"I think so," she answered. "Where is Ruth?"

"We'll all go together," he proposed. "Russ wants to get a few pictures,
and Jed Moulton is going along to show us where there are some likely
spots for novel scenes."

"Of course I'll come!" cried Alice, enthusiastically, as she went to her
stateroom to make ready.

A little later the four young people, with the alligator hunter, set out
in a big rowboat. Russ took with him a small moving picture camera, as he
generally did, even when he had no special object in view.

They rowed up the stream in which the _Magnolia_ was resting, her bow
against a fern bank, and presently the party was in a solitude that was
almost oppressive. There was neither sign nor sound of human being, and
the steamer was lost to sight around a bend in the stream.

"Isn't it wonderful here?" murmured Ruth.

"It certainly is," agreed Russ who, with Paul, was rowing.

"It sure is soothin'," said Jed. "Many a time when I ain't had no luck,
and feel all tuckered out, I sneak off to a place like this and I feel
jest glad to be alive."

He put it crudely enough, but the others understood his homely
philosophy.

They rowed slowly, pausing now and then to gather some odd flower, or to