We've only got to Tampico. Maybe such a trip is impracticable--impossible. Let's find out more about the country."

Hal appeared to take this in good spirit. The boys returned to the hotel and went to bed. Hal promptly fell asleep. But Ken Ward lay awake a long time thinking of the green Santa Rosa, with its magnificent moss-festooned cypresses. And when he did go to sleep it was to dream of the beautiful waterfowl with the white-crested wings, and he was following it on its wild flight down the dark, mysterious river-trail into the jungle.

Chapter II - THE HOME OF THE TARPON.

HAL'S homesickness might never have been in evidence at all, to judge from the way the boy, awakening at dawn, began to talk about the Santa Rosa trip.

"Well," said Ken, as he rolled out of bed, "I guess we're in for it."

"Ken, will we go?" asked Hal, eagerly. "I'm on the fence."

"But you're leaning on the jungle side?" " Yes, kid--I'm slipping."

Hal opened his lips to let out a regular Hiram Bent yell, when Ken clapped a hand over his mouth.

"Hold on--we're in the hotel yet."

It took the brothers long to dress, because they -could not keep away from the window. The sun was rising in rosy glory over misty lagoons. Clouds of creamy mist rolled above the broad Panuco. Wild ducks were flying low. The tiled roofs of the stone houses gleamed brightly, and the palm-trees glistened with dew. The soft breeze that blew in was warm, sweet, and fragrant.

After breakfast the boys went out to the front and found the hotel lobby full of fishermen and their native boatmen. It was an interesting sight, as well as a surprise, for Ken and Hal did not know that Tampico was as famous for fishing as it was for hunting. The huge rods and reels amazed them.

"What kind of fish do these fellows fish for?" asked Hal.

Ken was well enough acquainted with sport to know something about tarpon, but he had never seen one of the great silver fish. And he was speechless when Hal led him into a room upon the walls of which were mounted specimens of tarpon from six to seven feet in length and half as wide as a door.

" Say, Ken! We've come to the right place. Those fishermen are all going out to fish for such whales as these here."

" Hal, we never saw a big fish before," said Ken. "And before we leave Tampico we'll know what it means to hook tarpon."

"I'm with you," replied Hal, gazing doubtfully and wonderingly at a fish almost twice as big as himself.

Then Ken, being a practical student of fishing, as of other kinds of sport, began to stroll round the lobby with an intent to learn. He closely scrutinized the tackle. And he found that the bait used was a white mullet six to ten inches long, a little fish which resembled the chub. Ken did not like the long, cruel gaff which seemed a necessary adjunct to each outfit of tackle, and he vowed that in his fishing for tarpon he would, dispense with it.

Ken was not backward about asking questions, and he learned that Tampico, during the winter months, was a rendezvous for sportsmen from all over the world. For the most part, they came to catch the leaping tarpon; the shooting along the Panuco, however, was as well worth while as the fishing. But Ken could not learn anything about the Santa Rosa River. The tierra caliente, or hot belt, along the curve of the Gulf was intersected by small streams, many of them unknown and unnamed. The Panuco swung round to the west and had its source somewhere up in the mountains. Ken decided that the Santa Rosa was one of its headwaters. Valles lay up on the first swell of higher ground, and was distant from Tampico some six hours by train. So, reckoning with the meandering course of jungle streams, Ken calculated he would have something like one hundred and seventy-five miles to travel by water from Valles to Tampico. There were Indian huts strung along the Panuco River, and fifty miles inland a village named Panuco. What lay between Panuco and Valles, up over the wild steppes of that jungle, Ken Ward could only conjecture.

Presently he came upon Hal in conversation with an American boy, who at once volunteered to show them around.