Seven hens and youthful gobblers accompanied this patriarch according to Eudo Stent’s calculations, and Bulow thought that the Seminole might know the location of the roost; probably deep in some uninviting swamp.

But there was plenty of time to decide what to do when they reached camp; and half an hour later they started, wagon and all, wheels bumping over the exposed tree roots which infinitely bored the well-behaved dogs, squatting forward, heads in a row, every nose twitching at the subtle forest odours that only a dog could detect.

Once they emitted short and quickly stifled yelps as a ’possum climbed leisurely into a small tree and turned to inspect the strange procession which was invading his wilderness.  And Shiela and Hamil, riding behind the wagon, laughed like children.

Once they passed under a heronry—­a rather odoriferous patch of dead cypress and pines, where the enormous nests bulged in the stark tree-tops; and once, as they rode out into a particularly park-like and velvety glade, five deer looked up, and then deliberately started to trot across.

“We need that venison!” exclaimed Gray, motioning for his gun which was in the wagon.  Shiela spurred forward, launching her mount into a gallop; Hamil’s horse followed on a dead run, he tugging madly at the buck-shot shell in his web belt; and away they tore to head the deer.  In vain! for the agile herd bounded past far out of shell-range and went crashing on through the jungle of the branch; and Shiela reined in and turned her flushed face to Hamil with a laugh of sheer delight.

“Glorious sight, wasn’t it?” said Hamil.  “I’m rather glad they got clear of us.”

“So am I. There was no chance, but I always try.”

“So shall I,” he said—­“whether there is a chance or not.”

She looked up quickly, reading his meaning.  Then she bent over the gun that she was breaking, extracted the shells, looped them, and returned the weapon to its holster.

Behind them her father and brother jeered at them for their failure, Gray being particularly offensive in ascribing their fiasco to bad riding and buck-fever.

A little later Shiela’s horse almost unseated her, leaping aside and into the jungle as an enormous black snake coiled close in front.

“Don’t shoot!” she cried out to Hamil, mastering her horse and forcing him past the big, handsome, harmless reptile; “nobody shoots black snakes or buzzards here.  Slip your gun back quickly or Gray will torment you.”

However, Gray had seen, and kept up a running fire of sarcastic comment which made Hamil laugh and Shiela indignant.

And so they rode along through the rich afternoon sunshine, now under the clustered pines, now across glades where wild doves sprang up into clattering flight displaying the four white feathers, or pretty little ground doves ran fearlessly between the horses’ legs.