right track."

"All right, Neddy, I quite agree with you. I only wanted to know
that you were sure of your ground."

The trees became heavier in a narrow belt along the stream, but open
sky could be seen beyond them.

"Don't you want to walk across to that open place, Ned, to find out
what kind of country it is?"

"I know now. It's open prairie or swamp and the next big water we
strike will be the salt-water lakes. We will probably come to a
fresh-water river first and that pretty soon."

"Conceit's good for the consumption, Neddy. What do you want to bet
on finding that river in an hour?"

"I'll eat my hat if we don't find it in a quarter of a mile. I won't
bet on the time, because at the rate you're working it may take
three weeks to get there."

"Ned, you're a wizard, for there is the river."

The river flowed gently between high banks, densely wooded. The
waters were alive with fish, and long-legged wading birds of the
heron family stalked over the shallows in the stream. An hour's
paddling brought the canoe to the mouth of the river, where camp was
made. The water beside the camp was fresh, but the salt-water bays
spread out for miles before them.

"Everything is easy now," said Ned. "These bays are in the Ten
Thousand Islands and lead to the head waters of the rivers of the
coast. We may get tangled up in these keys, aground on the flats or
cornered up in some of the bays and perhaps lose a few days, but
we're safe to get out without hard work or trouble of any kind."

CHAPTER XX

DICK'S FIGHT WITH A PANTHER

"I've always noticed, Ned, that when everything looks simple and
easy, it is a good time to expect trouble."

"Not this time, Dick."

But it was this time, and that night Ned had his last care-free
sleep for weeks.

"How long shall we camp here?" asked Dick.

"Better stay here for a week or two. We can hunt in the woods back
of us and explore all these bays. This may be the last fresh water
we will find on the trip, so we don't want to leave it till we are
ready to pull straight through to Myers."

In the morning the boys started across the woods on the bank of the
stream, hoping to find a buck on the prairie beyond them. When they
reached the prairie they saw three deer near its farther end, about
half a mile away. They went back in the woods and started to work
their way around the prairie to its farther end where the deer were.
It took them some hours to get where the deer h