[TAKING A BIG 'GATOR.]
Arnold Chesney came galloping with his neck for sale up to the shanty among the orange trees, and flung himself off his steaming pony.
"Terry," he roared, "the cold signal's flying. Heavy frost prophesied for to-night. Get out and build the fires."
A good-looking young Irishman in flannel shirt and blue jeans came running out of the rough log building that served both as dwelling place and as office at their orange grove in Florida.
"Faith, I thought as much, Arnold. The wind's going nor'west. There'll be the divvle's own frost by morning," he declared.
The two youngsters toiled like Trojans while the sun sank behind the pine forest and the temperature dropped minute by minute. Great piles of fat pine wood were stacked every few rows among the trees, covered with wet grass, and then as the thermometer in the tube sank close to thirty-two degrees the fires were lighted, and greasy, black smoke poured up in clouds.
But as the cold increased so did the wind, and the smoke, instead of lying in a protecting fog over the trees, streamed away to leeward.
By two in the morning it was blowing a full gale, and the cold was crusting the water buckets in the veranda.
"'Tis no good, Arnold," gasped poor Terry. "Feel this!" He handed him an orange.