June, 1918 
FOREST AND STREAM 
343 
Amid the whispering leaves in a tangle of picturesque foliage, Mr. King clips an 
air-plant from a dead tree with his machete. The interior of a myrtle hammock 
five minutes he swept the southern hori¬ 
zon. When he looked up, the boys who 
had unconsciously followed his every 
movement, saw him double one brown fist. 
{ <T _¥ ARNEY by tomorrow!” he all but 
shouted. “Boys, we’re safe!” 
“W—what do you mean?” John 
gasped. 
“Mangrove over yonder!” 
He pointed to the distant fringe of green, 
into which the murky stream disappeared. 
“Mangrove,” repeated the boys, as if 
naming some magic password. 
“It is peculiar to the West Coast,” ex¬ 
plained Mr. King, “there you find it in its 
greatest profusion. There are so many 
rivers—each river has so many small tribu¬ 
taries—the extremities of land are marshy 
at all times and this the mangrove prefers. 
They are the most picturesque of ’Glade 
trees.” 
Both Catlow and John, Jr., recalled that 
they had seen little or no mangrove during 
the trip up to now. The significance of 
their companion’s discovery began to be 
apparent. Even Catlow, who was still 
suffering from his mysterious ailment and 
who weighed things in a rather critical 
way before he permitted himself the lux¬ 
ury of Optimism, seemed more cheerful 
after that. The camp was whipped into 
shape with accelerated hopes and fingers. 
They remembered that night, however, 
in the period to follow, with shuddering 
retrospection. The somewhat deeper water 
and the marshy land surrounding the little 
slough that wound off to the mangrove 
swamp had invited alligators from the 
dry areas. Every one of the eight uncanny 
hours was made horrible by the guttural, 
asthmatic and altogether sinister “barks” 
of the 'gators. They kept at it incessant¬ 
ly. And the sound of their clumsy bodies, 
as they crawled through the saw grass or 
went lumbering along the shore of the 
hammock, made sleep unthinkable. 
The camp was not molested, but its close 
proximity to the sloughs brought these 
unwelcome neighbors within uncomfortable 
ear-shot. The boys slept, after a fashion 
and Mr. King kept the fire going until 
dawn, that its flickering rays might give 
warning should a ’gator decide to go for¬ 
aging too near the camp. 
“Those chaps are aware that something 
is wrong in the ’Glades,” declared Mr. 
King at breakfast; “it’s 
the drouth—the water 
is getting too scarce 
' for them. Their bark 
is the bark of newly- 
awakened fear. No 
wonder the Tamiami 
Canal is alive with 
them. It’s their last 
stand against civiliza¬ 
tion.” 
took to the boat at five o’clock. He comes 
out with the warmth and sun. The slight¬ 
est chill in the air sends him hustling for 
his hole in the muck. Mr. King had 
counted on shooting a young alligator and 
introducing the boys to a new meat dish. 
Even 'gator steaks would not be despised 
under the circumstances. 
In turn, they blazed away at fair targets, 
the first mile or so from the hammock, 
but ammunition was faulty and aim poor. 
The few lazy targets became suddenly an¬ 
imate and disappeared. ’Gator meat is an 
acquired taste, along with wild cat and 
gar. It is strong, to the nauseating point, 
yet Indians have been known to get away 
with it in a pinch. Bad as conditions were, 
the three unfortuantes could not have for- 
seen the events which were so soon to 
plunge them into a peril, where either ’ga¬ 
tor or gar would seem feast fit for a mon¬ 
arch. It had come on insidiously, this 
tightening of the food supply. Only a day 
or so previous, it seemed to them, they 
had been laughing—had looked upon their 
exploit as a Great Adventure, high-lighted 
here and there by the most casual intima¬ 
tion of danger. 
Now they looked with ever-increasing 
dread upon the empty tins and boxes be¬ 
neath the skiff seats. Even the kerosene 
was almost gone. That was why Mr. King 
had left the lantern unlighted, and relied 
upon the camp fire. The body would suf¬ 
fer in another way. Mosquitoes and red 
bugs were ravenously present and in large 
numbers. Oil was the sole antidote. 
By noon, they had reached a shell 
mound, sparsely overgrown, on the edge of 
the great mangrove clump. Catlow was 
suffering from a violent headache. John 
complained, too. Mr. King volunteered to 
take the skiff and examine the slough, as 
it writhed off under the mangroves. He 
looked back at them as they sat dejectedly 
in a patch of cab¬ 
bage palms. Yes, 
they WERE sick! 
The terrible or¬ 
deal and anxiety 
were leaving an 
unmis t a k a b 1 e 
trace. Their faces 
were drawn and 
thin, their eyes 
suspiciously dull. 
All “fire” and 
youthful endur¬ 
ance had fled. 
These once buoy- 
( CONTINUED ON 
PAGE 380) 
T HE day 
was 
o v er- 
cast, which 
a cc o unted 
for scarce¬ 
ly a sign of 
’gators a s 
the party 
