from the Bay of
Florida to the Everglades and the work before them was now easy.

The water was deeper than was needed to float their canoe, and the
grass too light to trouble them. They sheered off and avoided all
bands of saw-grass unless they found trails across them. The Glades
were dotted with little keys of bay, myrtle and cocoa plum. These
were small and usually submerged. A few larger keys were covered
with heavier timber, pine, oak, mastic, palmetto and other woods. In
these, deer were plentiful and bear and panther sometimes found.

The boys went to several keys before they found one with dry land
enough for a camp. It had been used for camping by the Seminoles for
many years and was the only bit of land above the surface of the
water for miles. On it were piles of turtle shells, while scattered
about were bones of deer and alligator and skulls of bear and
smaller animals. A cultivated papaw which some Indian had planted
within a few years, stood twelve feet high and was filled with
great melon-like papaws, each one of which weighed from five to ten
pounds.

"Better than cantaloupe," said Dick as he finished half of a big one
as a preliminary to his supper, "but what's this you are giving us
for coffee?"

"Coffee's out," replied Ned. "The fellows that took the rifle
cleaned out most of the coffee."

"Why didn't you make 'em give it back when you had 'em on the run?"

"Reckon I was glad to get out of it as easy as I did. Then I had
said enough unkind things to them for one time."

"Sorry you think you were unkind. Your feelings must be a good deal
torn up. But you haven't told me what I'm drinking. Tastes something
like the sassafras tea I used to get dosed with when I was a kid.
It's pretty good, though."

"It's something like it. It's made from the leaves of the sweet bay
tree, which grows on all these islands and all over this country.
Sweet-bay tea is all you're going to get to drink, excepting water,
from now on."

"What is that fruit that looks like a big stubby pear on that
curious-looking tree there?" inquired Dick.

"Custard apple."

"Does it taste like custard?"

"Yes, if the custard has been mixed with turpentine."

The explorers made little progress the following day. Bunches of
thick saw-grass turned them back. They found shallow water where for
long distances they had to paddle slowly to avoid little pillars of
coral rock that came close to the surface and endangered their
frag