Paddling under Palmettos — page 273: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

2604 Paddling Under Palmettos. By noon so many twists and turns had been made that this endeavor was utterly out of the question. Then Ned’s words came up, and they realized that it would be just as hard to retreat as to go forward. In a word, they were already lost. One satisfaction lay in the fact that they kept making progress. This lasted until three o'clock, and then came their first rebuff, when the estuary they were follow- ing up appeared no longer navigable. Its width was still the same, but the branches of trees came so low that even without their masts stepped, it was utterly impossible to make forward progress. There was nothing to do but to turn back, for the map had been proven faulty. They held a consultation. “The route the Indians told me must lie far to the left. Let us work that way as we grope along. Then we will have the satisfaction of knowing that we are going farther away all the while, but drawing gradually nearer.” Ned’s words were deemed wise, and their very Gomicbooks. co