In these rare
blobs of light upon the brackish water moving objects were discernible,
the fin of a fish, swimming over a shallow, the snout of a
crocodile--proof that the water was salt--and the inevitable squirming
of snakes, small and large.
"Nothing doing here either."
"No," agreed Payne. "I'll have to go up high and have a look around."
Retracing the way to the large dead tree upon which the buzzards still
roosted patiently, he removed his shoes and stockings and looked up at
the gray, tapering trunk.
"Up you go!" cried Higgins, bending his broad shoulders. Roger leaped
upon them, leaped again, caught a hold on the tree and began the
precarious climb upward. It was now near the end of the day and the
time he reached the first spikelike branch which gave him an
opportunity to rest, the sun was preparing its pyrotechnics of Florida
eventide.
Roger threw a leg over the branch and unslung his glasses. He was
above the tops of the other trees on the bank, and mud, water and
mangrove swamp lay well below. A patch of white far to the eastward in
the swamp had caught his attention even before he raised the glasses to
his eyes. Through the powerful lenses the phenomenon seemed at first
to be composed of snow-white flowers growing upon the mangrove tops,
but presently he saw that the patch was moving.
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