tern of the canoe was over the tail and Dick was in the
stern of the canoe, both boy and canoe went suddenly in the air with
a few barrels of water over and around them. When Dick came to the
surface he saw his companion being savagely tossed about by an angry
monster that seemed to be holding him between his jaws. Dick was
terribly frightened and swam as swiftly as possible to Ned's help,
but before he could reach him the boy had been tossed aside and the
manatee had disappeared.

"Are you hurt?" said Dick, as soon as he got enough breath to speak.

"Course not! Manatees are harmless. Told you so before. But, say,
Dicky boy, why didn't you get there a minute sooner and grab a
flipper? He'd be our manatee now, if you had."

"More likely he'd have had us, Neddy. You didn't see what he did to
me with just one slap of his tail."

The boys collected their paddles and swam with the canoe to shoal
water, where they lifted it, poured out the water and got aboard.

On their next hunt the boys put a number of chunks of wood in the
canoe and when a manatee was started they paddled quietly and tried
not to frighten the creature by going too near it at first. Then Ned
took in his paddle and armed himself with chunks of wood, while Dick
paddled toward the quarry. When the sea-cow lifted its nose out of
water, for air, it was hit or splashed by a chunk. The frightened
animal dove quickly, but came up again almost immediately for the
air it had to have. Another chunk hit its nose, but, confused and
half strangled, the manatee hardly moved until Dick had driven the
canoe beside it and Ned had landed on its back. Ned failed to grasp
the creature's nose with his right hand, but caught the manatee by
the flipper with his left and clung to it, although tossed off of
the back of the animal. But Dick was in the river a second after his
companion and was clutching the right flipper of the manatee with
one hand and reaching for its nose with the other. The sea-cow threw
its tail high in the air, then lashing it downward, plunged,
head-foremost, deep in the water. The boys went under but hung on to
the flippers, and Dick got a grip on the creature's nose. Both of
the boys were expert swimmers and divers, and were prepared to stay
under water as much as a minute rather than release their quarry,
but within half that time the animal wanted to breathe and rose to
the surface. After that the boys had little trouble, and the
manatee, which was