IF there was any tramping of wild animals about their camp that night, the boys did not hear it. They slept soundly until dawn and were then awakened by the sweet and cheering voice of a wood-thrush. They lost no time in quitting their gloomy camp-site, pushed steadily forward and about nine o'clock, to their great delight, emerged from the jungle.

They now ascended the slope of an open pine ridge, upon which, at a distance of some three or four hundred yards apart, they noted three Indian mounds about fifteen feet in height. Ted reminded Hubert of his prediction, believing that they were out of the swamp at last. But a two-hours' tramp was sufficient to convince him that they were merely on an island about three miles long by about one mile in width, and that they were probably farther away from the Ridgway farm than ever.

In the course of their tramp a flock of wild turkeys, some eight or ten in number, fluttered out of their path and ran rapidly ahead of them, too little alarmed at first to fly. Both boys fired into them and one turkey remained struggling on the ground when the others rose. Each boy thought he had bagged the game, but they were too hungry to waste time in dispute. They hurried with their prize to the nearest water, built a fire and were soon broiling substantial slices of the great bird on the coals. And after they had eaten their fill, in spite of their misfortunes they became quite cheerful.

"Now, Hu, don't let's worry any more," advised Ted. "We are going to come out all right and we are having a wonderful time. Some of it is pretty tough, I know, but when it's all over we'll be so proud of what we've been through! The boys who hang around home and just do the same old things, will wish awfully, when they hear about it, that they had been with us."

The thought of winning renown among his playmates at home as a great and experienced adventurer was distinctly comforting to Hubert, helping him to resolve to resist fear in future and meet discomfort more cheerfully. The boys felt better still when presently they made a discovery which awakened new hope. At the farther end of the island, where a dense "hammock" growth sloped down and joined hands with the swamp, which here took on the form of a deeply flooded forest, they found a boat—a small bateau scarcely capable of floating more than three persons. Evidently it had been lying idle for some time. It was half full of water, but when this was bailed out it showed no serious leaks and carried the two boys safely.

"That must lead out to a lake," said Ted, indicating the narrow boat-road which could be seen winding away through the flooded forest. "And once on that lake, we may find our way out of the swamp. Anyhow, we may meet some of the slackers. Let's start right off!"

Hubert was loath to leave the dry open pine woods of the island and said so, but Ted convinced him that there was nothing to be done but to push on.

The boat-road had evidently been a good deal traveled and it was not very difficult to make headway, although the two paddles they had picked up were little more than two long sticks. As Ted had surmised, the boat-road led after a few hundred yards into a long and very narrow forest-bordered lake, where feeding fishes of considerable size were "striking" here and there in a way to tempt the most indifferent angler. Hubert wanted to stop to fish, but Ted said that if they were to get through by night they couldn't spare the time.

They did stop and drift, however, when they caught sight of a large animal swimming across their path about two hundred yards ahead. The boys grabbed their guns, but knew better than to waste bird shot on such big game. They merely watched the swimming creature in some alarm until it disappeared in the flooded forest. Hubert was sure it was a panther, but Ted said it might be only a lynx, perhaps even only the lesser lynx, commonly called the wild-cat. In any case, he thought, it was better to "let it go" and not "try to stir up a fight," armed as they were with mere bird-guns.

While they discussed the matter, drifting, Hubert unwound a fishing line he took out of his pocket. It was provided with a fly which had seen service in North Carolina trout streams, and he threw it as far out as he could. To his astonishment it was taken almost immediately and he found himself pulling a large and game fish toward the boat. When finally lifted over the boat's side, it proved to be a black bass weighing about five pounds. Both boys were now eager for more such sport, but Ted resisted the temptation and dipped his paddle vigorously.

"We've got to get somewhere before night," he said, looking at the declining sun. "Maybe we can come back here some time and try 'em again."

At the farther end of the lake the boat-road began again and wound on its way as before through seemingly endless flood and forest. At many points they found it more difficult to force the boat forward, but the scenery was the same. Now a long winding reach of black or wine-colored lagoon bordered by trees standing knee-deep in the flood and flying a thousand ragged flags of gray moss; now a tortuous trail among the crowding trunks of both standing and fallen trees, among masses of reeds full of the drift of fallen branches, beneath low-hanging boughs dipping their finger-like leafage into the water, and tangles of vines trailing down to the very surface of dark still pools. Then more and more of the thin-leafed cypresses towering on high with some of their banyan-like "knees" rising from the wine-colored flood a dozen feet from the parent stem, and others lying in wait a few inches below the surface, less perilous to the swamp boat than a sunken reef to the ocean ship, yet the most stubborn of all snags and the source of much labor and delay.

