374: WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 



in disconnected sentences, even when he refused to talk 

 to any one else. .The many days he passed alone 

 encouraged the habit. 



Thence still up the St. Johns, through all its winding 

 course, he paddled, warily watching the shore and water, 

 and often visiting either bank to look for signs. Where- 

 ever there was a bend in the river he kept close to the 

 point around which the curve made, creeping around so 

 slowly and cautiously that his eye took in all the reach 

 of the river ahead before he could himself be discovered. 

 He visited many old Indian camps, wandering around 

 them, looking for little signs indicating the intention 

 their occupants had at parting. Wherever there was a 

 trail across the river he seemed to know or divine it, 

 approached it warily, and only left it after a careful scru- 

 tiny. 



When he built a fire to cook his food, it was made 

 back from the river, and the fire was lit of the driest 

 twigs, so that it raised no smoke, and at leaving he 

 covered it over Avith ashes, and stamped out the mark 

 his rifle had made in the sand. Sometimes he would not 

 let his dog come ashore, or if he did, carefully rubbed 

 out the tracks of his feet. He did not travel at night, 

 unless in the early part of the evening, and never struck 

 a light after dark, but carrying his canoe on shore, filled 

 it with moss, and laid down in it with his dog at his 

 side. 



At the far upper end of the St. Johns, after the 

 explorer has passed through innumerable expansion-like 



