ent taking hold,
commenced to carry the craft down stream. Then Phil started
operations; and the merry popping of the noisy exhaust told that they
were being urged on at a faster gait than the movement of the stream
could boast.

Tony had curled up in the sun, just like a dog might have done. He
seemed to be asleep; and the two other boys talked in low tones as they
continued to glide on down the winding river; now under heavy trees,
and again passing through an open stretch, where the turpentine
industry had killed the pines years back; so that only a new growth was
coming on.

Perhaps Phil might have thought it a bit singular had he known that
Tony did not sleep for a single minute as he lay there; but was from
time to time observing his new friends from the shelter of his arms, on
which his head lay.

Phil had reached under the deck of the boat and brought forth a
splendid gun of the latest model. It was a Marlin repeater, known
among hunters as a pump gun; and could be fired six times without
reloading, the empty shells being thrown out from the side instead of
in the marksman's face.

This fine weapon had been a present to the boy from his father on the
preceding summer, when he had a birthday; and as yet he had found no
opportunity to test its shooting qualities. Still, his father had once
been something of a true sportsman, and knew more or less about the
value of firearms; so that Phil never feared but that it would prove to
be an excellent tool.

"I've got some buckshot shells along with me, you remember, Larry," he
was saying as he guided the boat, and tried to keep her in the middle
of the widening stream. "And I fetched them in the hope of meeting up
with a Florida deer, or perhaps a panther; which animal is found down
here. If a fellow can't carry a rifle these buckshot shells answer
pretty well. I got my deer up in the Adirondacks last year with one,
fired from my old double-barrel."

"How about grizzly bears and wildcats and coons?" asked Larry, not in
the least ashamed to show his utter ignorance about all such matters,
in his quest of knowledge.

At that Phil laughed out loud.

"The bobcat and coon part is all O. K., Larry," he said; "but you're
away off when you think we're going to rub up against a grizzly bear
down in Florida. They have got a specimen of the breed here, but it's
only a small black fellow, and not particularly ferocious, they tell
me. But we'll ask Tony about all