148 EVERYDAY ADVENTURES 



been transplanted to some secret spot known to my 

 unscrupulous botanical friend alone. Moreover, he 

 has never yet paid me that corner cupboard. 



I never saw the flower again until last summer I 

 visited a marsh in northern New Jersey, where I had 

 been told by another orchid-hunter that it grew. 

 This marsh I was warned was a dangerous one. 

 Cattle and men, too, in times past have perished in 

 its depths. For eight unexplored miles it stretched 

 away in front of me. After many wanderings I at 

 length found my way to Big Spring, a murky, malev- 

 olent pool set in dark woods, with the marsh stretch- 

 ing away beyond. 



Not far away, in a limestone cliff, I came upon a 

 deep burrow, in front of which was a sinister pile of 

 picked bones of all sizes and shapes. The sight 

 suggested delightful possibilities. Panthers, wolves, 

 ogres — anything might belong to such a pile of bones 

 as that. I knew, however, that the last New Jersey 

 wolf was killed a century or so ago. The burrow was 

 undoubtedly too small for a panther, or even an 

 undersized ogre. Accordingly I was compelled 

 reluctantly to assign the den to the more common- 

 place bay-lynx, better known as the wild-cat. 



On these limestone rocks I found the curious walk- 

 ing-fern, which loves limestone and no other. Both 

 of the cliff brakes were there, too — the slender, 

 with its dark, fragile, appealing beauty, and its hard- 

 ier sister, the winter-brake, whose leathery fronds 

 are of a strange blue-green, a color not found in any 

 other plant. Then there was the rattlesnake fern, 



