It did not matter much whether they saw a bear or not; for, if they did catch sight of one, Adam very much doubted if he could get it within range of a shot-gun. But they were both fond of the woods, and were glad to explore a semi-tropical forest like this.
Adam was a hunter, as well as a sailor, for his adventurous experiences had been both on land and sea.
On either side of them was a mass of vines and bushes, out of which the shorter or cabbage palmettos arose, wherever they could find room to spread their long and drooping leaf-stalks, which not only grew from their crests, but sprang out of the sides of their trunks, while, high above was the vast and impenetrable canopy of the leaves of the tall palmettos, each umbrella-like tuft supported by a long and slender stem.
The forest thus appeared to be covered by a roof of green, held up by innumerable gray columns of pillars.
Sometimes the monotony of the palmettos was broken by great live-oak trees, which reached high into the air, and whose massive branches, often curiously grotesque and crooked, bore not only their own bright and glossy leaves, but were covered throughout their length with vines and various fern-like growths, while from the lower part of these limbs, and from the trunks and branches of many other trees, hung long and graceful festoons of the silver-gray Spanish moss.
The bark of many of the palmetto trunks was relieved by splotches of bright red, and here and there, sometimes on dead trees and sometimes on living ones, there were air-plants, their roots fastened in the dry wood, and their long, bending leaves stretching out into the air for the nutriment which most plants draw up from the earth.
Phil was greatly interested in all these things, and Adam gazed about him with much satisfaction, although he had often walked in such woods before. He had been so long on ships and steamboats that this woodland ramble was a pleasant change.
Phil stopped to cut some of the red patches of bark from a palmetto near him, hoping to be able to carry the pieces home to show as curiosities, and thus his companion had got some distance ahead of him.
Adam was walking quietly along, when suddenly he heard, from a clump of thick bushes to his right, a low but very peculiar sound. It was a series of little whimpers and sniffs, that would not have been heard at all if the woods had not been so quiet.
Instantly Adam stopped. He was sure he recognized that sound. Turning to the point whence it came, he peered earnestly into the shrubbery. Just above a low, heavy bush, not a dozen feet away from him, he saw the top of a round, black head, and a pair of glistening eyes.