ou?"

"No, only put me in the fireroom, shoveling coal in the furnace."

"But that's not boy's work. What business--"

"Hold on, Ned, wait till I get through. The captain was bully. So
was everybody else. I went to him soon as we were outside Sandy Hook
and asked for a job. I was independent about it. I believe I offered
to swim ashore if he didn't happen to have a job for me. He gave me
an easy one, for a boy, but I struck and asked for a man's work, and
got it--in the fireroom. But I pulled through, Neddy, and made good,
though once or twice I did have to call myself hard names and think
how you'd have hung on, if you'd been in my place. Yes, everybody
was good to me. One passenger wanted to pay for a first-class
passage for me and I had hard work to beg off, and--but that's all."

"Dick, you mustn't talk that way about me. You make me ashamed. I
wouldn't have stuck it out in that fireroom for one day. Now how
about your time for the trip? Will a month suit you?"

"Yes, that's all right. I wrote mother from Key West and told her
the hunt would be a long one without any chance to mail a letter and
that she was not to worry because there wasn't a show of danger in
the whole business. Of course mothers do worry a little when there
isn't any reason."

"Yes, mothers do worry, foolishly. Pity yours couldn't know how
faithfully Tom looks after you. She'd be so relieved."

On the day after cutting down the bee tree the boys were glad to
stay quietly in camp. Ned's neck and arms were badly swollen and
Dick's eyes could scarcely be seen. Both of them lay awake nearly
all night, but it was uncertain whether this was due to the pain of
the stings or the quantity of honey they had eaten.

Tom shed his fierceness soon after he had disposed of the rabbit and
again became friendly to Dick, who, even while he petted him,
explained that he could never quite trust him again.

Every evening turkeys could be heard in the swamp near the camp.
Every morning they had departed. One morning Ned said to Dick:

"I'm turkey hungry and I'm tired of shilly-shallying. The way to get
anything is to get it. Let us get a turkey. We'll start out for it
now and come back after we have got it, and not before."

"All right, Neddy, we goes for it, we gits it and we comes back when
we gits it and not afore."

The boys started out with their usual equipment of weapons, salt,
matches and axe. They crossed the swamp without finding the bird
they