“shuck” his clothes. It became a race toward nakedness—with no one but their comrades to observe, they often plunged into the limpid, translucent water in nature’s swimming suit. Cliff, observing them from the sloop, began to emulate their hasty disrobing. But Sam put a stop to their plan.

“Why?” demanded Cliff, rather warmly. “We’re not afraid of sharks!”

“No, sar,” called Sam, “but you are liable to dive crooked or if your foot slips you may go in backwards—and a cut from that sharp coral isn’t to be chanced, sar.” He showed Cliff a deep scar under his wooly hair, and Cliff, alarmed, called for his comrades to desist—until daylight, at least. They agreed reluctantly, and, looking down more carefully Nicky confided to Tom that he was glad they had. Overlooked in their excitement, they were able in calm study to observe a long, arrow-like frond of coral extending upward at an angle so close to the sponge that it must have been struck by any but a most expert diver.

Green turtle, cooked by broiling beside a good beach fire, as the Indians did it—a tasty meat, and equally good when made into a sort of stew of the whole creature’s flesh, was eked out by a four pound crawfish caught by Nicky from a veritable crawling mass of these lobster-like shellfish in their bay. Corn-pone, or cornbread made the southern way and baked in ashes, a process learned by Tom during a summer camp, in the South, made a fine dinner that night and they ate the more lustily for the realization of their narrow escape earlier in the evening. “It doesn’t pay to leap before you look!” declared Nicky as the chums settled down to sleep that night.

After rather eventless days, during which they passed many bays, inlets, keys and reefs, they sighted Key Largo, one of the most fertile of the few larger Florida Keys, beat along its shore, ran along past Whaleback Key, and finally slipped to the end of what the natives call Barnes’ Sound, and through Jewfish Creek, a narrow and deceptive passage connecting the larger sheet of water with what the natives call Little Card Sound, although the Geodetic Survey charts give different names to both major and minor waters.

The opening of Jewfish Creek was deceptive because mangrove trees grew so closely that it looked like an impassable place until Mr. Neale, who had used it previously during his crocodile hunting expedition, took command and piloted them through cleverly.

“Little Card Sound!” exclaimed Nicky—with considerable eagerness. “Now—where is 

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