At daylight Ned saw that Dick was sleeping quietly and taking the shotgun started out in search of a breakfast suited to a sick boy.  When he returned, an hour later, he had a brace of ducks, a little brown Florida rabbit and a ’possum.  Dick was awake when he returned and when offered his choice of the game for his breakfast chose all of them.  Ned stewed the rabbit and broiled a duck, giving Dick a little of each, but the ’possum looked fat and greasy and he kept it for himself.

“Dick,” said Ned after breakfast, “shall I roll that beast into the river, or do you want his skin?”

“Want it, of course.  I’ve got no hard feelings against him.”

“Want him skinned for mounting or a rug?”

“Rug, I guess.  Think I’ll enjoy walking on him.”

The big cat was nearly eight feet long, including his tail, and was so heavy that Ned found skinning him a hard job.  After he had finished he had to cut a stout stick for a lever, before he could get the carcass into the river.  The bad luck of the hunters seemed to have run out, and game began to come to them.  Ducks flew over the river beside the camp and plovers often lit on a bank near them.  Ned went out for deer and came back in an hour with half a buck on his shoulders.  When he approached the camp he saw Dick sitting up and tossing bits of hoe-cake to a ’coon that was watching him with some suspicion from a distance of three or four yards.

“You ought to have seen him, Ned.  I had him half tamed.  He took little bits of wet hoe-cake that I threw him and rolled them up into balls with his funny little hands before he ate them.  In an hour more I’d have had him eating out of my hand.”

“He’ll come back to-morrow, Dick.  You’ve got a way with you that wild things understand.”

“It’s only that I really love them and they know it.”

The ’coon did come back the next day while Ned was out exploring the bay in the canoe and, although he did not eat out of Dick’s hand, he came within a few feet of him and showed very little fear.  When Ned returned, the ’coon scrambled to the top of a little tree and looked down on the boys in a friendly way.  Day by day the ’coon became more intimate with Dick, even to eating out of his hand, but always scampered away when Ned came back.  On the third day, as Ned came in from an exploring trip, instead of the ’coon he found his old friend Tom, the lynx, sitting beside Dick with the air of a trained nurse.

“Bully for you, Tom; I’m glad to see you back,” said Ned.

“I’m not glad he’s come back, the murderer.  He has killed my ’coon.”

“You remember what my Indian said.  ’Panther eat wildcat, wildcat eat ‘coon.’  Shall I shoot him, Dick?”

“Shoot Tom?  Well I guess not.  He didn’t know any better.  I’m awful sorry the ’coon has gone, but I’d hate worse to lose Tom.”

“How did it happen?”

“I was feeding the ’coon, and had just put out my hand to rub his head when he jumped in the air and started for that tree like a streak of lightning.  He never got there, though.  Something was after him like two streaks of lightning.  I didn’t know it was Tom till it was all over.  That wasn’t very long, either.  If there had been any time I’d have had Tom by the ears or tail and taught him a thing or two.”