hard to clear a place big enough to sleep on. They were tired
enough to sleep soundly, in spite of the occasional cries of the
birds and beasts of the forest.

They made an early start in the morning, and, although the creek was
crooked and they had to cut away many small trees, they were
encouraged to find the bushes becoming less abundant as the water
grew more shallow, and by dark they were on the border of an open
prairie, where they made camp for the night.

CHAPTER VII

THE MEETING IN THE GLADES

"The Everglades at last!" said Dick the next morning as the rays of
the rising sun fell on the waters of the Everglades in the distance
and lit up the clumps of cypress and groups of palmettos that dotted
the prairie before him. A little to the north and extending into the
Glades was a row of willows which Johnny visited and found that it
marked the course of a slough that crossed the prairie and extended
far out into the Glades.

[Illustration: "THE EVERGLADES AT LAST"]

They were soon afloat in this slough, paddling toward the
Everglades, but the channel which they followed was crooked and it
was an hour before they reached them. The boys made their camp
beside a little group of palmettos on a bit of dry ground which had
often been used for that purpose. Johnny pointed to a faint line in
the grass of the Glades and told Dick that it was an Indian trail.
Dick was excited at the thought that the chum he had come so far to
meet might even now be in sight. When, far to the north, he saw what
Johnny said was an Indian canoe with two people poling it, he could
scarcely restrain himself from paddling out to meet it. The canoe
came on rapidly, and Dick's excitement increased until he began to
fancy that in one of the faces that showed above the grass he could
make out the features of his chum, when Johnny dashed his hopes to
the ground by saying:

"Them's Injuns. Squaws, too. B'lieve I know 'em."

Then as the approaching faces showed more clearly through the tall
grass:

"Sure thing. It's Miami Billy's girls. They'll savvy where Charley
Tommy is."

The Indian girls were poling past the canoe without appearing to see
it, when Johnny spoke to them. Then the girls, who were clothed in
the brightest of prints, with masses of beads on their necks, sat
down in their canoe and had a pow-wow with Johnny that was
altogether unintelligible to Dick. When the girls had gone, Johnny
explained:

"Squaws say: 'Think s