continued with the next day's travel, but we were gradually
working to the southwest, then they began to straighten out somewhat,
as the diverted streams returned.
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