“That sounds well,” replied Dick, “and then, you know, if your charts don’t pan out straight, you can always ask Tom or me.  Wonder if you half appreciate your privileges, having us along to take care of you.”

The young explorers “lit out” as proposed and, after a day of hard work and easy work, of open water and thick saw-grass and of clear channels and half dry meadows, camped beside a little slough on the border of a swamp, in the jungle of which it soon lost itself.

The first excitement of the new camp came in the night when Tom, who was sleeping, as usual, beside Dick, sprang up with a fierce cry, which they had never before heard from him, and dashed into the woods near the camp.  There came from the woods the battle cries of warring animals, but soon all became quiet and the cat came back, but he growled at intervals throughout the night.

“What got into you, Tom?” said Dick to the lynx the next morning, after he had looked him over in vain for marks of a fight.  “Was it jimjams, or only a bad nightmare?”

Tom listened gravely and looked as if he could have explained a good deal if only Dick had understood his language.

Tom followed the boys through the swamp on the morning of their first tramp, but when they struck a marshy meadow where the water was knee deep and the mud as much more, with no trees to make it pleasant for a poor cat, he looked reproachfully at Dick and turned back toward the camp.  At the end of the meadow was a dense thicket which Ned entered first.  He had only advanced a few steps when he turned back and held up his hand in warning to Dick.  The thicket in which they stood was on the border of a big prairie of rich grass in which more than a dozen deer, nearly all bucks, could be seen feeding, with only their backs and antlers showing above the tall grass, excepting when some buck of a suspicious mind lifted his head high and gazed warily about him.

[Illustration:  “ALL BEYOND THE DARK MEADOW WAS A LIVING MASS”]

“Isn’t it us for the big luck, Neddy?” whispered Dick.  “When I ate that very last bit of turk this morning I wondered when I’d get another meal and Tom asked me in confidence if we meant to let him starve.  And now, just look.  There’s venison enough for the rest of the trip.”

“It don’t belong to us yet.  You want to be mighty cautious.  You can sneak up to that tree with the rifle and wait till that nearest buck shows up in good shape and then drop a bullet somewhere around his fore-shoulder.  Don’t fire at his head unless you have to.  The brain is a mighty small mark, and you’re not playing to the gallery down here.”

“Ned Barstow, what are you talking about?  Take your own rifle and shoot your own buck.  If you don’t I’ll let out a yell that will scare the whole bunch to Kingdom Come.  I don’t run to you with my gun, whenever I find game, and ask you to shoot it.  You mean well, Neddy boy, but sometimes you get mistaken.  I’m afraid I didn’t begin this trip right.  I ought to have given you a lickin’ every day, just to keep you in your place.”