T HE Myrtle Island was shrouded in a 
damp, gray cloak, impenetrable and 
mysterious, but there was a sense of 
something stirring—the very world itself, 
bursting from the cocoon of Night. The 
birds in the Myrtle thickets were awaken¬ 
ing! Never had the voyagers heard such 
a conglomerate rabble of twitters and 
caws and chirps and tweets. It was over 
and around and under them, it seemed. 
And, intermingled with this, was the sol¬ 
emn barking of both frogs and ’gators. 
The Florida alligator has a note pe¬ 
culiarly his own. His swan song of joy 
could never be mistaken for the outburst 
of an optimist’s soul. “Bark” literally de¬ 
scribes it. It is much as if he had swal¬ 
lowed a bit of bark and was making fran¬ 
tic efforts to dislodge it. And with an¬ 
other day about to break over the lush 
thickets, and through the dry sluices, rich 
in dead fish, the ’gator heralds dawn with 
an added touch of gulping satisfaction. 
Mr. King walked out upon the extremity 
of a moss grown hummock, and gazed up¬ 
ward, into the phantom mist. He could 
see no farther than the Outermost ripples 
of water caused by the boys as they en- 
HIS is the second installment 
of Mr. Larned’s graphic story 
of the unusual adventures of the 
King party—a man and two hoys — 
while engaged in exploring and map¬ 
ping the waterwastes of the Florida 
Everglades. The story of their ex¬ 
pedition has the fascination of de¬ 
an d the value of fact .— Editors. 
Red-winged blackbirds whirred in the 
foliage overhead, or went skimming lightly 
across the tops of the saw grass, their tiny 
stars of brilliant vermilion sparkling 
against the gray; thousands of very small 
birds—mere feathered slivers of anima¬ 
tion and rumpus, bestirred themselves in 
their Myrtle Island rendezvous. They 
were all going it at once, too, in a deafen¬ 
ing chorus of song to greet the sun. 
The cat-birds were the worst offenders. 
There appeared to be no end of them, and 
they would drive past in noisy, impudent 
battalions, lined up, soldier fashion, and 
all talking at once. An occasional jack¬ 
daw, deep-throated, arrogant, slightly curi- 
heard, as if it were the voice of the sea 
many miles distant. 
The Veritas was lighted and a plentiful 
breakfast started. Catlow, after a forag¬ 
ing expedition of his own, returned with 
three prime bull-frogs. He had speared 
them, and their fat legs were soon rolled 
in cracker-dust and frying in the pan. 
Chicken is a poor-man’s dish in compari¬ 
son with these tasty morsels. 
Catlow reported that the Island was not 
more than twenty by forty feet. On three 
sides there was comparatively clear water, 
but mist still prevented an adequate view 
of what lay beyond. He had dropped a 
line off the end of a rotten log, on the 
opposite side, but had not been rewarded. 
The only nibble came frbm a prowling 
Garfish. Of this unwelcome finny wretch 
we shall have more to say later on. It 
may be intimated, however, that Garfish 
played no unimportant part in later pro¬ 
ceedings—in the tragic side of the expe¬ 
dition, of which they had no premonition. 
There are two varieties of the Gar: 
“Short-nosed” and “Great Gar,” with the 
latter laying claim to such picturesque 
relatives as the Manjuari, Alligator Gar 
“At length we poled and paddled out upon a sort of fairy inland sea. I stood balanced upon a butter keg, to give me a free hand 
at the pole while the boys negotiated the paddles. Clear water at last and all the mystic wonders of an untraversed territory.” 
gaged in a sputtery wash-up. Once again 
it was brought home to him—the majesty 
and awe-inspiring influence of these deso¬ 
late wastes. He had seen other dawns 
break across the mysterious Everglades. 
ous, winged up from the darkness of the 
thickets, and King Jr. peppered away at 
them with his Winchester, for practice. 
The rifle reports echoed and re-echoed, 
until the faint murmur of sound could be 
and the “Billfish.” Of all the Everglade 
non-edible fish, the Gar is the most de¬ 
tested of sportsmen. There is nothing to 
say in his favor. In color, he is a light 
green, pale below, and not spotted in the 
