One light steel cage,
One rifle and ammunition,
One stenographer,
Three ounces rosium oxide,
One hound-dog,
Two valises.
A playful wave slopped over the bow and I lost count; but the pretty stenographer made the inventory, while I resumed the oars, and the dog punctured the primeval silence with staccato yelps.
A few minutes later everything and everybody was accounted for; the sky was blue and the palms waved, and several species of dicky-birds tuned up as I pulled with powerful strokes out into the sunny waters of Little Sprite Lake, now within a few miles of my journey's end.
From ponds hidden in the marshes herons rose in lazily laborious flight, flapping low across the water; high in the cypress yellow-eyed ospreys bent crested heads to watch our progress; sun-baked alligators, lying heavily in the shoreward sedge, slid open, glassy eyes as we passed.
"Even the 'gators make eyes at you," I said, resting on my oars.
We were on terms of badinage.
"Who was it who shed crocodile tears at the prospect of shipping me North?" she inquired.
"Speaking of tears," I observed, "somebody is likely to shed a number when Professor Farrago is picked up."
"Pooh!" she said, and snapped her pretty, sun-tanned fingers; and I resumed the oars in time to avoid shipwreck on a large mud-bar.
She reclined in the stern, serenely occupied with the view, now and then caressing the discouraged dog, now and then patting her hair where the wind had loosened a bright strand.