“That would be all right, Ned, if I felt sure what you would be doing while I was kicking you.”

After breakfast, which consisted of venison, Dick suggested that they go to work systematically to find their lost camp, and proceeded to climb a tall palmetto that stood in the clearing to take an observation.  When half way up the tree he slid back to the ground looking like a chimney-sweep.  For the outside of the palmetto, like most of those that grow on prairies, had been turned into charcoal by the burning of the prairie grass.

“Ned,” said Dick, when the former had stopped laughing at the blackamoor before him because he was out of breath, “I guess it’s your turn to kick me.  Do you see that trail where I stopped last night to build our camp-fire because I didn’t know the way to camp?”

“See it now.  Didn’t know it was there before, though.”

“No more did I; but I saw it yesterday morning, and I took special notice of this palmetto and made sure that I’d never forget this prairie.  Why, Ned, this is our own camping-ground, and I could throw a biscuit from this prairie to our canoe.  Now you can kick.”

After the boys had carried their venison to their camp, Ned said: 

“Dick, do you know how to jerk venison?”

“I’ve seen Johnny smoke it.  Is that the same thing?”

“Sure!  So while you’re skinning the buck I’ll lam into that black mangrove log and build a fire under the little scaffold of small poles there, which you hadn’t seen, but which was built to cure venison.  Say, Dick, don’t you want to hire out as a scout?”

Dick grinned, but made no other reply, and they began the work of jerking the venison.  They cut it in thin strips and hung it over the fire of the black mangrove, which is one of the smokiest woods on earth.  All day long they fed the fire and watched the venison, while scores of buzzards sat around on the trees and overlooked the work.  Far into the night the boys lay beside the fire, watched its curling smoke, and talked of that camp in the snow in the North of the long ago.

CHAPTER IX

THE CAPTURE OF THE MANATEE

The manatee hunt began as soon as the venison had been cured.  The boys explored the waters about their camp, making each day a longer trip and taking careful note of all the waters they explored.  They usually hunted through the forenoon, and after dinner Ned mapped out the course they had taken while Dick took a walk with the shot-gun and picked up an Indian hen, or limp-kin, or a brace of ducks for supper.  Within a week Ned had made a good working chart of the country about them, both land and water, and the boys had come to know their surroundings as if they had been born among them.  Nearly every day they found and chased a manatee.  Sometimes they found three or four in a day, but the creatures always swam faster than their pursuers and were still frisky when the boys were worn to frazzles.