CHAPTER XIX 



Florida and Some Snakes 



D 



URING and after the last war the family lived in 

 Palm Beach — a less sophisticated Palm Beach than that of 

 today. Some months after the Armistice, when I finished 

 the office work in Cuba, I spent a lot of time hunting and 

 fishing in Florida with Frank Carlyle. Frank was much more 

 than a guide, for I needed no guide in that part of the world. 

 He was an ideal companion, an amazing shot, a born 

 naturalist, and he had a homing sense which was uncanny. 

 It was nothing to walk in the pinewoods for hours and 

 then, feeling hungry, to suggest, "Frank, let's go to camp." 

 And we would walk straight oif , with Frank in the lead, and 

 pretty soon there would be the old Model T beachwagon 

 and our tent. Frank was a good cook, too, and his quail 

 and doves cooked with rice were succulent beyond belief. 

 One day we put up a big flock of turkey which flew into 

 a high strand of cypresses. It was too near dark to do any- 

 thing with them, so on Frank's suggestion we turned in. 

 About midnight he got up, went to town, and came back 

 with a live hen turkey which he said he had borrowed. We 

 went to where we thought our wild birds might be likely 

 to fly down and tethered our hen by a long string to a young 

 pine tree. Then we went off and hid. The sun came up 

 hot and clear. We sat about, but something happened and 

 we heard no yelps to indicate the approach of our wild 

 birds. Before long we stretched out on the sand and were 



