Dick in the Everglades Part 23

"No, only put me in the fireroom, shoveling coal in the furnace."

"But that's not boy's work. What business--"

"Hold on, Ned, wait till I get through. The captain was bully. So was everybody else. I went to him soon as we were outside Sandy Hook and asked for a job. I was independent about it. I believe I offered to swim ash.o.r.e if he didn't happen to have a job for me. He gave me an easy one, for a boy, but I struck and asked for a man's work, and got it--in the fireroom. But I pulled through, Neddy, and made good, though once or twice I did have to call myself hard names and think how you'd have hung on, if you'd been in my place. Yes, everybody was good to me. One pa.s.senger wanted to pay for a first-cla.s.s pa.s.sage for me and I had hard work to beg off, and--but that's all."

"d.i.c.k, you mustn't talk that way about me. You make me ashamed. I wouldn't have stuck it out in that fireroom for one day. Now how about your time for the trip? Will a month suit you?"

"Yes, that's all right. I wrote mother from Key West and told her the hunt would be a long one without any chance to mail a letter and that she was not to worry because there wasn't a show of danger in the whole business. Of course mothers do worry a little when there isn't any reason."

"Yes, mothers do worry, foolishly. Pity yours couldn't know how faithfully Tom looks after you. She'd be so relieved."

On the day after cutting down the bee tree the boys were glad to stay quietly in camp. Ned's neck and arms were badly swollen and d.i.c.k's eyes could scarcely be seen. Both of them lay awake nearly all night, but it was uncertain whether this was due to the pain of the stings or the quant.i.ty of honey they had eaten.

Tom shed his fierceness soon after he had disposed of the rabbit and again became friendly to d.i.c.k, who, even while he petted him, explained that he could never quite trust him again.

Every evening turkeys could be heard in the swamp near the camp.

Every morning they had departed. One morning Ned said to d.i.c.k:

"I'm turkey hungry and I'm tired of shilly-shallying. The way to get anything is to get it. Let us get a turkey. We'll start out for it now and come back after we have got it, and not before."

"All right, Neddy, we goes for it, we gits it and we comes back when we gits it and not afore."

The boys started out with their usual equipment of weapons, salt, matches and axe. They crossed the swamp without finding the bird they sought and then, as they were hungry and tired, d.i.c.k shot a fat young ibis and broiled it for their dinner. After dinner they crossed the meadow to a narrow strip of woods, beyond which, on a wide stretch of prairie, they saw three bunches of turkeys. The bunch nearest them appeared to be a hen turkey with her family, each member of which was about as large as its mother. They were a long rifle-shot away, and a shot, if it missed, would send every turkey to cover for the day. The same thing would happen if either of them set foot on the prairie.

"Our best chance," said Ned, "is to wait for them at the edge of the prairie. It's getting late and pretty soon they'll be looking for places to roost among these trees. They may come right here. Anyhow, by spreading out we will cover quite a stretch of woods. It may be too late for the rifle but the shotgun ought to do something."

"That means that you're tired of my society, Neddy. So I'll go and hide myself on the edge of the prairie, a little further off than you can hit anything, in case of you mistaking me for a turkey."

Soon after d.i.c.k had reached his station, the turkeys began to feed toward the woods. Two of the bunches went to the opposite side of the prairie. The hen turkey with her grown-up family fed slowly toward d.i.c.k's hiding place, but, when just out of range, appeared to become suspicious and turned toward Ned. Slowly she walked, darting her quick-moving head in every direction as she searched trees and bushes for hidden enemies. The younger turkeys put much faith in the wariness of the old lady and stalked fearlessly behind her. Ned waited for a chance which he thought couldn't be missed and, avoiding the mother turkey, shot down one of her brood. Instantly the flock was in the air, following its leader down along the edge of the forest. This brought them directly over d.i.c.k, who neatly cut down another member of the family. While Ned was dressing the turkeys and building the fire for the broiling of one of them, d.i.c.k was climbing a young cabbage palm and cutting the bud from its top.

"Couldn't tell this palmetto cabbage from big fresh chestnuts, by the taste," said d.i.c.k. "I'm going to roast that other turkey at the camp to-morrow with his whole inside crammed full of chestnut stuffing."

While the turkey hunters were eating their breakfast of cold turkey a doe, followed by a fawn which was still in the spotted coat, walked out on the open prairie within fifty yards of them and gazed at them without a sign of fear.

"They know we wouldn't shoot a doe or a fawn," said Ned. "That's what makes them feel so safe."

"Wonder if they would have felt as safe last night, before we got those turkeys?"

On their return Tom, met the turkey hunters a quarter of a mile from their camp and they wondered whether he had heard them coming, or happened to be strolling that way. He looked so earnestly at the turkey which d.i.c.k was carrying that the boy said to him:

"See here, Tom, that's my turkey and I won't stand for your laying a paw on him. So you had better be good unless you are looking for a mix-up with me." Tom looked cowed, but showed his friendly feelings by walking beside d.i.c.k, rubbing against his legs and purring in his half-growling fashion.

CHAPTER XIX

A PRAIRIE ON FIRE

"d.i.c.k," said Ned as they rested against a log, having their regular after-dinner, heart-to heart talk, "we had better _hiepus_ (light out), if we mean to get to the coast and bring up at Myers on time, besides taking in all we want to on the way. We know the Harney's River route like a book and we've been over the Indian trail to Lawson's River, so we've got to find some new way out. There is a chain of salt-water lakes between the Everglades and the rivers of the west coast and we must get into them. I have made a pretty fair chart of the country and can tell how far across the swamps and prairies it is to almost any point, but how much of that distance is easy water and how much tough swamp or boggy prairie is what I don't know, but what we have got to find out. We have explored the country right around here pretty well and now let's put in a day working the canoe through the gra.s.s to the south, then leg it westward till we strike salt water."

