He ate a heartier and more wholesome breakfast that morning than he had eaten for weeks, and felt afterwards altogether better and stronger than before.

The breakfast would have been an excellent one at any time, as the flesh of the opossum tastes almost exactly like that of a suckling pig, but it was doubly good to the poor half-famished boy.

He stowed away the remains of his feast in his coat pockets to be eaten on his way back to the root fortress, resolving to kill some other game on the journey, for the use of the little garrison there.

He was now, as he knew, not more than ten or twelve miles from his destination, but it was as yet impossible for him to travel.

The swamp was full of cypresses, and it is a peculiar habit of these trees to turn their roots straight upward for any distance, from an inch to many feet, and then to bring them straight down again, making what are called cypress knees.