And you don't know how much trouble I am in for, when the rest of
the boys hear of this escapade of yours."

But after the study door closed the doctor smiled quietly to himself
and said under his breath:

"Just like myself at their age--have the woods instinct."

Ned and Dick slept little that night. There was about a foot of snow
on the ground and they scraped bare a place for their camp-fire
beside a big stump and gathered enough fuel from windfalls for the
night. Then they rolled a log beside the fire for a seat and built a
soft bed with fragrant branches of hemlock and spruce. They roasted
the chicken over a thick bed of glowing coals and baked potatoes in
the ashes of the fire. The chicken was carved with their pocket
knives and they got along without forks or plates. By using bark
gathered from a birch and softening it over their fire they made
cups with which they brought water from a nearby brook. When supper
was finished the boys rolled up in their blankets and lying on the
bed they had built on the snow, inhaled its fragrance as they
watched the eddying smoke of their camp-fire and the stars that
shone through the spreading branches above them and listened to the
voices of the night, from the distant cry of an owl to the whish of
falling snow, shaken from evergreen boughs by the breeze. They had
visions of camps, scattered from the equator to the poles, some of
which were destined to be realized. Ned formed a plan that night, of
which he wrote to his father, but of which he said nothing at the
time to his chum.

But as Dick stood beside Ned in their last hour at Belleville, and
the sadness of parting was in the face and eyes from which fun
usually bubbled, Ned said:

"My father owns a tract of land in the Big Cypress Swamp of Florida.
There is a lot of fine timber on it and he intends to set up a
lumber mill in the swamp and perhaps build a railroad from Fort
Myers to some part of it. A surveyor with a guide is going into the
swamp this fall to locate the best timber and I'm going with them.
You know how we have planned to do real camping and exploring
together. Well, here's our chance. I've written to Dad and he
invites you to go with me. We can start any time. When can you be
ready, Dick?"

"Ned, I'd give all I have in the world to go with you, but I
can't--I can't. Mother has spent more than she could afford to keep
me at this school and sometimes I'm ashamed when I think how I've
wasted my time.