“What happens to make ’em scarce?” asked Josh.
“Oh, well! the main thing has been that plume hunters have found them out, and murdered the birds by the thousands. It’s worse when they hunt out the nesting places of the herons, and kill the mother birds, just to get the aigrette, which, it happens, is always at its best about the time the birds have young.”
“Say, I’ve read a lot about that,” mentioned George; “and they tell us that it’s the most dreadful thing to visit one of those nesting places in the swamp after the plume hunters have been at their bloody work. Thousands of young birds are starving in the nests, and the sounds they put up just haunt a fellow forever.”
“None of that in mine,” declared tender-hearted Nick, firmly.
“I guess we all say the same,” Jack added; “but when our intention is only to see what such a place looks like, nobody can blame us for going.”
“I should hope not,” said George. “But do we get up our mudhooks right now, Jack, and mosey out of this nook?”
“That’s the programme, and here goes for my anchor. Whew! it’s stuck fast in the mud, all right. Give me a lift, Josh, after you and Herb have pulled yours up on deck,” and inside of five minutes all of them had washed the mud from the forked anchors, which were then placed conveniently on the forward deck, where they could be dropped overboard with a push.
Then the boats moved off.
This time it was the steady going old Comfort that took the lead—Jack being in no particular hurry and George, as usual, being compelled to tamper with his eccentric motor, before he could get it to going right.
Of course Herb meant to fall back presently, and let the Tramp take the lead; but it was really so seldom that he had a chance to leave the others in the lurch that he and Josh seemed to enjoy running away.