she's cranky," he exclaimed.

"She is pretty ticklish," Charley admitted, "but just the craft for our
purpose. She's so light she will float on a good heavy dew, and then
she's so easy to take to pieces and pack away. But we'd better stop
our chattering, for we are getting near the island now."

The moon was shining brightly, giving to the dead whitened trees on the
little island a peculiar ghostly appearance. The canoes soon grounded
in the marsh grass, and, fastening them to paddles, stuck down in the
mud, our hunters shouldered their fowling-pieces and trudged ahead
through the mire. They had prepared themselves well for the trip and
each wore a pair of rubber boots reaching to the hip drawn on over
their rawhide boots and legging.

"I guess we are on the right track," grinned Charley, ere they had
proceeded far.

"Goodness, it's awful," exclaimed Walter. "I wish I had a clothes-pin
on my nose. Smells just like as island of Limburger cheese set in a
lake of broken spoiled eggs."

"I reckon that's comin' it a little strong, Walt," chuckled the
captain. "I guess though we've stumbled onto a good big rookery for
sure. That smell comes mostly from the dead baby birds, broken eggs,
an' such like. But let's keep quiet, lads, we're nearly there now."

A few minutes more and the hunters entered the fringe of dead trees.
By the time they reached the center of the little island where the dead
trees were thickest, the little party was nearly overcome by the
horrible stench. At every step they crushed in nestfuls of decayed
eggs which sent up their protests to high heavens.

At last Charley commanded a halt. "We've gone far enough," he
whispered. "Let's light up our torches together and make as short work
of it as possible. Gee, but I'm sick for a mouthful of sweet, fresh
air."

The fat pine-sticks flared up as though saturated with oil, their
flickering blaze lighting up a weird scene; the gaunt, bare, white
trees, ghosts of a departed forest, the miry ground strewn with eggs of
all sizes, shapes and colors, and dead birds of many kinds, in amongst
which writhed and twisted dirty-looking, repulsive water moccasins and
brilliant yellow and black swamp snakes, while overhead on the whitened
limbs, roosted hundreds of birds partly roused from their sleep by the
glare of the torches.

"We'll have to shoot with one hand and hold our torches with the
other," said Charley.

The guns were very light fowling-pi