re designs upon the huge wild turkey-cock whose tracks Gray had
discovered in the mud along the branch where their camp was to be
pitched.

Seven hens and youthful gobblers accompanied this patriarch according to
Eudo Stent's calculations, and Bulow thought that the Seminole might
know the location of the roost; probably deep in some uninviting swamp.

But there was plenty of time to decide what to do when they reached
camp; and half an hour later they started, wagon and all, wheels bumping
over the exposed tree roots which infinitely bored the well-behaved
dogs, squatting forward, heads in a row, every nose twitching at the
subtle forest odours that only a dog could detect.

Once they emitted short and quickly stifled yelps as a 'possum climbed
leisurely into a small tree and turned to inspect the strange procession
which was invading his wilderness. And Shiela and Hamil, riding behind
the wagon, laughed like children.

Once they passed under a heronry--a rather odoriferous patch of dead
cypress and pines, where the enormous nests bulged in the stark
tree-tops; and once, as they rode out into a particularly park-like and
velvety glade, five deer looked up, and then deliberately started to
trot across.

"We need that venison!" exclaimed Gray, motioning for his gun which was
in the wagon. Shiela spurred forward, launching her mount into a gallop;
Hamil's horse followed on a dead run, he tugging madly at the buck-shot
shell in his web belt; and away they tore to head the deer. In vain! for
the agile herd bounded past far out of shell-range and went crashing on
through the jungle of the branch; and Shiela reined in and turned her
flushed face to Hamil with a laugh of sheer delight.

"Glorious sight, wasn't it?" said Hamil. "I'm rather glad they got clear
of us."

"So am I. There was no chance, but I always try."

"So shall I," he said--"whether there is a chance or not."

She looked up quickly, reading his meaning. Then she bent over the gun
that she was breaking, extracted the shells, looped them, and returned
the weapon to its holster.

Behind them her father and brother jeered at them for their failure,
Gray being particularly offensive in ascribing their fiasco to bad
riding and buck-fever.

A little later Shiela's horse almost unseated her, leaping aside and
into the jungle as an enormous black snake coiled close in front.

"Don't shoot!" she cried out to Hamil, mastering her horse and forcing
him past