"Dick, do you know how to jerk venison?"
"I've seen Johnny smoke it. Is that the same thing?"
"Sure! So while you're skinning the buck I'll lam into that black mangrove log and build a fire under the little scaffold of small poles there, which you hadn't seen, but which was built to cure venison. Say, Dick, don't you want to hire out as a scout?"
Dick grinned, but made no other reply, and they began the work of jerking the venison. They cut it in thin strips and hung it over the fire of the black mangrove, which is one of the smokiest woods on earth. All day long they fed the fire and watched the venison, while scores of buzzards sat around on the trees and overlooked the work. Far into the night the boys lay beside the fire, watched its curling smoke, and talked of that camp in the snow in the North of the long ago.
CHAPTER IX
THE CAPTURE OF THE MANATEE
The manatee hunt began as soon as the venison had been cured. The boys explored the waters about their camp, making each day a longer trip and taking careful note of all the waters they explored. They usually hunted through the forenoon, and after dinner Ned mapped out the course they had taken while Dick took a walk with the shot-gun and picked up an Indian hen, or limp-kin, or a brace of ducks for supper. Within a week Ned had made a good working chart of the country about them, both land and water, and the boys had come to know their surroundings as if they had been born among them. Nearly every day they found and chased a manatee. Sometimes they found three or four in a day, but the creatures always swam faster than their pursuers and were still frisky when the boys were worn to frazzles.
One morning a big manatee which they were chasing happened to come up beside the canoe to breathe, when Ned splashed it with his paddle and drove it under water before it could catch its breath. The sea-cow had to come up again in a few seconds and was once more driven below the surface by Ned. Almost instantly the creature lifted its head so far above the surface that Ned dropped his paddle and seized the soft nose of the manatee with both hands.
"Look out!" yelled Dick, but he was the one to have looked out. For, as the sea-cow threw down its head and tail, Ned was dragged out of the canoe onto his upward-arching back. Then the animal's back was curved downward and the flat tail thrown violently upward into the air. As the stern of the canoe was over the tail and Dick was in the stern of the canoe, both boy and canoe went suddenly in the air with a few barrels of water over and around them. When Dick came to the surface he saw his companion being savagely tossed about by an angry monster that seemed to be holding him between his jaws. Dick was terribly frightened and swam as swiftly as possible to Ned's help, but before he could reach him the boy had been tossed aside and the manatee had disappeared.