"Nope, didn"t worry after you answered my shot, but I was mighty envious of you, for I knew you had got hold of something. I didn"t believe it was a bear. Were you scared, d.i.c.k?"
"Yes, I was, a heap, but I pulled through," and d.i.c.k told his chum of the thought that braced him up.
Ned tried to speak roughly, but his voice trembled and he looked affectionately at his companion as he said:
"See here, d.i.c.k, boy, you can cut out all that outlaw talk. The gun business was all bluff and you know it as well as I."
"You looked pretty white, Neddy, for a fellow who didn"t think he was taking any risk. But if you"ll tell me now, honest Injun, that you didn"t think there was any danger when you faced that convict and called him a liar, a thief and a coward, why I"ll never speak of it again. I noticed that your pet outlaw, who said the fellow was a murderer, three deep, didn"t seem to think that you had done anything so very amusing in giving that fellow the lie and all the rest of it."
"I see you are round-skinning your bear for mounting. I"m glad of that. Some day I"ll see it in your house and we"ll be talking about last night."
"That skin is for you. I want you to have it stuffed and put where it can watch your alligator."
"I"m not going to take all the trophies of this trip. You can bet your life on that."
"Don"t get slangy, Neddy. You aren"t used to it and it isn"t becoming. Besides, we may never get these little souvenirs out of the wilderness."
By which remark d.i.c.k proved himself to be a prophet.
The trail of the bear had been roundabout and had brought d.i.c.k within less than a mile of the camp. The buzzards were gathering and d.i.c.k remained to guard the meat while he finished removing the skin and cleaning the skull. Ned made two trips with good loads and then, taking all they could carry, the boys returned to camp, leaving a big feast for the bird scavengers.
CHAPTER XVI
IN THE CROCODILE COUNTRY
One evening while d.i.c.k had one of his alligator pets sitting up on his tail, teaching him to sing, as he told his chum, Ned said:
"Crocodiles are a lot more interesting than alligators and the Florida crocodile is nearly extinct. All that are left are in a little strip of land near Madeira Hammock, which is only a mile or two wide and eight or ten long. Let"s go down to Madeira Hammock and catch some to look at. We can turn them loose after we are through with them."
"Mr. Streeter says there is no way to get through to Florida Bay, where Madeira Hammock is, by water from Whitewater Bay."
"Your outlaw says there is, only you have to tote your canoe some."
"He isn"t my outlaw. I don"t sit up nights making maps with him, and anyhow we can"t tote the canoe through a mangrove swamp, and that"s what we"re up against if we go that way."
"But our outlaw--the outlaw, if you like--says we can find little creeks up toward the Glades that will take us almost through."
"All right. We"ll start in the morning. I wish we"d cured about a ton or two less of that meat. We"ll have to make a lot of trips across the carries. You don"t see any way to take my alligators along, do you?"
Two days were spent in following creeks that led to nothing and then one was found with a deeper channel which led them for miles, after which it broke up into several little waterways, which were almost without current and so shallow that the boys had to wade and drag their canoe. Their progress was slow, and they slept on a bed of brush which had lumps and knots to bruise every soft spot on their bodies. Their next trouble was a strip of mangrove swamp which a cat couldn"t have crawled through. After following along the mangroves for an hour they found a creek which entered it. As they followed this creek it grew wider and deepened. There was a slight current that flowed with them; the water was brackish, and they knew it led to the Bay of Florida and that the Madeira Hammock was near.
The mangrove gave place to a better growth, the soil became richer and vegetation more luxuriant. Soon they had to cut away vines and branches to clear the way for the canoe, but they counted their troubles over. They were paddling gaily ahead when they saw in front of them a branch that stretched across the creek about a foot above the water. They had met plenty of similar obstructions, but this was different. There was a big wasps" nest on the branch and the air was filled with flying little pests. It was impossible to get around the nest and it was doubtful if there was another creek that would take them through.
"Let"s get some dry palmetto fans and make torches. Then we can burn and smoke the wasps out," said Ned.
"Dunno as I want to wade up to that nest and set it afire. Ouch!"
said d.i.c.k, who had sat down on what he thought was a stump, but had turned out to be an ants" nest. "Holy smoke! Don"t these things bite? I don"t believe wasps are in it with them. Anyhow, I"m going to find out."
d.i.c.k took the oar that was used to pole the canoe and wading straight toward the nest struck it a blow that most fortunately knocked it to the water, while a second blow sent it under the surface. A few of the outlying insects stung the boy and he had a dozen little lumps to show for a day or two, but he had captured the fort and drowned the garrison and the canoe pa.s.sed in peace.
