i8 WITH THE U. S. NATURALISTS 



Probably there was not a better boat in all the 

 district than that of the pot-hunter. It looked 

 dirty, yet it was in a far better condition than 

 many of the trimmer-looking boats which might be 

 seen at the occasional landings along the river. 

 There was no boat in which a single oarsman, how- 

 ever good, could overtake Bull when he did not 

 wish to be overtaken. 



The sun had risen and the forest was full of the 

 twitterings of birds when Bull and Shan took the 

 oars and the boat started down the dark brown 

 waters of the stream, brown from its infusion of 

 juniper needles, like most of the rivers of that 

 swamp country. Here and there a rough log-like 

 object stretched out on a mud-bank revealed itself 

 to Shan's eyes as an alligator, and once he re- 

 marked to his uncle, as they passed an exception- 

 ally large specimen, 



**He'd be worth getting!" 



But, though Bull's minor activities occasionally 

 extended to alligator-catching — in which event, he 

 caught the reptiles barehanded — this day the pot- 

 hunter was bent on another purpose. A flat object, 

 covered with tarpaulin and lying at the bottom of 

 the boat, Shan knew to be a battery gun. Not for 

 worlds would he have admitted that he recognized 



