Well, it's bigger than anything we ever dreamed of and every
foot of it is alive. Sometimes I sleep in a tent, but more
often under the stars. Last night I heard the scream of a
panther, so near that it made me shiver, and the next minute
a frog dropped from the branch of a tree over my head and
fell on my face. I must have screamed louder than the
panther, for I scared Chris Meyer, the surveyor, who is
camping with me, pretty badly. The guide we expected didn't
come, so we are guiding for ourselves. I hope Chris knows
where we are, for I am sure I don't. We measure the big
cypress trees with a tape line and Chris calculates the
number of feet of lumber in each tree. Then we estimate the
trees in an acre and guess at the number of acres. At least
that's the way the business looks to me. Sometimes the
walking is easy, but to-day we had to wade through mud
waist-deep and the moccasins were pretty thick. I watched out
for the ugly things and it kept me on the jump, but Chris
marched straight ahead and paid no attention to them,
excepting once when a big cotton-mouth that was coiled on top
of a stump struck at him. Then he fell over backward into the
mud, and I had a good laugh at him--afterwards. Chris killed
that snake. It was a short, thick snake and about as pretty
as a Bologna sausage, but its mouth opened five inches and
its long, needle-like fangs were dripping with venom. I am
hungry all the time and enjoy our bill of fare very much,
although it is only bacon, grits and coffee, morning, noon
and night. We are traveling light, for we carry all our
baggage on our backs. We see deer and wild turkey every day
and it's pretty hard to keep my hands off my rifle, but I
promised Dad not to shoot anything out of season. In three