CHAPTER VIII 

 FISHING IN A FLOWED BED 



IT'S my turn to-day," said the Girl the next 

 morning over her breakfast coffee, "and I 

 want to pick posies. Mrs. Langdon told 

 me yesterday that a few miles above Myers the 

 Caloosahatchee is one big flower bed." 



"There are plenty of tarpon there, too," said I, 

 "so I guess we can spare a day, only you will 

 have to go in the Green Pea. We can't take the 

 Irene in that jungle of water hyacinths." 



When we reached the masses of beautiful 

 flowers, for the destruction of which fortunes are 

 offered, we found them threaded by lanes of open 

 water through which canoe and motor boat found 

 easy passage. As we stopped for a few minutes 

 to drink in the beauty of our fairy-like surround- 

 ings, the great head of a thousand-pound mana- 

 tee was lifted above the surface of the water al- 



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