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, 
