Soon after Dick 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 Dick’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 Dick, 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, Dick 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 Dick.  “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 Dick 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 Dick, rubbing against his legs and purring in his half-growling fashion.

CHAPTER XIX

A PRAIRIE ON FIRE

“Dick,” 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 grass to the south, then leg it westward till we strike salt water.”