The creek emptied into a wide bay on the high bank of which the boys camped. It was part of the Madeira Hammock, the most beautiful native forest they had seen. At daylight a large crocodile was floating on the bay near the camp, but sank out of sight as the campers showed themselves. From the bay the canoeists entered a deep river with high banks on which were growing madeira, wild sapadillo, palms of several kinds and other varieties of trees. In the sides of the high banks at the water line the boys saw holes which they believed to be the caves of crocodiles. In the mouth of one the water was muddied and d.i.c.k cut a long pole which he poked into the hole. At first he felt something seize the pole, but could not afterward find the creature. He then took the pole on the bank and thrust it into the ground where he thought the reptile was most likely to be. When he had worked thirty feet back from the bank he felt something move and the next instant Ned, who had stayed in the canoe at the mouth of the cave, was nearly capsized by the rush of a great beast nearly the size of the canoe.
"Why didn"t you grab it, Ned? What is the use of my driving game to you, if you let it slip through your fingers?"
"Perhaps you think that was one of the alligator babies you"ve been nursing. You didn"t see the big head with the tusks running out of the top of it."
"No, but I mean to see the next one. It"ll be your turn to do the punching while I rope the critter."
"If you had got your rope on that one and held on, you"d be in his cave now, inside the owner"s tummy."
The next crocodile was not far away and the hunters saw it crawl into its cave. d.i.c.k stood on the bank over the cave and arranged the noose on the end of the harpoon line around the mouth of the cave, while Ned paddled the canoe a few rods down the stream. d.i.c.k had the line fast to his wrist, but Ned wouldn"t punch it until it had been made fast to a chunk of wood instead.
"What difference does it make?" grumbled d.i.c.k. "If the chunk goes overboard I follow it. See?"
Ned hit the crocodile on his first poke and d.i.c.k had his hands full from the start. He would have been dragged into the river within a dozen seconds, but for Ned"s coming to his aid. The crocodile was as quick as the alligators had been slow.
"If he digs round as fast on land as he does in the water there"s goin" to be a circus when we get him out on the bank," said the panting d.i.c.k.
"And you wanted to be tied to his mammy by the wrist. This is only an infant. It isn"t nine feet long."
But it was, and a foot over that, yet when they got the reptile on the bank and drew its head close to a sapling, they tied a piece of the line around its k.n.o.bby head without any trouble. From that moment the crocodile was tame, and soon d.i.c.k was handling him fearlessly, although Ned warned him that if he didn"t keep out of the way of that tail he"d be knocked endways. But d.i.c.k sat on his back, pulled his tail and tried to lift him on his own back without the crocodile showing displeasure in any way.
"Ned, this thing is a peach. Why not send him to your father? He could be taken to New York in a baby carriage or led like a puppy dog. There would be no such trouble as there would be with a manatee. He"s a curiosity, too."
"If it was the big one I believe it would be worth trying. That fellow must be as big as they come. I wish we had fixed for him."
"It isn"t too late. Let"s lay for him to-morrow."
The crocodile hunters camped beside their captive and d.i.c.k spent the afternoon trying to educate it. He talked of taking the string off of its jaws, but Ned stopped that.
"I"m afraid he might eat the wrong thing, by mistake, and then I"d have to go home alone. I suppose I could take the crocodile along in your place. Your mother might like him as a kind of souvenir."
"But see how gentle he is and how mild his eye. He doesn"t whack around with his tail like an alligator and I think he likes to have me sit on his back."
"That"s only his slyness. Look at him now." For the crocodile, thinking itself un.o.bserved, was crawling slowly toward the bank of the river. When it reached the end of its tether and could go no farther, it lay down and, lifting its head, looked all around as innocently as if it never dreamed of escaping, but had just moved a little way to get a better view of the scenery.
Every hour or two of the next day the boys called at the cave of the big crocodile, but never found him in.
"Well, we"ll go at it again to-morrow," said d.i.c.k.
"We will be doing something else to-morrow. We"ve got to hike out of here, and keep moving, too. Last drop of water has just gone into the coffee pot," and Ned turned the empty water can upside down.
"Hope you can find the creek that leads to the fresh-water country.
I don"t believe I could. We came through too many twisty, narrow places. We sure don"t want to be three or four days finding it. I"m awful thirsty now."