TED hoped that the war would be discussed around the camp fire that night, but he was disappointed. Sweet Jackson turned up only in time to eat his supper and went immediately to bed. The other men appeared to be unusually tired and followed as soon as they had smoked a single pipe. Nevertheless Ted was nearer his heart's desire than he supposed.

About two o'clock in the morning a large animal prowled into or near the camp, doubtless attracted by the refuse of the deer's carcass; and all hands were roused by the furious baying of the dogs. Snatching up their guns, the slackers to the last man sallied out and followed in pursuit. Billy ran after them, and Ted, Hubert and July were left standing over the fire, now stirred to a bright blaze.

The eager hunters were hardly two hundred yards away when Hubert looked across the fire at Ted and said:

"Now's our chance to get off in the boats. We could do it—if July would go with us. You said he was thinking of it."

"Yes, I been thinkin' 'bout it," admitted July, his manner doubtful and hesitating, "but on account o' dat waw I ain't made up my mind yit."

"And, anyhow, in the middle of the night is a bad time," said Ted. "We're not ready either."

At this moment they heard the sound of footsteps and a voice shouted: "Buck says you boys come, too, and see the fun. And, July, you better bring some vittles."

The young man who had hurriedly returned on this errand had halted as soon as he was within call, and now waited impatiently to be joined by the boys and the negro, evidently afraid that he might miss seeing the game run to earth. His "Hurry up" was so frequent and so insistent that the boys joined him without a moment's delay and July, shaking his head, followed without the "vittles."

The cause of the excitement, which proved to be a bear, had beaten a hasty retreat toward the center of the island, and there, being hard pressed by the dogs, climbed a tall pine. By the time the hunters reached the spot the animal was at rest among the clustering boughs at the very top. Nothing could be done now until daylight, and the men proceeded to make themselves comfortable. Several fires were built, forming a circle around the tree, in order to make sure that the bear would remain where it was in case the watchers should fall asleep.

Then July and two men were sent back to camp to bring food and corn beer of the slackers' own brewing. The besiegers threw themselves down in comfortable, lounging attitudes around the largest fire and were disposed to have a merry time during the three hours of waiting. Ted and Hubert seated themselves on the grass near Buck Hardy and watched with absorbed attention all that took place. The treeing of a bear in a tall pine at such a time of night was remarked upon as a very unusual occurrence, and several declared that they had never seen the like.

"I tell you the old Oke-fi-noke is the place to run up on curious things," said Buck Hardy musingly, after the men sent to camp had returned with their loads. "I've seen a heap o' strange things in this swamp. I reckon you boys wouldn't believe me if I was to tell you I saw a catfish whip a moccasin in h-yer one time."

The men laughed incredulously, but demanded the particulars. Buck took a drink of corn beer from a gourd passed him by July, and then asked his nearest neighbor, Al Peters, for "a chaw o' tobacco," before he proceeded to satisfy their curiosity by telling his story. It was, in substance, that he had once seen a moccasin spring upon a catfish in a shallow lagoon of the swamp and promptly get "whipped." That is to say, disastrous consequences resulted from the snake's attempt to swallow its prey. For the fish immediately "popped" its formidable fins through the reptile's throat, and all efforts on the part of the latter to disgorge its victim proved futile.

"That moccasin reared mightily and was as lively a snake as you ever laid eyes on," Buck declared with a laugh, "but it bit off more'n it could chaw that time."

He wound up by saying that the snake crawled off rapidly out of sight; but several hours later, returning past the same neighborhood, he found it lying dead, the tail of the fish still protruding from its mouth and the fins visibly transfixing its neck. Finding that the catfish was still alive, Buck took the trouble of liberating it, then watched it revive in its native element and finally swim away in the lagoon.

Buck's listeners had expected a jest, but they seemed to accept the story as matter of fact—no one presuming to give expression to doubts, if any were felt. This was the beginning of much spinning of Okefinokee yarns, some of them even more remarkable. Finally Buck turned to Ted and said:

"Well, kid, what's the strangest thing you've seen in the Oke-fi-noke?"

