s rolled up shirt, and began to shove. A three-foot water
moccasin lay coiled on a mud bank in his path and the Indian's bare
foot flung it aside as one might kick away a stick. Presently he
paused, deep in liquid mud to his thighs, his feet working on something
below.

"_Alpate_," he said. "'Gator."

A commotion followed in the mud; a dark knob appeared above water.
There was a thrashing and upheaval and the Indian threw a half-grown
alligator upon the bank and dispatched it with a blow from his camp ax.

A few rods farther on the canoe was over the shallows and floating
easily in a flooded jungle of saw grass which stretched away as far as
the eye could reach.

"What's this?" demanded Payne.

"_Oko_ make river end."

"What?"

"_Oko_--lake. River end here. We there."

Payne drew out his maps and studied them.

"Where's Deer Hammock?"

"_Echu_ Hammock there." The Indian pointed to a cluster of palmettos
that reared its tops above the saw grass to the north.

"Go there."

They shoved their way through the grass; and as he contemplated the
drowned land all round Payne grew warm and then cold with anger. Mile
after mile to the east, north and south the watery waste stretched.
Here and there a hammock bearing a few trees stood out, like tiny
islands in a vast sea. Save for this there was only the uninhabited
desolation of the water and grass; and the brilliant sky above.

There was no word spoken as they pushed toward the hammock. Higgins
had noted the change on Payne's countenance and saw it was no time for
careless words. Payne drove his pole into the bottom and drew it out
for inspection.

"Limestone bottom; a thin scum of muck on top of it; and water."

The saw grass grew thicker. Only a water trail worn by dugouts
permitted them to go through. Higgins probed the bottom.

"About six inches of muck here," he reported, "and a foot of water on
it."

The water grew shallow on both sides of the channel and the grass more
dense. The Indian rose to his toes and peered above the grass tops as
they neared the hammock.

"_Echu_!" he said presently, reaching for his rifle. "Deer _ojus_ on
hammock."

Silently the dugout crept toward the high ground, the Indian parting
the saw grass to peer ahead. They were fifty yards from it when Willy
began to fire and at the third shot a tiny buck leaped up and crashed
down in the palmetto scrub, where it had fancied itself concealed.

It was near the e