The boys hurried through their breakfast the next morning, anxious to see their captive, which they found where they left him, quite friendly and almost unafraid.  Dick took the line in the stern of the canoe, while Ned paddled from the bow.  Baby was tractable and allowed himself to be towed, even swimming himself.  He behaved best when his head was brought beside the canoe and seemed to like the petting that Dick gave him.  When the baby had been tied in the little cove that Ned had discovered, in such a way that he could range over the whole of his nursery, the boys decided not to put a row of poles across the mouth of it.  Dick thought it was too much work and Ned said it was no use, because Ma Manatee would knock the whole business over the tree-tops with one gentle little whack of her tail.

They paddled back to their camp and hunted over the prairies behind it all the afternoon.  Ned shot another buck, this time in a very boggy swamp.  It was not a big buck, but before they got out of the swamp with it the boys had learned several ways in which a deer should not be carried.  First, one took the carcass by the tail-end and the other by the head.  The middle of the body sagged down in the mud and pulled the boys after it.  Then the creature was slung on a pole, which they took on their shoulders.  This was better, but every time one stumbled, which was most of the time, both landed in the bog.  Then Ned remembered what all boys should know, and the legs of the buck were skinned up to the knee joints.  With these loose ends of skin, the legs were so tied together in pairs as to form a loop through which the arms could be thrust and the whole body of the deer worn like a coat.

By taking turns at toting the thing, the boys got their venison to camp without very much trouble.  While jerking it they were very glad to lie around camp and rest, and gossip.  But their talk always came around to one subject—­what to do with their captive.  Ned wanted to send him North to some aquarium, but didn’t quite see how to do it.  Dick offered to swim him down the rivers to the Gulf of Mexico if Ned would sail him up the coast to Marco or Myers, for shipment by water or rail.

“I’m really in earnest about this, Dick, because I know father would like it so much.  He is always looking out for curiosities to send to museums or his collecting friends, and this would be such a rare thing.”

“Would your father stand for a good big bill to get Baby north?”

“He’d stand for anything!  What’s in your noddle, Dick?”

“It can be done, easy.  We’re not many miles from the coast, and I’ve been wrecked on that coast, Neddy, so I remember it.  We will paddle down this river, and as many more as are necessary, until we get to the Gulf.  Then we’ll paddle along the coast to the shack of a fisherman whom I know.  He’s got a sloop and all you’ve got to do is to offer him enough, to make him hustle around for lumber and make a water-tight box big enough for Baby to travel in.  Then we will help him get the infant aboard, start him for the railroad and go back to our hunt.  Has your father an agent in Myers who’d take your word for the bill?  Coz if he didn’t the account would likely be settled with a shot-gun.”