Johnny proposed that while waiting they do some alligator hunting.  They got out their canvas and rigged up a regular camp.  Dick wrote a few lines on a scrap of paper, addressed it “Mr. Edward Barstow,” and fastened it on a palmetto tree, in such a way that no one passing along the trail could fail to see it.  The boys then unpacked the canoe, and turning it upside down on a bit of dry land stowed their stores under it.  They gathered a lot of grass for their beds, arranged for an early start in the morning, and slept dreamlessly till morning came.  The hunt was to be on foot, and Johnny insisted that Dick carry the rifle, while he made up a light pack for himself of axe, frying-pan, forks and a little bacon, corn meal, bait and matches.  When Dick saw Johnny’s pack, he said to him: 

“Won’t we get back to-night?”

“Mebbe so, but you can’t allers tell.  We might get to follerin’ sumthin and be gone two or three days.  I don’t reckon we’re goin’ to get lost, though we may be bothered some.”

“If there’s a chance of that we haven’t got enough to eat.”

“Got plenty.  All we really want is a rifle, matches and salt.  They’d be good for a month.”

“What do you do for bread?”

“Cut the bud out of a cabbage tree.”

The boys tramped across the prairie to a belt of cypress, where Johnny stopped for some minutes, looking back to study the landscape and take note of every clump of trees and bit of water in sight.

“I thought you were not afraid of getting lost,” said Dick.

“I ain’t afraid.  I could alters git home all right, but I’d hate to lose the canoe.”

The cypress strand was swampy, and they crossed it by stepping from root to root, excepting that once, when Dick was looking at a moccasin, he made a misstep and landed in the mud, where he sank to his waist.  The woods were narrow, and beyond them was a broad prairie with clumps of trees and pools of water scattered through it.  As they walked and waded they crossed the tracks of many animals and birds, to most of which Johnny could give names.  There were plenty of ’coons, a few wildcats, some deer, and one bear, while between the little ponds alligators had worn regular paths.

“What’s that?” said Dick as a lizard-like creature scuttled through the grass some fifty yards in front of him.

“’Gator!  Shoot quick, ‘fore he gits t’ that pond!”

Dick fired, and his bullet spattered the mud over the reptile’s back as it slid into the water.

Dick was very much chagrined at missing his quarry, but Johnny consoled him.

“I’ll git ye another shot at him.  I’ll call him out o’ the water, and if he don’t come I’ll take a stick an’ go in there an’ run him out.”

Johnny stood beside the pond and grunted in imitation of a young alligator.  In a few minutes two black dots appeared on the surface of the water, and, slowly rising, disclosed the eyes and the point of the nose of an alligator.  Johnny grunted again, and the big mouth opened wide to take in the baby ’gator which the reptile thought he heard.  Then the horny ridges of the back began to appear, and soon the whole body of the reptile lay on the surface.  Johnny whispered to Dick: