the canoe was probably softer than Johnny’s bed, but he didn’t sleep as well.  The sides of his canoe were only five inches above the water which contained the moccasins, and Dick was sure he could feel their tongues touch his face as the reptiles searched for a soft place to strike.  Then the snarling from a tree beside him would have been less terrifying if he had known that instead of being, as he supposed, two wildcats quarreling for the first bite at him, it was merely a friendly family discussion between two ’coons.

Things looked more cheerful by daylight, and when Johnny asked whether they should go on or turn back, Dick replied: 

“Go on just as long as the creek runs.”  But the creek became choked with brush and turned back on its course, until Johnny said: 

“If this crik gits any crookeder it’ll fetch us back home.”

The boys had to cut away two trees which had fallen across the creek where the growth was so thick that to cut a path around would have been more work than to clear away the logs.  The trees were large, their axe a little one, and when the boys came to three trees lying near together across the stream Dick was so dismayed that he said to Johnny: 

“Let’s get back out of this creek.  We must be on the wrong track, Mr. Streeter said Indians and hunters got through this country, but they never got through this way.  What do you think?”

“Hate to go back, but s’pose we’ve got ter.”

Dick’s spirits ran low during the return trip through the creek.  They were going in the wrong direction, and each hour was taking him farther away from where he supposed Ned was.  Many times he wished they had kept on and fought their way through the creek.  After reaching the bay they had left the day before they turned to the east and north as they followed labyrinthic channels that led around big and little keys in that part of the ten times Ten Thousand Islands.  The work became confusing, the waterways they followed led them toward every point in the compass.  Sometimes a narrowing stream made them think they had struck a creek which flowed from the mainland, but always it opened into some small bay filled with little keys.  Late in the afternoon they found a point of land high enough for a camp, where they spent the night.  After they had eaten their supper, Dick said: 

“Johnny, do you know where we are?”

“Nope; bin goin’ ’round so fast I’ve got dizzy.”

“You mean we are lost?”

“Yep; but that’s nothin’ s’ long’s we don’t stay lost.”

“What shall we do, and where shall we go?”

“Go anywhere, only stick to it.  Got ter do sumpthin; fresh water’s ’most gone.  Reckon we’d better go ’bout sou’west.  We kin find a river that’ll take us t’ the coast, ’nd I kin find a way that’ll take us where you wanter go.”

An hour’s paddling brought the boys to a bay in which were several pretty keys, on one of which Dick saw a number of beautiful white birds.