“All right.  You’ll take your rifle and I’ll tag on with the shotgun, just to see that you keep out of mischief.”

The trail which the boys followed did lead to a meadow where there were plenty of deer tracks, but no deer.  They waded and tramped through the meadow to its farther side, where they entered a wooded swamp.  Here they started up a deer, at which Ned took two snap-shots as the creature ran away.  They traveled in the swamp for an hour, when they came to another meadow, on the farther side of which two deer were feeding.  The wind must have carried a hostile scent to the quarry, for they slipped quietly into the swamp, and when the boys entered it were not to be seen.  Again the young hunters sought their game through the swamp.  They worked their way through thickets, among tangles of roots and vines, and wallowed through moccasin-infested pools of water and mud.  In the excitement of the chase the boys took no note of time or of the direction in which they were traveling.  It was late in the day when, with clothing muddied and torn, the boys, exhausted and discouraged, sat on a log in a swamp and decided to give up the hunt and go back to camp.  They turned back and Ned led the way while Dick followed until they brought up against an impassable mangrove swamp.  Ned looked to the right and the left, and then turning to Billy asked if he knew where camp was.

“No,” said Dick.

“Then we’re lost.”

“Of course.  You’re always lost in a swamp.  Mr. Streeter says so.  He says you may lose your boat or your camp, but with a rifle, matches and a little salt you can travel over all South Florida.”.

Ned looked so unhappy over their prospects that Dick took the lead, saying: 

“If we don’t get out of this swamp pretty soon we’ll have to camp in it, and we’ll need some daylight to fix up in.”

At this moment a night heron lit on a branch near Dick, who raised his gun and shot it.

“That’s our supper, Ned.  I wouldn’t shoot a bird sitting unless I was starving.  Don’t the woods look lighter over there?” In a few minutes the boys were in an open prairie, where Dick produced a waterproof match-box, which was well filled, and a small bag of salt.  A fire was soon built, the heron dressed, broiled and eaten with only fingers for forks.  The boys washed down their dinners with water from a pool, which they first examined for moccasins by the light of a burning palmetto fan.

Ned slept with his rifle by his side, and Dick was awakened in the morning by its discharge.  He saw Ned sitting beside him with the rifle in his hand, while a hundred yards away, on the edge of the clearing, a buck lay on his back kicking.  While the boys were hoisting the carcass to the branch of a tree, Ned said to Dick: 

“I was in a blue funk yesterday afternoon.  I want you to promise to kick me if I get scared that way again.”

Dick laughed and replied: