lenge of a large bat, which is apt to frighten
strangers by its sudden appearance and shrill cry.

A few days before the boys finished their contract, a party of surveyors
stopped at their shanty to get a drink of water, and to see if they
could get them for a couple of days.

As the pay offered was good, the boys were glad to accept it, and five
minutes were sufficient to put their few belongings into the shanty and
to nail up the door.

It took the party some hours to reach their destination, and as soon as
they had partaken of a lunch, they began to survey a site for a new
town.

The boys had seen a great many "paper towns" since they came to Florida,
but as a rule had taken little interest in them. They were usually
ventures of men who did not have money enough to make their speculations
a success.

Tom and Dave were put to work carrying chain, and very soon became
interested in the talk of their companions.

The spot chosen was a very beautiful one--a sloping hillside gradually
narrowing into a strip six or seven hundred yards wide and running
between two of the most picturesque lakes the boys had ever seen.

[Illustration:
"'WHY, BOYS, WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?' TOM LOOKED UP TO MEET
THE KEEN EYES OF THE DOCTOR."]

From the talk of the surveyors they learned that a number of them were
railroad men, and that they were endeavoring to buy at nominal figures
all the choice lands along the line of the new road before the settlers
became aware of its value.

They discussed their plans before the boys without reserve, and it soon
became evident to the latter that the future of this hillside could bear
no comparison with the other paper towns they had seen. A number of very
wealthy men were interested in it, and they proposed to make it the
winter home of themselves and friends.

"You see, gentlemen," said one of the men to his companions, as he
pointed across the strip of land to the slope on the other side, "the
road will wind around the lake, across the neck of land, and along the
western side of the lake to the right, and then in almost a bee-line
toward Palatka. Ten years from now, and this hillside for forty miles
will be a succession of orange groves. Near the depot we shall have a
limited number of business lots, while the balance of the land will be
surveyed into large orange grove and villa tracts. It will be specified
in each deed that no cheap buildings shall be erected. It is not a mere
speculati