And
everywhere a feeling of snakes--wicked water-snakes with yellow rims
around their eyes.
"They crossed great rivers, Ockmulgee, Oconee, Ogechee, making a bridge
of men and paddling their way across with the help of saddle cruppers
and horses' tails. If the waters were too deep for that, they made
piraguas--dug-out canoes, you know--and rafts of cane. By the time they
had reached Ocute the Spaniards were so hungry they were glad to eat
dogs which the Indians gave them, for there was such a scarcity of meat
on all that journey that the sick men would sometimes say, 'If only I
had a piece of meat I think I would not die!'"
"But where was all the game?" Oliver insisted on knowing.
"Six hundred men with three hundred horses and a lot of Indian carriers,
coming through the woods, make a great deal of noise," said the
Princess. "The Spaniards never dared to hunt far from the trail for fear
of getting lost. There were always lurking Indians ready to drive an
arrow through a piece of Milan armor as if it were pasteboard, and into
the body of a horse over the feather of the shaft, so that the Spaniards
wondered, seeing the little hole it made, how the horse had died.
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