By the time the boys had laboriously got clear of the third "knee" upon which their boat had stalled, and had paddled, polled and pushed altogether three or four miles, the sun was down and they found it necessary to prepare for the night.

"I said we ought to stay on that island," complained Hubert, as he looked around into the darkening aisles of the flooded forest.

"Well, I didn't want to be a prisoner there if you did," retorted Ted.

They bailed out what water had leaked into the bateau, broke brush and gathered moss for their bed, then ate an insufficient portion of broiled turkey which they had the forethought to bring with them. They felt safer in their boat, adrift in a tree-bordered lagoon, even if dark, mysterious foliage did overhang them. Perhaps this was why Hubert, after they had lain down and covered themselves with moss, permitted himself to refer sarcastically to Ted's prediction of the night before.

"I thought you were to be out of the swamp or get to the slackers' camp by to-night," he observed, with a yawn.

"Oh, give me another day, can't you!" retorted Ted, and, turning over, he fell asleep.

They were still asleep when the dawn came down and, in slow, wondrous miracle, transformed the thick darkness of the swamp into light. The wood-thrush lifted its sweet voice in welcome of the new day, and a lovely calm seemed to rest upon the great Okefinokee.

But the heavenly peace of morning was not everywhere, for directly above the sleeping boys, close upon a limb of the tree under which their drifting boat had come to rest, crouched a beast which looked down upon them with a fixed, dilating stare of hate. The animal was of a grayish brown that went pale along its belly. Its body looked long yet was short in proportion to the length of its powerful legs. It had a round head and face, pointed ears, yellow-green eyes and whitish-brown whiskers. Its tail was a mere thick brown stump that stood up stiffly when it moved an inch or two as if to get a better look, sinking its razor-edged claws deep into the green bark.

The watching lynx longed fiercely to drop upon Ted's neck, so soft and red and helpless, but was held motionless by its fear of the most terrible of all its enemies—mysterious, wonderful man. Nevertheless, seeing needed food, the beast obeyed an impulse stronger than fear and leaped, alighting, not upon Ted, but upon the black bass at the foot of the couch of broken boughs.

The boat rocked. The boys started up, blinking. The lynx growled fiercely, its teeth fastened in its prey. And then, after another and mightier leap, which rocked the boat still more, it became a mere shadow in the brush on their right, and was gone.

Shouting, questioning, gesticulating, and almost losing their balance, the boys sat down quickly in fear of upsetting the bateau.

"What is it?" cried Hubert. "It got my fish!"

"A wild-cat maybe," said Ted, "but it seemed bigger than I thought they were and I didn't know they had a stumpy tail."

"It had fierce whiskers just like the Kaiser's," asserted Hubert. "Look here, Ted," he added solemnly, "we've got to get out of this place or something will eat us up."

Then Ted began to laugh. And as there was nothing else to be done, there being no food, they picked up their paddles and started, breakfastless, on their way.

Several hours later they emerged from the flooded forest and saw before them an extensive open marsh filled with long rushes, "bonnets," and open pools, and dotted with small islands, the trees of which were hung with long gray drifts of Spanish moss. As far as the eye could reach, straight ahead, to the right or to the left, nothing else was visible. With increasing weariness and hunger the boys paddled and poled about this marsh until late in the day, imagining that they were pursuing the same general course, but in reality wandering widely in the confusion of rounding the many islets. At last, in the late afternoon, they saw far ahead the green tops of some tall pines and gradually worked their way toward them, surmising that they stood either upon a large island or the mainland. As they approached within half a mile, a shallow marsh, free of the confusing islets, opened before them. In the shallower water here the rushes and water-mosses seemed to thicken steadily as they neared the shore, and it became more and more difficult to force the bateau through or over them, although the boys now followed the windings of a clearly-defined boat-trail.

Finally, within some three hundred yards of the shore or the wall of woods indicating an island, they were compelled to step out and drag the boat after them, sinking now to the knee, now to the waist, in slimy moss, mud and water. Entering the border of trees, they pushed forward, still in water knee-deep, for about a hundred yards, before they reached a landing-place where two boats, somewhat larger than their own, were moored.

"There's somebody here, sure," said Ted, looking about hopefully.

