To reach the woods they were aiming for the boys left the Indian trail they were on and, after forcing their way through a strand of saw-grass, found themselves on a prairie, bounded on the west by a heavy growth of cypress, oak and other heavy timber, while the prairie itself was made beautiful by picturesque little groups of palmettos which were scattered through it.
CHAPTER XVIII
DICK'S WILDCAT AND OTHER WILD THINGS
The Everglades had been crossed and that great region of romance was no longer a mystery to our explorers, who found a dry, shaded site for their camp on the border of the swamp which they planned to explore and there fitted up for a long stay. They stretched their canvas, tent fashion, and gathered grass and moss for their beds. A round, deep pool of clear fresh water was just beside the camp, and after one rattlesnake and a few moccasins that claimed squatter's title had been killed they felt that nothing was lacking. In the evening the distant gobbling of a turkey told the hunters what would be the first duty of the next day. When they started out on the hunt prepared to be gone for one or more days Dick was troubled for fear Tom might not understand his long absence and skip out. He had a long talk with the lynx and told Ned that he thought Tom would be good. Then he got out two days' rations for the animal, which it ate up at once. There was more dry land in this swamp than in those farther south to which they had become accustomed, and traveling was better, or rather, less bad. Yet to persons with less experience than the young explorers it would have seemed to be as bad as it was possible for it to be. For half a day the boys tramped and waded in the swamp without finding the game they were looking for. They had found other birds, some of which they would have shot for their dinner had they not been afraid of frightening the wary turkeys, which they believed were not far from them. Alligators were plentiful, large and small, but the boys were not hunting for hides and Dick said that Tom was all the pet he cared to have charge of for the present. Early in the afternoon they sat down to rest under a big tree and were eating their lunch of smoked meat and cold hoe-cake when a turkey gobbler lit on a branch of the tree under which they were sitting. The turkey was in plain sight and less than twenty feet from them, but Dick's shot-gun was resting against a tree fifteen feet from its owner, while Ned's rifle lay on the ground five feet from his hand. Both kept as quiet as graven images, for they knew that at the motion of a hand the big bird would take flight. If Dick's gun had been within five feet he would have jumped for it, trusting to be ready with it to cut down the turkey before it could get out of sight among the trees. But a run of fifteen feet made his chances too small and he waited to see what Ned would do. Ned's rifle lay just out of his reach, and before he could lay his hand on it the bird would be on the wing and quite safe from anything he could do with a rifle. At last Ned began to push himself inch by inch toward the rifle, while Dick sat silent and breathless with excitement. Very slowly Ned progressed until his hand touched the rifle. Before he could move it the fraction of an inch, the turkey saw the trouble in store for him and was off. Ned grabbed the rifle and took a harmless snapshot at the bird, while Dick rushed for his gun and sent after the turkey, which was then a hundred yards distant, a shower of shot which could never have overtaken it.
"Next time I eat I'm going to feed myself with one hand and hold my gun in the other," said Dick. "I think I'll stay home to-morrow and keep camp. Tom will go hunting with you. He's got sense and he always keeps his weapons handy."
"Keeps 'em too handy for me. I don't like the way he looks at me sometimes. He acts as if he wanted to feel of my ribs to see if I am fat enough for his purposes. I reckon I'm the one to keep camp. My rifle was right at my elbow, but I didn't seem to know enough to use it. Dick! Look at that hole in that tree and all those insects around it. It's a bee-tree. There's a barrel of honey there that belongs to us!"
"Do you s'pose the bees know that it belongs to us, or will they make trouble for us?"
"Of course they'll make trouble. You can't rob a hive without being stung."