The boy would have liked to reply that the strangest, most unaccountable, most infamous sight he had seen in the great swamp was a party of able-bodied young men who, instead of serving their country by training to fight the Germans, were deliberate and confessed slackers and fugitives from the law of the land. But he hesitated to go so far and only said:

"I haven't seen as much of it as the rest of you, but the strangest story about it I ever heard was the one my Uncle Walter said the Indians used to tell a hundred years ago."

"Let's hear it," invited several.

So Ted related the old Indian legend which pictured the remote interior of the Okefinokee as a high and dry land, and one of the most blissful spots of earth, where dwelt beautiful women called daughters of the Sun. Some warriors of the Creek nation, lost in the interminable bogs and jungles, and confronted with starvation and despair, were once on a time rescued and lovingly cared for by these radiant creatures. And ere the lost warriors were led out of the confusing labyrinths and sent on their way, they were fed bountifully with dates, oranges, and corn-cake. There may have been other good things to eat, but Ted's memory could vouch only for the dates, oranges, and corn-cake. He remembered that his uncle had spoken skeptically about the dates and disrespectfully of the corn-cake, which latter, though a good and useful thing in its way, was too "common" for celestial ladies who, in all other tales of the same type, were in the habit of feeding on ambrosia. Uncle Walter conceded, however, that the maize was probably regarded by the Creek Indian as one of the most precious gifts of the gods and, therefore, not unworthy of a place in this legend of the daughters of the Sun who dwelt in the great Okefinokee.

This story, with Judge Ridgway's comment added, was over the heads of the uneducated young backwoodsmen who listened with heavy gravity, but several of them expressed polite appreciation of it and spoke in complimentary terms of Ted's recital.

The fires were now replenished, more corn-beer was imbibed, fresh pipes were lighted, and the yarn-spinners began another series devoted to the "tight scrapes" in which they had found themselves occasionally in the Okefinokee. One young man told of a deadly hand-to-hand conflict with a wounded bear; another of a thrilling unarmed fight with a wild-cat; a third related how he had once sunk down suddenly to his armpits in the great marsh called the "prairie," how he had saved himself by grasping the growth on a small tussock, and how he was confronted there, before he could drag himself out, by an angry moccasin, which luckily he shot. And so on.

When this yarn-spinning began to languish for lack of startling material, Buck Hardy asked Ted if he did not have something interesting to tell about his and Hubert's struggles on their way through the swamp to the island. In relating the Indian legend Ted had kept his seat on the grass, but now, as if accepting this invitation, he rose to his feet, his eye sweeping the faces of the eight assembled young "backwoods Crackers," all evidently more or less ignorant and uneducated, and—as Ted thought—sorely in need of instruction, especially on the subject of the great war. Some of them had read a weekly paper occasionally, but most of them had not even availed themselves of that limited source of information. This Ted knew from inquiries he had made. Did this not account, at least in part, for their indifference, and if they were told more about the war, might it not be possible to wake them up? Thus Ted had reasoned as he sat listening, observing and awaiting his opportunity.

"Gentlemen," he politely began, "what happened to us coming through the swamp is hardly worth telling about. I'd much rather talk about the greatest and most terrible war in history, and I hope you are willing. For everything—the whole world's future as well as our own country's safety—depends on the way it ends. I don't think you know enough about it. If you did, you wouldn't be here to-night. You would be in the training camps wearing the soldier's uniform."

"Shut up!"

The voice was Sweet Jackson's, and his demand was echoed by several others.

"No, don't shut him up," shouted Buck Hardy. "Let him talk. I'm not afraid to listen to him. I'm man enough to know my business and stick to it even if a boy who can talk fine does come along. Go on, kid."

