November, 1920 
FOREST AND STREAM 
587 
etc., from the dew and rain, both of 
which were over-plentiful during this 
hunt. Tethering out our horses that 
they might graze, we set forth to shoot a 
few quail for supper. Moving down the 
ridge we found the birds plentiful, and 
becoming engrossed with the sport, we 
kept on in spite of the fact that darkness 
was coming on apace, and we were by 
this time scattered as badly as the birds 
and quite a distance from camp. Sud- 
denly a shower came up Florida fashion, 
with scarcely any warning, and by the 
time I arrived at camp I was pretty well 
soaked and it was dark. After caring 
for the horses I built a roaring fire and 
prepared supper, then changed clothes 
and fired my gun at intervals to direct 
the others to camp. They finally came in 
and we gathered together under the shel- 
ter we had erected and ate supper, after 
which we spread our blankets and lay 
down, talking and enjoying the warm, 
cheerful camp-fire until sleep overtook us. 
Bright and early next morning we 
were up, had breakfast eaten and were 
ready to start out. It might be well to 
state here that one of our party partook 
of nothing in the way of eatables except 
fried quail and in no small quantities 
either. When he took sick later on in 
the morning he blamed it on my cooking. 
We hunted hard until almost noon and 
found a few old deer signs, but nothing 
fresh, whereupon it was proposed to fin- 
ish the day with a quail hunt and break 
camp in the evening. 
All readily assented and we were soon 
playing havoc among the little brown 
birds. They were on that ridge in count- 
less numbers and we enjoyed fine sport 
during the afternoon. We had well-filled 
game bags when we arrived in camp late 
in the evening. I cleaned them all and 
hung them upon one of the poles which 
supported the tarpaulin. While absent 
from camp another shower came up and 
all the accumulated ashes and soot ran 
down over those quail, completely ruining 
them for table use, for no amount of 
washing would take off the black or 
eradicate the taste of pine wood soot. 
There was no other alternative than to 
throw the entire bunch away. 
We had intended to break camp at once, 
but once more the rains descended and 
the floods came. Water covered the 
woods everywhere. Everything in camp 
was wet. Father had a splitting head- 
ache and we were all weary. However, 
when the rain ceased we started home- 
ward with water half way up to the hubs 
of the wagon most of the way. We ran 
into a camp of Seminole Indians and 
found them all gloriously drunk. Jack- 
o’-lanterns danced about through the 
woods in all directions. The night was 
very dark and I do not think there were 
very many logs or stumps in those woods 
that the wagon wheels missed. We were 
bumped and jolted unmercifully, and tak- 
ing all in all I believe it was the most 
miserable, longest short ride I ever ex- 
perienced. 
O N another occasion the same party, 
plus one more, drove back to a fine 
country on the same ridge, but 
much further south and near what is 
locally called the Red Bear cypress 
swamp. We enjoyed fine quail shooting 
on the way and reached our destination 
early in the evening — it is evening in 
Florida after 12 M. The site of this 
camp was a very pretty one. Giant cy- 
press trees, loaded with streaming Span- 
ish moss, loomed up on one side and on 
the other a forest of scattered, stunted 
yellow pine stretched away for some dis- 
tance, when it gave way to low, wet, 
treeless savannahs and marshes, inter- 
spersed here and there with ponds where 
the waterlilies, flags and sawgrass 
seemed to struggle for supremacy. 
During this trip we saw sights seldom 
seen outside a zoological garden. At the 
head of Sebastian River great flocks of 
gannets arose from the cypress trees and 
whirled about in the air above us in a 
dense mass. Various species of cranes 
flew along, uttering their harsh, grating 
cries. The hundreds of curlews, egrets 
and other water birds stood about on 
cypress knees and fallen trees or flapped 
noisily away through the thick bushes. 
A pair of eagles screamed at us from 
their nest in a tall pine nearby and a 
couple of sandhill cranes flew along just 
out of range. 
We spent that night pleasantly, dis- 
cussing hunting lore and the wonders 
of the Peninsula State until sleep over- 
came us. Next morning we scattered 
out for the hunt. Quail were calling and 
all nature seemed astir. I had gone only 
a short distance when crash! crash! 
something went through the palmettoes 
off to one side, and I looked up in time 
to see a deer disappear in the under- 
growth. 
I soon fell in with two of the party. 
(continued on page 617) 
