Meanwhile he had plucked the turkey, and made it ready for cooking.
"Time we're done eatin' oven be ready," he announced, as Larry called him aboard to supper; he having prepared the meal over the little Jewel stove, finding a way to keep things warm as fast as he cooked them.
Later on Tony drew out all the red ashes. The oven was very hot at that time. He wrapped the turkey in some green leaves, and thrust it into the hole; after which he took pains to cover the opening up, and heap earth over it all.
Of course Phil knew the principle of the thing, though up to now he had never been a witness to the actual demonstration. It acted on the same principle used with the new-fangled bottles that keep fluid hot for several days, or cold, just as it happens to be put into the receptacle. And the fireless cookers are also arranged on the same old time natural laws of retaining heat.
"Listen to the racket coming out over yonder!" remarked Larry, as they lay around at their ease later on, each having a blanket under him.
"Tony says that there's a big swamp lying over there," observed Phil. "And I warrant you he can tell what makes every sound you hear. One comes from some kind of bird squawking; another I happen to know is a night heron looking for a supper along the water's edge; then I suppose coons squabble when they meet, trailing over half sunken logs; a bobcat calls to its mate; the owls tune up; chuckwillswidows, the same birds that we call whippoorwills up North, you know, keep a whooping all the time; and there are all sorts of other noises that might stand for anything. But Tony, tell me, what is that far-away booming we hear?"
"Bull!" remarked the other, with a chuckle.
"You don't mean it?" exclaimed Larry, sitting up to listen. "Well, now, it does sound like it, too. But see here, Tony, didn't you say only a little while ago, that there wasn't a single man within twenty miles of us; unless it might be some runaway darky hiding out in the swamp to escape the chain gang?"
"That is so, Larry," replied the swamp boy, who was by now growing familiar enough with his comrades to call them by their first names. "This no reg'lar bull. It never saw farmyard. It live in water, come up on shore sometime, and holler to make 'nother bull come fight."
"Oh! you mean an alligator bull, don't you?" cried Larry, "how silly of me not to understand at first. And is that one bellowing now? He must be a giant to make such a row."