This quelled the disturbance, and Ted continued:

"This war's got to end in complete victory for the United States and her allies, for if the Germans win, they will ride over us all rough-shod and make us no better than slaves, just as they have done in Belgium and wherever they have marched their armies. We must win, as the President says, so that the world can be made safe for Christian ideals and for democracy."

"Stop a minute, kid," said Buck. "You are handin' out some pretty big words. I reckon we all know what Christian means, but a bunch of us may not be quite so sure about 'de-mocracy.'"

"Democracy," explained Ted, "is free government by and for the people, instead of high-and-mighty government by one man like the German Kaiser. You will see better what we'll be up against if the Germans get this country," the boy continued, "if I tell you about some of the things they have done and some of the things they want to do. After training for this war fifty years, they jumped on Europe, taking everybody by surprise. They have already conquered Belgium, Servia and Rumania, and they hold northern France, part of Russia and part of Italy. They want to take all the rest of Europe and then conquer the United States. They have said so. Some of 'em even say they ought to force the German language as well as German rule on the world, and they are so crazy with conceit that they say they have a right to do so because they are so much finer people than the people of other countries. Some of them even claim that the Germans have been divinely appointed to rule all nations."

"A little bit stuck on themselves, ain't they?" interjected Buck derisively.

"Why, I read," continued Ted, "of how one of their big preachers told his congregation: 'The German soul is God's soul; it shall and will rule over mankind.' And the Kaiser talks about 'the German God.'"

"You reckon they're such blame' fools as all that?" questioned Al Peters doubtfully.

"Germany is a fur ways and tales are pretty apt to grow as they travel," remarked a young man known as "Bud" Jones. "I know how a tale can grow in ten miles, let alone all the way across the ocean. It puts me in mind of the time Wash' Johnson was up before court."

Jones then related with humorous exaggerations how the story of a very small offense, on its eventful and roundabout journey "from Possum Trot to Crossways," became almost a murder in the first degree. "And when all the truth came out," he concluded, "there was jes' nothin' to it."

Several others recalled amusing anecdotes illustrating the powers of a rumor to expand enormously as it passed from mouth to mouth, and the effect was such that poor Ted saw his opportunity disappear for the time. He was too inexperienced a speaker to find a way to regain command of the situation, but he made an effort. He was further embarrassed as he took note that clumps of palmettos and scrub-oak thickets under the tall pines were becoming clearly outlined at a distance from the dying fires, showing that day had dawned and the time left him was short.

"But I haven't told you anything yet," he insisted, as soon as he was able to put in a word. "And it's all true. Our ambassadors and consuls and big men who have come back from Europe say the Germans have said and done even worse things than have been reported. If you would just let me tell you some of the things I know——"

"Can't be done now, kid; it's daylight," interrupted Buck Hardy, moving to rise and looking around into the woods from which the darkness was rapidly lifting.

All the loungers about the fire now sprang to their feet, turning their eyes toward the top of the pine wherein the bear had taken refuge, and noisily proposing to be the first to bag the game. As soon as there was sufficient light to outline the black bulky form among the high branches, the men opened fire, one at a time, and at the thirteenth shot the big game came tumbling down, striking the ground with great force.

"I got him!" insisted several voices, but of course there was no means of determining which was the fatal shot.

The bear measured seven inches across the ball of the foot, three inches through the fat on the round, and the total weight was calculated at not less than four hundred pounds. The hide was carefully taken off and some pounds of the choicest meat were sliced to dry, but the bulk of the carcass was left where it was for the buzzards.

"I wish it could be shipped to the starving Belgians," said Ted, as he looked on, sorrowing to think of such waste at a time when economy and careful conservation of all food were urged upon the whole nation.

But nobody paid any attention to him, merriment and care-free indifference being the dominant note of the moment. When the sun was an hour high all hands, in great good humor, returned to camp and, to the accompaniment of boastful hunting stories, partook heartily of the hot breakfast which by this time July had prepared.