“No, rather like ’em.  I wouldn’t mind camping with them for a day or two, with you for company.”

[Illustration:  “GROUPS OF TALL PALMETTOS, OR MAGNIFICENT TALL PALMS”]

The house looked too spooky and snaky to live in, and the boys made their camp in the open, near a tamarind tree and, as they observed later, beside an overgrown grave.  An old barrel under the eaves of the house was nearly full of rain water, which they were likely to need, since their only supply of fresh water was contained in a five-gallon can, which would hold about two days’ requirements.  The rain water was good and would have been better but for Ned’s gruesome inquiry: 

“You don’t suppose it has been poisoned, do you, Dick?”

On their first afternoon the boys crossed the swampy jungle in the rear of the old plantation and found themselves on a typical South Florida prairie.  On it were oases of fire-blackened palmettos, little ponds, palmetto scrub and bits of soggy meadow, in which they often sank to their knees, as they plodded across them.  There were tracks of wild animals in the meadows and regular trails of alligators between the ponds.  Billy stopped beside one of the ponds and grunted, as he had been taught by Johnny, until a little ’gator showed his head.

“See that alligator, Ned?  Let’s go in there and fetch him out.”

“Not much do I go in that mud-hole, alligator or no alligator.”

“Then, just you watch me,” said Dick, as he took off his shoes and stockings.

“See here, Dicky boy, come out of there,” said Ned.

But Dick kept on, wading all round the pond before he felt the wiggle he wanted.  Perhaps his toes were less tough than Johnny’s, or maybe he didn’t manage them as well, for one of them got in a baby ’gator’s mouth.  Dick couldn’t suppress a yell as two rows of needle-like teeth sunk into his flesh, and he jerked his foot away so violently that he lost the chance of bagging his game.  Then Ned came floundering through the mud and almost dragged him out of the pond.

“I mean to get that little alligator if it takes all day, only I won’t try him barefoot again,” said Dick, as he slowly drew his stocking over his aching toe.

Dick waded out into the pond again and for half an hour explored with his feet for the reptile he was after, but all in vain.  Several times he thought he touched the creature with his shoe, but could not be sure.  Then he waded ashore and began taking off his shoes.

“What are you going to do now, Dick?” said Ned.

“Johnny waded barefoot into just such a pond as that and brought out a ’gator.  I told him then that what he could do, I could.  I’m plumb scared to go in that pond barefoot, but that young Cracker, who’s a year younger than I, waded right in without stopping to think whether it was safe or not.  If Johnny was here he’d have that ’gator out of that pond, toes or no toes, and that’s what I’m going to do,” and Dick waded barefoot into the pond again and began feeling around in the mud with his toes.