588 
FOREST AND STREAM 
December, 1917 
Tent with fly—18 ft. by 7 ft. (Bedding 
wrapped in fly. Three navy blankets. 
Total weight of all, when wrapped in 
waterproof fly—fifty pounds. They slept 
in dry clothes.) 
Ammunition—One double-barreled shot¬ 
gun. 75 rounds of No. 4. 
Twenty-two Winchester automatic. 100 
rounds. 
Side-arms—for boys—two thirty-twos. 
(Mr. King) Thirty-two King Automatic 
75 rounds. 
A curious thing happened in the case of 
the ammunition. It will ever remain one 
of the mysteries of the trip. The shells 
were aggravatingly short of service. The 
explorers could distinctly hear the shot 
patter against the glistening wings of the 
curlews when not more than fifty feet in 
air, but their strength was spent and the 
birds went safely on their aerial way. 
Three machetes. (One in scabbard.; 
Two with short 18-inch blades. They were 
fastened with a strap at the belt. Two 
bush hooks. One hand-ax. 
Regulation, barn-lantern. (Of the new 
type, which will neither corrode nor suc¬ 
cumb to a passing gale.) 
Emergency medicine kit. Alkaloidal 
case, Hypodermic, Potassium—one to five 
hundred. Snake-bite antidote. Strychnine, 
small quantity of wood alcohol. Pint of 
Chloroform, etc. Mr. King gave his per¬ 
sonal attention to this kit and is an experi¬ 
enced “physician” in hours of emergency. 
The hour came, however, when the one 
urgent need of that little medicine case 
failed of its mission. We shall speak of 
that later. 
FOODSTUFFS. (Planned for two and 
a half weeks only.) Coffee, four and one- 
half pounds, pulverized. (Much of the 
supplies,were carried in aluminum contain¬ 
ers, as being moisture-proof, and for light¬ 
ness.) Sugar—10 pounds. Canned milk 
(cream, unsweetened). Flour—25 pounds. 
Salt (soon gave out). Bacon—five boxes, 
sliced. (It mildewed.) Four cans of corn. 
Six cans tomato soup. Grape Nuts—six. 
Potted meats—five cent cans, assorted. 
Three cans chipped beef. Crisco. Six 
cakes of soap. Pork and beans—three cans. 
Pilot biscuit—two bags. Grits—ten pounds. 
Corn meal—ten pounds. Tobacco—one-half 
pound. Matches. Onions—three pounds. 
Doughnuts (by special request of the boys 
and smuggled in.) 
COOKING UTENSILS. One ten-inch 
frying pan. (Standard, iron.) One alu¬ 
minum pot—capacity two quarts. Veritas 
set, with solidified alcohol. Coffee pot. 
Enamel plates. Steel knives, forks. Three 
agate-ware cups. One roasting-dish — 
double. One iron prong for spearing fish. 
As before mentioned, these items have 
been taken from Mr. King's note-book, with 
no attempt at careful and consistent tabu¬ 
lation. It will be seen that the party set 
forth on what they believed to be a sort 
of happy frolic. Their diet was to be 
highly diversified and with each palate- 
whim catered to. “We considered it a pic¬ 
nic, outside of father’s work,” is the way 
young King described it. 
Little did thev realize that before the 
month was ended, they wotild be scratch¬ 
ing among the hummocks for skunk cab¬ 
bage and trying to masticate the unpal¬ 
atable flesh of the hateful garfish. _ 
All of the edibles were packed in air¬ 
tight cases, and two-quart glass jars made 
the perishable supplies doubly safe from 
moisture. Mr. King was the official 
“Camp Cook.” 
SUNDRIES. One quadrant. One nau¬ 
tical almanac. One large Surveyor’s com¬ 
pass (six-inch dial). Two watches. Two 
folding pocket-compasses. Set of field- 
glasses. Self-recording kodak. Note-book 
in aluminum case. Maps and profiles and 
other data of Tamiami Trail section. 
T HE official start was made on Sunday 
—at 10 o’clock on the morning of the 
nth of February, 1917. 
The sturdy glade boat was packed, after 
farewells had been said, and a truck car¬ 
ried the outfit from the shipyard to the 
headwaters of the Tamiami Trail Canal. 
By eleven A. M. the skiff had been launched, 
and the Voyagers of Discovery turned their 
backs on the active city which was soon to 
sound an alarm to the world over their 
strange disappearance. 
A puffy, noisy diminutive contractor’s 
tug-tender towed them seven miles up the 
newly-opened canal until the Dredger Camp 
was reached, and here Engineer Hallows, 
in charge of the works, gave them warm 
greeting. He was fully aware of the char¬ 
acter of their undertaking and having 
brushed elbows with the outer hem of the 
Everglades, was as sympathetic as the hour 
and occasion demanded. 
You will find nothing picturesque about 
one of these Florida canals. There is open 
sky and low-lying saw-grass reaches, and 
ALWAYS the piles of dirty white and 
gray limestone, thrown up in weird dis¬ 
order. The monster dipper of the almost- 
human dredge dips deep into the watery 
path it is making and up it comes again, 
dripping with sand, loam and queer de¬ 
posits. A liquid roadway is being silently 
formed and the job is not an aesthetic one. 
It is here—out in this drab Sahara of 
water and waving grass, that the really 
vital things are being done—“Clam-shell” 
dippers gnawing continuously, as the soggy 
soil is scooped from off the rock founda¬ 
tion—the Tamiami Trail “boulevard” is de¬ 
veloping, in its most primeval state—the 
eye-wearying stretches of landscape of the 
most unvarying type. 
Engineer Hallows entertained the party 
The vast wilderness of saw grass and shallow waterways not far from the Tamiami 
Trail. Note the picturesque hummocks, overgrown with low-lying foliage and myrtle. 
Mr. King stands knee-deep in the muck to photograph the boys as they pole along 
one of the tortuous shallow passages. It was a constant fight for deep water. 
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