When at last they reached the river, the boys gave a great shout, but Adam merely grinned, and looked anxiously up and down. The broad, smooth waters of the Indian River spread before the delighted eyes of our young friends. Large birds were flying through the air. At a little distance hundreds of ducks were swimming on the water. The low shores were green and beautiful. But what Adam looked for was not there. As far as the eye could reach--and as the river here bent away from them on either hand, they could see the bank on which they stood for a long distance up and down--not a house, or clearing, or sign of human habitation, could be seen, and on the river there was not a sail or boat. “I haven’t struck just the place I want to get to,” said Adam, “for the house I’m after is just above this bend where the river turns due north agen; but then it couldn’t be expected I’d pick out the very place I wanted when I was on board a steamer nearly a mile from shore. If I could ’a’ seen the river, I’d been all right, but beaches is pretty much alike.” “I think you did very well,” said Phil, “to get so near the place. The end of that bend can’t be so very far away.” “It wouldn’t be much of a walk,” said Adam, “if there was a good beach at the side of the river. There’s a sandy shore on the other side, as you can see, but that’s no good to us. Along here, for pretty much the whole bend, you see the trees and underbrush grow right down to the water, and it would be wadin’ and sloppin’, as well as scratchin’.” “We might keep farther in shore,” said Chap, “where we could find dry walking.” “It would be dry enough, but it would be mighty slow,” said Adam. “The best and quickest thing we can do is to get right back to the beach. There we’ll find good, hard walkin’, and we can tramp along lively till we calkilate we’re about opposite John Brewer’s place, and then we can push through agen to the river.” “I guess that’s about the best thing to do,” said Phil, “for it will give us less of this horrid jungle-scratching than trying to push right straight along through the woods.” “All right!” cried Chap. “Backward! March!” And again, with Adam at the head, the party pushed through the strip of woods which separated the river from the ocean-beach. The march along the sand was easy enough, but it seemed very long. “Why, I thought,” cried Chap, “that it was only a little way to the end of that bend!” “It’s further than it looks,” said Adam. “I’ve got a pretty good notion how fur we ought to walk before we strike across; but it won’t be long before we try the woods agen.”