Bill found Osceola near the marsh half a mile away. Close by stood a giant cypress whose straight stemmed trunk must have measured at least twelve feet where the tall shaft sprang from the buttressed base of the tree, and rose perhaps a hundred and fifty feet in the air, topped by a wide-spreading head of great limbs and branchlets. At the Indian’s feet lay one of these limbs and a glance at its five foot butt showed Bill that the big branch was hollow.