d the ambition to
even make a trial. All his muscles seemed sore by now; and Phil knew
that it would be some days ere his chum felt as chipper as was his wont.

"Besides, what's the use?" Larry remarked, even as he mentioned the
fact as to the fishy appearance of the water. "We've still got a lot
of that bully venison aboard; and that fine turkey Tony is going to
bake in his home-made oven ashore. Why, we'll be just filled up with
grub, hang the fish! I don't care enough about them just now to
bother."

Tony was already ashore, at work on his oven. Just as Phil had
described to his tenderfoot chum, he first of all dug out a big hole,
and started a hot fire going in it, using the dead leaf stalks of the
palmetto as a beginning. Then he fed other wood, which he seemed to
select carefully, until he finally had a furious red hot mass of embers
there.

Meanwhile he had plucked the turkey, and made it ready for cooking.

"Time we're done eatin' oven be ready," he announced, as Larry called
him aboard to supper; he having prepared the meal over the little Jewel
stove, finding a way to keep things warm as fast as he cooked them.

Later on Tony drew out all the red ashes. The oven was very hot at
that time. He wrapped the turkey in some green leaves, and thrust it
into the hole; after which he took pains to cover the opening up, and
heap earth over it all.

Of course Phil knew the principle of the thing, though up to now he had
never been a witness to the actual demonstration. It acted on the same
principle used with the new-fangled bottles that keep fluid hot for
several days, or cold, just as it happens to be put into the
receptacle. And the fireless cookers are also arranged on the same old
time natural laws of retaining heat.

"Listen to the racket coming out over yonder!" remarked Larry, as they
lay around at their ease later on, each having a blanket under him.

"Tony says that there's a big swamp lying over there," observed Phil.
"And I warrant you he can tell what makes every sound you hear. One
comes from some kind of bird squawking; another I happen to know is a
night heron looking for a supper along the water's edge; then I suppose
coons squabble when they meet, trailing over half sunken logs; a bobcat
calls to its mate; the owls tune up; chuckwillswidows, the same birds
that we call whippoorwills up North, you know, keep a whooping all the
time; and there are all sorts of other noises that might s