TED'S greatest wild-animal adventure was so unexpected and astonishing that it became the subject of wondering comment in the camp for days. Strange to say, it came within less than twenty-four hours of the bagging of the bear, after which achievement Buck Hardy, with but little opposition, gave the boys the freedom of Deserters' Island.
"From now on," he said at supper, "I want the boys to be free to go where they please on this island. I won't have a boy as smart and lucky with a gun as Ted cooped up in this camp. Let the boys hunt this island. No use hemmin' 'em in too close anyhow. They can't get away, with some of us takin' the boats every day. They'll think twice before they wade off in the swamp, not knowin' which way to go."
So after breakfast next morning Ted and Hubert started off openly, their little guns over their shoulders and a camp dog, which they had petted and become fond of, following gladly at their heels. They first walked down to the lower end of the island and located the jungle trail a second time. Then they slowly hunted up the left hand side to a point nearly opposite and less than a mile and a half from the camp. During all this time they saw practically nothing to shoot, and at last Ted complained that luck had deserted him. Hubert, always the first to be discouraged, proposed that they give up the hunt and "cut across" the island toward camp.
Still tramping on, loath to surrender, Ted suddenly tripped and fell over a log, striking the side of his head against a sharp snag. He was at first slightly stunned and his wound, though but little more than a scratch, bled freely. What was more serious, he sprained his ankle as he fell and found it impossible to walk without unbearable pain. After trying repeatedly, he became quite faint and was forced to lie down.
"Hubert, you'd better go on to camp," he said breathlessly, "and, if I don't turn up by dinner time, tell 'em what's the matter. Mr. Hardy will know what to do—if this pain keeps me from walking all day."
Ted raised himself on his arm, pointing, anxious to make sure that Hubert took the right course, and then, as his alarmed cousin started off at a trot, he fell back exhausted, closing his eyes. All was now quiet except for the sighing of the breeze in the high pine tops and the panting of the dog squatting near him. As long as he did not move the pain in his ankle was eased, and, as the bleeding scratch on the side of his head troubled him but little, he grew drowsy and in no great while fell asleep.
Ted was awakened some time later more by a warning sense of danger than by certain slightly disturbing sounds. On opening his eyes, he found the dog standing close to him, the hair on its back erect and its tail between its legs—both signs of fear. The boy's faithful guardian, with low growling that was almost a whine, gazed steadily into the faintly rustling foliage of a water-oak some thirty feet away. The tree stood on the edge of the low, wet area, its boughs interlacing with the branches of other trees behind it, these connecting in turn with myriads of others and thus forming a leafy bridge for miles through the dense, mysterious, softly whispering swamp.
While he slept something had come stealthily over this bridge—something keen of scent, with eyes of hate and knife-edged claws, hungry for blood—and now a long lank animal of a tawny hue, its twitching tail uplifted and its small flat head lowered, lay along a limb of the water-oak watching with green, glaring, cruel eyes as he stirred.
At first Ted saw nothing to alarm him, but soon he caught sight of a tail like that of an enormous cat beating back and forth among the leaves in a manner startlingly suggestive of both restlessness and rage. He remembered to have heard one of the slackers say that the tail of a panther twitched in that nervous way when the beast was crouching for a spring. He remembered also the agreement of all the slackers engaged in the conversation that no killing of a panther in the Okefinokee had been reported for years.
"But that must be one," thought Ted, "and it smelt my blood and is after me."