nger a mystery to our explorers, who found a dry, shaded site
for their camp on the border of the swamp which they planned to
explore and there fitted up for a long stay. They stretched their
canvas, tent fashion, and gathered grass and moss for their beds. A
round, deep pool of clear fresh water was just beside the camp, and
after one rattlesnake and a few moccasins that claimed squatter's
title had been killed they felt that nothing was lacking. In the
evening the distant gobbling of a turkey told the hunters what would
be the first duty of the next day. When they started out on the hunt
prepared to be gone for one or more days Dick was troubled for fear
Tom might not understand his long absence and skip out. He had a
long talk with the lynx and told Ned that he thought Tom would be
good. Then he got out two days' rations for the animal, which it ate
up at once. There was more dry land in this swamp than in those
farther south to which they had become accustomed, and traveling
was better, or rather, less bad. Yet to persons with less experience
than the young explorers it would have seemed to be as bad as it was
possible for it to be. For half a day the boys tramped and waded in
the swamp without finding the game they were looking for. They had
found other birds, some of which they would have shot for their
dinner had they not been afraid of frightening the wary turkeys,
which they believed were not far from them. Alligators were
plentiful, large and small, but the boys were not hunting for hides
and Dick said that Tom was all the pet he cared to have charge of
for the present. Early in the afternoon they sat down to rest under
a big tree and were eating their lunch of smoked meat and cold
hoe-cake when a turkey gobbler lit on a branch of the tree under
which they were sitting. The turkey was in plain sight and less than
twenty feet from them, but Dick's shot-gun was resting against a
tree fifteen feet from its owner, while Ned's rifle lay on the
ground five feet from his hand. Both kept as quiet as graven images,
for they knew that at the motion of a hand the big bird would take
flight. If Dick's gun had been within five feet he would have jumped
for it, trusting to be ready with it to cut down the turkey before
it could get out of sight among the trees. But a run of fifteen feet
made his chances too small and he waited to see what Ned would do.
Ned's rifle lay just out of his reach, and before he could lay his
hand