"That sounds well," replied d.i.c.k, "and then, you know, if your charts don't pan out straight, you can always ask Tom or me. Wonder if you half appreciate your privileges, having us along to take care of you."

The young explorers "lit out" as proposed and, after a day of hard work and easy work, of open water and thick saw-gra.s.s and of clear channels and half dry meadows, camped beside a little slough on the border of a swamp, in the jungle of which it soon lost itself.

The first excitement of the new camp came in the night when Tom, who was sleeping, as usual, beside d.i.c.k, sprang up with a fierce cry, which they had never before heard from him, and dashed into the woods near the camp. There came from the woods the battle cries of warring animals, but soon all became quiet and the cat came back, but he growled at intervals throughout the night.

"What got into you, Tom?" said d.i.c.k to the lynx the next morning, after he had looked him over in vain for marks of a fight. "Was it jimjams, or only a bad nightmare?"

Tom listened gravely and looked as if he could have explained a good deal if only d.i.c.k had understood his language.

Tom followed the boys through the swamp on the morning of their first tramp, but when they struck a marshy meadow where the water was knee deep and the mud as much more, with no trees to make it pleasant for a poor cat, he looked reproachfully at d.i.c.k and turned back toward the camp. At the end of the meadow was a dense thicket which Ned entered first. He had only advanced a few steps when he turned back and held up his hand in warning to d.i.c.k. The thicket in which they stood was on the border of a big prairie of rich gra.s.s in which more than a dozen deer, nearly all bucks, could be seen feeding, with only their backs and antlers showing above the tall gra.s.s, excepting when some buck of a suspicious mind lifted his head high and gazed warily about him.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "ALL BEYOND THE DARK MEADOW WAS A LIVING Ma.s.s"]

"Isn't it us for the big luck, Neddy?" whispered d.i.c.k. "When I ate that very last bit of turk this morning I wondered when I'd get another meal and Tom asked me in confidence if we meant to let him starve. And now, just look. There's venison enough for the rest of the trip."

"It don't belong to us yet. You want to be mighty cautious. You can sneak up to that tree with the rifle and wait till that nearest buck shows up in good shape and then drop a bullet somewhere around his fore-shoulder. Don't fire at his head unless you have to. The brain is a mighty small mark, and you're not playing to the gallery down here."

"Ned Barstow, what are you talking about? Take your own rifle and shoot your own buck. If you don't I'll let out a yell that will scare the whole bunch to Kingdom Come. I don't run to you with my gun, whenever I find game, and ask you to shoot it. You mean well, Neddy boy, but sometimes you get mistaken. I'm afraid I didn't begin this trip right. I ought to have given you a lickin' every day, just to keep you in your place."

Ned crawled out to the tree with his rifle and watched for his chance. The nearest buck was within easy range, but the gra.s.s hid his body and when the creature, scenting his enemy, threw his head high in the air Ned sent a bullet through his brain. As the boys were dragging the carca.s.s to the woods where they proposed to skin and cut it in two for carrying to camp, d.i.c.k said to Ned:

"Do you know what hypocrite means?"

"I s'pose so, but what are you trying to get at?"

"Hypocrite means a fellow who tells his friend that the only way to shoot a buck is through the body, coz the head is too small to be hit, and then goes out himself and sends a bullet plumb through the center of the brain of the beast."

"But d.i.c.k, I couldn't see the shoulder."

"Neither could I. You can't sneak out that way."

A strong wind from the northwest sprang up while the boys were finishing their supper of broiled buck's liver and they built a wind-break to protect them while they slept. The wind became a gale, but they slept soundly, soothed by its roaring. They were rudely wakened by the crashing of some wild animal through the brush of their wind-break and, sitting up, saw that the whole western sky was lit up and all beyond the dark meadow was a lurid ma.s.s of flame.

The roar of the fire mingled with that of the gale, while, as the swirling columns of flame bent to the earth and swept the meadow, the crackling of the gra.s.s was like the rattling of musketry or the spitting fire of a hundred Catlings. Soon the air became filled with sparks and cinders, and thick with smoke.

"We've got to mosey, Ned. Reckon there isn't any time to waste, either. Shall we take the meat?"

"Got enough to do to take care of our own."

There was plenty of light, but the flickering shadows of the trees caused by the wavering flames made the steps of the boys uncertain as they fled from the flames that were following so fast. Ned fell headforemost into a thicket of the terrible Spanish bayonet and it was only the excitement of the hour that made the pain bearable.

They floundered across the narrow swamp and into the marshy meadow often waist deep in the mud and more than once both of them fell flat in the water of the marsh. The narrow belt of timber which they first crossed checked the fire and although tongues of flame crossed it and a few trees took fire, while live coals were scattered broadcast over the marshy meadow, the fire died out without crossing the belt of woods that first stopped it. The boys crossed the marshy meadow to the swamp which they first entered when they left their camp the previous morning. As Ned's Spanish bayonet wounds kept him from sleeping, the boys sat up and talked till daylight.

In the morning the wind had gone down and a few burning trees and little columns of smoke were all that was left of the great fire of the night.

"If you will go on to camp, Ned, I'll go back and get that venison.

It must be well smoked. Hope it didn't burn up. Give my regards to Tom. If he isn't good tie him up."