And upon my word I was so rattled that I did the worst thing possible--I tried to kick the dogs loose.

Of course they went all to pieces, and I don't know how it might have fared with us if my little daughter had not calmly bowled over that boar at three paces from my shin-bones!" "Dad exaggerates," observed the girl with heightened colour, then ventured a glance at Hamil which set his heart galloping; and her own responded to the tender pride and admiration in his eyes.
There was more discussion concerning "roosting" versus "yelping" with dire designs upon the huge wild turkey-cock whose tracks Gray had discovered in the mud along the branch where their camp was to be pitched.
Seven hens and youthful gobblers accompanied this patriarch according to Eudo Stent's calculations, and Bulow thought that the Seminole might know the location of the roost; probably deep in some uninviting swamp.
But there was plenty of time to decide what to do when they reached camp; and half an hour later they started, wagon and all, wheels bumping over the exposed tree roots which infinitely bored the well-behaved dogs, squatting forward, heads in a row, every nose twitching at the subtle forest odours that only a dog could detect.
Once they emitted short and quickly stifled yelps as a 'possum climbed leisurely into a small tree and turned to inspect the strange procession which was invading his wilderness.

And Shiela and Hamil, riding behind the wagon, laughed like children.
Once they passed under a heronry--a rather odoriferous patch of dead cypress and pines, where the enormous nests bulged in the stark tree-tops; and once, as they rode out into a particularly park-like and velvety glade, five deer looked up, and then deliberately started to trot across.
"We need that venison!" exclaimed Gray, motioning for his gun which was in the wagon.

Shiela spurred forward, launching her mount into a gallop; Hamil's horse followed on a dead run, he tugging madly at the buck-shot shell in his web belt; and away they tore to head the deer.

In vain! for the agile herd bounded past far out of shell-range and went crashing on through the jungle of the branch; and Shiela reined in and turned her flushed face to Hamil with a laugh of sheer delight.
"Glorious sight, wasn't it ?" said Hamil.