“So it is harmless, and if we can tire one out I’m not afraid to go overboard and tackle him in the water.”

“Neither am I afraid, and I’ll go overboard with you, only I’m afraid that by the time we’ve tired one of those things I won’t be able to swim at all.”

Late that afternoon, as the boys were paddling through a long narrow bay of many keys, they became anxious, because for hours they had not seen a bit of ground on which they could camp.

“Looks as if we’ve got to sleep in the water,” said Dick.  “If Johnny were here he would fix up a camp anywhere, and I’ll do the best I can.  Let’s keep on to that point where the palmettos are.  If we don’t find land there we’ll camp on mangrove roots.”

The boys were in luck, for under the palmettos on the point was a regular Indian camping-ground, with logs for the camp-fire in place and poles ready for stretching a canvas covering, or rigging up mosquito bars.

It was the boys’ first real camp together, the very camp of which they had talked and dreamed for years in that far-off Belleville, now more than a thousand miles away.  Never before was there so wonderful a supper as the boys enjoyed that night.  There was venison, superbly broiled by Ned; a perfect ash-cake, built and baked by Dick, and a pot of gorgeous coffee, for which both claimed credit.  They lingered long over their supper, and then talked for half the night as they lay on their bed of palmetto leaves and watched the stars that looked down upon them through the tops of the trees.  From the deep water that flowed past the point on which they were encamped came the occasional snort of a dolphin, the crash of a whip-ray as he struck the water after a leap high in the air, and the splashing of fish as they pursued others or were pursued by them.  From the thicket behind their camp came the snarling of wildcats, while in the more distant woods the curdling cry of the panther, or mountain lion, could be heard from time to time.  A long roar that rose and fell and seemed to come from all sides at once was recognized by Ned as the bellowing of an alligator.  Sometimes they heard the beating of invisible wings as flocks of birds flew over them, while the “Hoo! hoo hoo! hoo hoo!” of talkative owls as they conversed lasted throughout the night.

Ned was so anxious for another chance at a manatee that the boys decided to camp where they were and hunt the creature regularly.

“We’ll leave all our stores in camp,” said Ned, “because we might get capsized.”

“Oh, yes!  We might get capsized!  Is there a chance on earth that we might not get capsized?  We’ll leave everything in camp excepting the paddles and that lasso of yours which did you so much good yesterday.”

“You like to talk, Dick, but you know you wouldn’t miss that manatee hunt for a farm.  We will have to put it off a day or two, though, until we kill a deer and jerk the venison.  We’ve just eaten the last scrap of meat in camp.  There’s a trail running back into the bushes that must lead to a meadow where we can walk and probably find deer.”