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The moss is ankle deep, the underbrush thick; fallen logs lie across each other in hopeless confusion, through and under and over which one must make his laborious way, stung and pestered by hordes of black flies and mosquitoes. So that, unless you have a strong instinct of direction, it is almost impossible to hold your course without a compass, or a bright sun, to guide you.
The way was too narrow to admit of more than one person passing at a time; and as Haguna happened to have emerged first from the thicket, she boldly took the lead, following the path until they emerged into a more open part of the forest, where the undulating ground was entirely free from underbrush, and the eye roamed at pleasure through the wide glades.
As they progressed Tom cautioned his brother to keep to the rocks as much as possible, in order that the trail might be hidden. It was still hot, and before long the exertion of climbing the rocks and picking their way through the dense underbrush told upon them. Coming to the top of a small hill, they halted. "Let us climb into yonder tree and rest," said Sam.
Casting apprehensive glances along the mountainside, he stole toward it, and made his way up the gully, completely hidden by the straggling line of trees and underbrush, till he stood on the summit. He approached each ridge with extreme caution, as if about to storm the barricade of an enemy; thus he traveled over the range without coming on the traces of his mysterious visitor.
Cautiously the boys made their way through the fallen timber, keeping as much as possible under cover of the underbrush. But though they hunted about for some time, the dogs evidently got no scent, for they remained quite uninterested in the proceedings. "We'll have to get up closer to where Fido is," said Don, "and the sooner we get there the better." "I suppose so," said Hughie.
There was something mildly though surely compelling in Tom's manner. Alf Drew went along, though he didn't wish to. The two were just at the fringe of the thick underbrush when there came a warning sound just ahead of them. Click! cl-cl-click! "Whee! Me for outer this!" gasped Alf, going whiter than ever as he turned. But Tom caught him by the shoulder. "What's the matter?" demanded Reade.
So the trail hurried up the hill into a wild, rough country where it was of no use to follow. As I climbed the last ridge on my way back to the lake, I heard rustlings in the underbrush, and then the unmistakable crack of a twig under a deer's foot. The mother had winded me; she was now following and circling down wind to find out whether her lost fawn were with me.
Dense everglades, swamp-fevers, malaria in the air, poisonous underbrush, and venomous reptiles and insects, and now and then a wily unseen foe picking off the men, one by one, as they painfully cut out roads through the thickets, these were the features of military life in Florida at that period.
The forest was thick with a considerable growth of underbrush, but Harry was a skillful and daring rider, and he guided his horse so expertly that in a few moments he was hidden from the view of the cavalry. But he knew that it could not continue so long. They would spread out, driving everything in front of them as they advanced. He was still the fox and they were still the hunters.
If you must make a trail of your own, blaze it as you go by bending down and breaking branches of trees, underbrush, and bushes. Let the broken branches be on the side of bush or tree in the direction you are going, but bent down away from that side, or toward the bush, so that the lighter underside of the leaves will show and make a plain trail.
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