The little party filed into the thicket, the chums and engineers in the lead and the Spaniards following close behind. At the edge of the cleared camping place the little party halted in horrified amazement. They had come to avenge the killing of the Indian lad, but another avenger had come before them. Sprawled upon the ground in all manner of attitudes, lay eighteen men--all dead.
"Lord!" breathed McCarty softly. "Who could have done it?"
"There is only one answer to that question," said Charley gravely. "Those whose right it was to do it, if the taking of human life is ever right. Look at those heads."
The others shuddered with horror as they gazed upon the reddened skulls from which the scalp locks had been skillfully removed. Aside from that nothing had been touched, guns still lay where they had fallen and tents and supplies were undisturbed.
"The Seminoles," exclaimed Walter, and his chum nodded assent.
Two men were sent back to the camp for shovels, and when they returned graves were dug in the sandy soil and the dead men laid to rest. A search of their clothing and belongings gave little clew to the strange men's identity, but from the quantity of tablets and powders found upon them, and their dissipated appearance, the boys decided that they were members of that deadly drug-crazed band of New York gunmen.
Their sickening task finished, the little party headed back for camp.
"I am glad, after all, that it is not by our hands that they fell," Charley said to his chums as they tramped along. "To take life, even in the heat of passion, is a terrible thing."
"Aye, aye, lad," said Captain Westfield reverently. "The Good Book truly says, 'Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.'"
The little party arrived back in camp by noon. Much to their surprise, they found Willie John back again with his wagons busily engaged in making camp.
"Me come back, haul more wood," explained the Seminole simply.
During dinner there was great chattering and whispering at the Spaniards' table, and after the meal was over Bossie, always their spokesman, approached Charley.
"Spanish _hombres_ (men) no want to quit now," he said in his quaint English. "They likee boss, they likee grub, likee job. They no be shot at nights any more. They want to stay on job now. They think it much more better."