Part 2 (2/2)
Our hungry party p.r.o.nounced the meat far sweeter and more tender than chicken, and the empty sh.e.l.ls soon bore evidence to their sincerity.
After a brief rest, they mounted and again took up the trail, soon leaving behind their halting-place, which the boys named Lake Christopher, much to the vain little darky's chagrin. He had a shrewd suspicion that he would not hear the last of his fright for many a day.
CHAPTER III.
WOODCRAFT.
For a while the little party rode forward in silence, winding in and out between pretty lakes and bunches of timber, with no path to guide them, but with the help of the compa.s.s, managing to edge slowly to the west. Charley still maintained the lead, but in the open country through which they were traveling it was possible to ride abreast, and Walter soon spurred up beside his chum.
”Do you know, Charley, I begin to feel like a babe in the woods,” he confessed. ”I suspect you are the only one of us who knows anything about woodcraft. I know nothing about it, I am sure Chris doesn't, and I suspect the captain is far more at home reefing a top-sail. You have got to be our guide and leader, I guess.”
”I have hunted a good deal, and a fellow can't help but learn a few things if he is long in the woods,” said Charley, modestly, ”but I've never been so far into the interior before. I wish, Walt,” he continued gravely, ”that there was someone along with us that knew the country we are going to better than I, or else that we were safely back in town once more.”
”Why?” demanded Walter in astonishment.
”I dread the responsibility, and,” lowering his voice so the others could not hear, ”I have seen something I do not like.”
”What?” queried his chum, eagerly.
Charley produced a square plug of black chewing tobacco from his pocket. ”I picked that up in the edge of the clearing this morning,”
he explained. ”It wasn't even damp, so it must have been dropped after the dew settled last night.”
”Some lone hunter pa.s.sed by in the night,” suggested Walter, cheerfully.
”I wish I could think so,” said Charley anxiously. ”But you know as well as I that there are some gangs of lawless men in Florida, gathered from all quarters of the globe, and, Walter,” lowering his voice to a whisper, ”I saw signs that there was more than one man near our camp last night.”
”What kind of signs?” his chum demanded.
”Broken bushes, the marks of horses' hoofs, and a dozen other little things of no importance when considered separately.”
”A fig for your signs, you old croaker,” laughed Walter, ”you'll be seeing ghosts next. I didn't see any of the signs you talk about.
Besides, if anyone had wished to do us harm they could have done so without hindrance last night.”
”I know it,” Charley admitted, ”and that's what puzzles me. As for the signs, your not noticing them proves nothing. It's the little things that make up the science of woodcraft. The little things that one does not usually notice.”
”My eyes are pretty good, and I don't go around with them shut all the time,” began Walter hotly, but Charley only smiled.
”Look around and tell me what you see, Walt,” he requested.
”A flat, level country, covered with saw palmetto, dotted with pretty little lakes, what looks like a couple of acres of prairie ahead, and, oh yes, a lot of gopher holes all around us like the one you robbed this morning.”
”We'll begin with the gopher holes,” Charley said with a smile. ”Tell me what is in each hole as we pa.s.s it.”
”Why, gophers, I suppose.”
Charley reined in his horse before four large holes and pointed at them with his riding-whip. ”Gopher in that one,” he declared without hesitation. ”Mr. Gopher is away from the next one, out getting his dinner likely; a c.o.o.n lives in the next, but he is away from home.
Rattlesnake, and a big one, lives in the fourth, but he is also away from home, I am glad to say.”
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