162 
FOREST AND STREAM 
April, 1919 
When you do run into luck, on a Tarpon basis, the going is mighty good. Every fish 
signifies a mighty battle that has taken place between mere man and the Finny 
shadowy banks of massed foliage. They 
recognized now, that as the entrance to 
this last lake was but a mere creek, the 
power boats must be forsaken for glade 
skiffs. Progress had been necessarily 
slow, not only because of the many nar- 
row river turns, but because of the ag- 
gravating speed mania of The Spoonbill’s 
little sister. Nor was there any time for 
exploration. The tropic night would fall 
in a very short while and a spray of faint 
stars glittered over the solemn grey-green 
tops of the red and black mangroves. The 
point was a very wonderful spot for their 
camp. Its dry muck foundation was 
fairly clear of vegetation and some twen- 
ty feet back stood the solid wall of ham- 
mock shrubbery, which meant plenty of 
wood for the fire . . . myrtle and 
bay and the ever-reliable button-wood, 
the latter beloved of campers because of 
the slow, sure flame and the intense heat. 
Late as it was, Tipley insisted upon 
having duck for supper. He inveigled 
Hendry into a jaunt up the creek, prom- 
ising to return speedily enough. If there 
were other reasons for this sudden deter- 
mination it was not brought out just 
then. Hendry said afterwards that he 
could not understand Mr. Tipley at all, 
for did not the stout gentleman with the 
red beard prefer to go alone through that 
wilderness of hammock and saw grass and 
boggy areas for a distance of a half- 
mile, when he might have gone snugly 
and with far less effort in the guide’s 
glade boat which was poled with a cer- 
tain amount of majestic calm across the 
still waters. 
John went for a good-night fish in the 
second glade skiff, and shortly returned 
with a mullet and two small black bass. 
The lake was quite literally alive with 
them at this hour, as they leaped to the 
surface and dimpled the shadowy surface 
with their restless, ecstatic sport. 
Captain Flynt and Mr. King attended 
to putting up the two tents in a thor- 
oughly professional manner, and even 
went for wood that a corking good fire 
might be blazing when the hunters 
brought in their trophies. They also at- 
tended to getting everything in readiness 
for the supper which was eagerly looked 
forward to upon the hunter’s return. 
T UST before nightfall, at that mystic 
I hour when the river country is pitched 
*' to an enchanted key and every tree is 
talkative with birds, Hendry and Tipley 
came down into the large lake, the latter 
having joined his companion. They 
proudly displayed a bag of twenty-seven 
ducks, including mallard and our gabby 
friend, the fish-eating black coot. The 
latter is to be recommended for its tooth- 
some qualities on an occasion of this 
kind, and Hendry was as proud as a 
brace of peacocks. He explained that 
Tipley had joined him, some half mile up 
the creek, where they discovered another 
but smaller lake. Here the muck was 
soft and the hammocks swampy, and 
they had their first glimpse of the Ever- 
glades, stretching out, as it did, for three 
and a half miles before it linked arms 
with Big Cypress. 
“Ducks!” gurgled Hendry, “I never see 
so many. Lake all covered with them. 
Not afraid. Blind man kill birds with 
eyes shut. Mister Tipley shoot from saw 
grass: I shoot from boat. We get coots 
coming and going.” 
Whereupon Hendry put his largest 
frying pans on the fire and, having nice- 
ly dressed ten of the plump birds, set 
them to sizzling. John, in the mean- 
while, as champion of his own resource- 
fulness, fried a little bass on the side, 
rolling it generously in cracker crumbs. 
Tipley, in the meanwhile, had walked 
out to the far extremity of the point, 
alone, meditative. Mr. King saw him 
gazing upward at the gorgeous sunset 
sky, into which was still shot the skeins 
of yellow and vermillion. Turning his 
own gaze involuntarily to the east Mr. 
King was somewhat startled to see a 
slender wisp of animated, fluttering 
white, like the tail of a great spectacular 
kite. It was a flock of from twelve to 
eighteen large birds, winging silently, 
gracefully, westward and some three 
hundred feet up. It was almost as if 
these birds were bits of paper, trailing at 
regular intervals upon an invisible cord. 
And behind them came other flocks, in 
like number, flying straight and unerr- 
ingly to a positive goal. As fast as one 
shimmering flock disappeared into the 
mist, another came to take its place. 
Impressed by the sight, Mr. King 
joined Tipley at the point. 
“Hello, that you!” exclaimed the owner 
of The Spoonbill, startled for a moment. 
“That is a remarkable sight,” observed 
Mr. King, “will the procession never end? 
I have counted no less than twenty-five 
separate and distinct flocks of those birds 
and STILL they come.” 
“Egrets!” grunted Tipley. 
“Egrets! all egrets!” his companion 
exclaimed. 
“Oh no. They fraternize with the blue 
heron and the green-leg. Sometimes 
there are no more than several egrets in 
a flock. Didn’t know there were so many 
in Florida, eh?” 
“I had believed them well nigh extinct, 
was the response. 
“Its different here,” continued Tipley, 
“the one spot that has not been shot up. 
Too hard to get to. Few people come 
here — except the Indians. Look — there 
comes another prize string!” 
This was true. With their fine necks 
curved almost double and their long legs 
straight out behind, rudder-fashion, a 
flock of twelve spendid birds swept past 
overhead, dipping casually into the gath- 
ering gloom of the Everglades section. 
Hendry had seen them and Captain 
Flynt followed him on a run for the 
point, with John a bad third. 
C APTAIN FLYNT was exceedingly 
voluble. That he had been serrip- 
titiously touching up a flask of rum- 
was easy to suppose. But he stood beside 
Tipley, watching that flight of egrets 
and herons, as if fascinated by the white 
beauty of them. 
“Must be a rookery five miles west,”” 
he said, aloud. 
“Not more than three miles,” Tipley 
corrected, “its too late for them to go- 
five. Feeding ground about eight miles- 
from rookery.” 
Every fisherman who goes to Florida 
has an abiding ambition to catch at least 
one big Tarpon 
