er that made
him stop paddling for a minute at a time and caused Ned to say:

"It's all right to laugh now, but that was my tarpon. I had him safe
in the canoe and if you hadn't tipped us all into the river I'd have
hung on to him."

"I'm awful sorry, Ned, but if only you could have seen yourself,
you'd have had to laugh or bust. Besides, you had your fun. You
caught your tarpon and you wouldn't have done any more if you had
lain in the bottom of the canoe and let it spank you all night."

CHAPTER XIII

EDUCATING AN ALLIGATOR

The boys wished to explore the Whitewater Bay country, and spent
several days following to their sources streams that led in that
direction, until satisfied that no stream connected the two regions.
Returning to Tussock Bay, they crossed it and entered a branch of
Shark River, which led to Little Whitewater Bay. As they neared the
bay a loggerhead turtle rose near them and Dick wanted to hunt it.

"We need the meat," said he. "We can smoke it and then it is as good
as jerked venison."

"We haven't time to smoke it. We are in a salt-water country with
only two or three days' supply of fresh water. We may not find any
more for a week. We've just got to keep moving. I wish we had a keg
of water. If we were to spill what we've got in that canoe we would
have to hike in a hurry, back to the Glades or some other place
where we knew there was fresh water."

On the eastern side of Little Whitewater Bay, the boys found a
straight and narrow creek which led to Whitewater Bay. Paddling for
six miles, east-southeast, across the bay, they were fortunate
enough to strike the narrow mouth of what soon proved to be a broad
river. They paddled long and late without Finding the fresh water
they looked for, and camped on ground so wet that they had to cut
branches to sleep on. As they kept on in the morning, the river they
followed forked and they took the deeper branch. This in turn split
in two and again they followed the deeper branch. Near the close of
a day of hard work the stream they were following opened out on a
beautiful park-like prairie, while beside the canoe was an ideal
camping site fitted by Nature to that end.

It was a circular bit of high ground, surrounded by big trees whose
spreading branches, draped in moss, shaded it on all sides, while an
immense growth of wild grape-vine canopied it overhead. The water
that flowed past the camp was pure and sweet, fresh from the
Everglad