“Why didn’t you make ’em give it back when you had ’em on the run?”

“Reckon I was glad to get out of it as easy as I did.  Then I had said enough unkind things to them for one time.”

“Sorry you think you were unkind.  Your feelings must be a good deal torn up.  But you haven’t told me what I’m drinking.  Tastes something like the sassafras tea I used to get dosed with when I was a kid.  It’s pretty good, though.”

“It’s something like it.  It’s made from the leaves of the sweet bay tree, which grows on all these islands and all over this country.  Sweet-bay tea is all you’re going to get to drink, excepting water, from now on.”

“What is that fruit that looks like a big stubby pear on that curious-looking tree there?” inquired Dick.

“Custard apple.”

“Does it taste like custard?”

“Yes, if the custard has been mixed with turpentine.”

The explorers made little progress the following day.  Bunches of thick saw-grass turned them back.  They found shallow water where for long distances they had to paddle slowly to avoid little pillars of coral rock that came close to the surface and endangered their fragile canoe.  Most of the afternoon was vainly spent in searching for a camping site.  They found a key where the water was shoal and made a bed of poles and branches.  Both of them chose to sleep on the bed they had made.  Whether this was simply politeness or because both were afraid of rolling out of the canoe nobody else knows.  The poles and branches sagged under their weight until both were wet.  Then such a deluge of rain as is seldom seen outside of the tropics fell on them.  They got out in the dark and tied their canvas sheet over the canoe.  They didn’t need it for themselves.  They were already as wet as they could be.

In the morning they dried themselves—­so Dick said—­by rolling into the water and sloshing around.  They made a cold lunch of smoked bear, cold hominy, or grits as it is called in Florida, and water, choosing to wait for breakfast until they should find land enough for a fire.  During the day they saw high trees to the eastward and made for them.  Here they found a Seminole camp of several families.

As they landed from their canoe they saw several pickaninnies, for Seminole children are not called papooses like children in other tribes of Indians, watching them from behind trees and boats.  The squaws whom they met were equally shy and kept their faces hidden.  Ned spoke to several of them, but they gave no sign that they even heard him.

“They don’t like your looks,” said Dick.  “Let me speak to the next one.”

The next one was a young girl and Dick was very confident, as he addressed her, with his very best smile.  But he was turned down as badly as his chum, for the girl didn’t see him at all.  At the camp they found one old Indian and several squaws.  The Indian welcomed them with a grunt and the question,