A well-beaten path led upward through the dense "hammock" between the swamp proper and the pine ridge composing the island upon which the boys had landed. Under magnolia and bay trees and through tall underbrush of swamp-cane the path led to the top of the slope, where, some two hundred yards from the boats, the boys found themselves in a small clearing, beyond which the open pine land of the island stretched away monotonously.

Near the center of the clearing stood a house, built of rough pine logs, elevated some twelve feet from the ground on stilt-like posts; and over a fire to the right of this structure bent a man's figure. Evidently he was cooking his evening meal, for the boys caught the delicious odor of frying meat.

"Maybe he'll give us something to eat," said Hubert wistfully.

Just then the man stood erect, and they saw that he was a negro in rough soiled clothes. A moment later he turned his face toward them and they recognized a care-free, good-natured type of young black man with which they had had abundant acquaintance.

The boys hesitated no longer. The negro heard their steps and looked up, the first bewildered expression on his black, sweat-shining face changing to one of pleased astonishment. He came forward to meet them.

"W-huh you boys come fum?" he cried. Then, his eyes fastening upon Ted's muddy uniform, he continued, giggling delightedly: "And one of 'em is a little soldier! Well, if dat don't beat all! Who you boys?"

Ted staggered slightly and sat down heavily on the grass.

"Please give us something to eat and then we'll tell you," he said in a weak voice.

The negro showed instant sympathy. "Is you boys perishin' for sump'n to eat?" he asked, regretfully. "Lem me git you sump'n quick!"

He rushed about and within less than two minutes had piled hot meat, fish and bread on palmetto leaves placed before the boys where they sat on the billowy wiregrass.

"You boys sho kin eat," he commented, grinning, as he watched them devour the good food. "I des know you was most starvin'. You kin eat all dat and have plenty mo'."

After Ted had satisfied his hunger, felt strengthened, and had thanked the negro gratefully and very politely, he asked:

"What camp is this?"

"Eight young white mens been campin' yuh since las' summer and dey brung me in to cook dey vittles. I'm July Martin."

"Oh—this is where those slackers are hiding to keep out of the war?" said Ted, stating a recognized fact in the form of a question.

"Dis is it, but don't tell 'em I tole you. Dey's mighty partic'lar to keep people fum knowin' where dey is."

"How about you?" asked Ted. "Negro men are being drafted for war service, too."

"Who, me?" laughed July, slightly uneasy. "Well, you see, when Mr. Buck Hardy come an' tole me he want me in yuh to cook for 'em, he say if I didn't do it dem draft-bode people would grab me up an' send me to de waw, and I was powerful worried. You see, de waw come so sudden; it bus' right in my face, like; an' it look like I des had to take time to git in de notion to stan' up an' let dem Germans shoot at me. So I tuck dis chance to make a honest livin' in a quiet place. I's makin' a livin'. Dey takes up a c'lection and pays me wages for cookin' and doin' dey dirty work. And, 'sides all dat; Mr. Buck Hardy say I des got to come in yuh wid 'em an' he wouldn' lem me say no."

Both boys smiled broadly, but at the conclusion of this prodigiously amusing speech Ted asked:

"Don't you call yourself a free man? Don't you think it's bad enough to be a slacker without putting the blame on somebody else?"

In ordinary times July would have boasted of his freedom to come and go as he pleased, but now he desired to persist in the persuasion that he was not a free agent.

"But Mr. Buck Hardy tole me," he argued, giggling uneasily,—"he tole me if I did n' come in yuh he and dem yuther young white mens would give me de devil, an' he tole me if dem draft-bode people got me and sont me to de waw dem Germans would cut my head off."

"Oh, confess that you are an out-and-out slacker and be done with it," said Ted. "That's the only honest thing to do, you know."

"Look yuh, boy," said July, his good-humored face showing irritation, "you better put a bridle on dat tongue o' yours. I like to see a smart boy like you wid plenty o' spunk, and I ain't mad wid you, but lem me give you a piece o' advice: if you go talkin' dat-a way to Mr. Buck Hardy and dem young white mens, you gwine to git into trouble. You sho will."

"Who is Mr. Buck Hardy?" asked Hubert, diplomatically, prudently deciding that it was time to check Ted by changing the subject.

"He's de ring-leader. He's de cock o' de walk in dis camp."

"What is the name of this island?" asked Ted, looking around.

"I hear 'em say, but I disremember," answered July with seeming sincerity.

"A mighty good name for it would be Deserters' Island,'" remarked Ted, rising to join Hubert, who now stood by the fire drying his wet trousers.

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