“Very well,” said Adam, “you can come. This shot-gun isn’t the right thing to take along if we expect to meet bears, but I’ll put half a dozen buckshot into each barrel, and I guess that’ll do for anything we get a crack at.” Phœnix would have been glad to go with Phil and Adam, but in that case Chap would have been left alone; and, besides, it would not do to make a bear-hunting party too large. So he got out his fishing-lines, and helped Chap pole the boat into deeper water, where they anchored her, and set comfortably to work to fish. The sport was not very exciting, for the large fish are only found in certain portions of the river, but the biting was lively, and the fish they hauled up were a good deal larger than those they used to catch at home. Adam and Phil made their way slowly along a path which the former had taken to be a bear track. Sometimes they got through the underbrush quite easily, and then, again, it would be very difficult and unpleasant to push through the thorny shrubbery and under low-hanging branches of small trees. “If we went on all-fours, like a bear,” said Adam, “it would be easy enough; but as we don’t, we’ve got to make the best of it.” They made the best of it for some time, occasionally losing the track, and then, finding it again, or supposing they had found it, they would bravely press forward. At last, to their great relief, they came to a place where the way was much more open; the bed of a very small stream, now dry, wound before them through the forest, and, as it was free from underbrush, it made a very convenient pathway. There was nothing in the appearance of this dry bed to indicate that a bear had been in the habit of walking in it; but, as it made a very good passage through the forest for a man and a boy, Phil and Adam cheerfully took their way up the stream. It did not matter much whether they saw a bear or not; for, if they did catch sight of one, Adam very much doubted if he could get it within range of a shot-gun. But they were both fond of the woods, and were glad to explore a semi-tropical forest like this. Adam was a hunter, as well as a sailor, for his adventurous experiences had been both on land and sea. On either side of them was a mass of vines and bushes, out of which the shorter or cabbage palmettos arose, wherever they could find room to spread their long and drooping leaf-stalks, which not only grew from their crests, but sprang out of the sides of their trunks, while, high above was the vast and impenetrable canopy of the leaves of the tall palmettos, each umbrella-like tuft supported by a long and slender stem. The forest thus appeared to be covered by a roof of green, held up by innumerable gray columns of pillars.