back contents forward {{frabfp102.png}} || eagles of the sky || "Huh! no use talkin', I jest _can't_ stand it any longer--got to have my coffee if I want to keep happy as a clam at high tide. Nothin' to prevent me paddlin' across once more to where I got these here greens. I noticed heaps an' heaps o' dry wood, broken branches, stems o' palmetto leaves an' such dandy trash for a quick fire. Might as well tote the machine gun along, so's to be ready for anything that comes--it could be a frisky twelve-foot 'gator wantin' to climb me or mebbe one o' them sly painters I been told they got down in this queer old country. Anyway, here you go, Perk, coffee-pot an' all." He was soon busily engaged in building his little fire, hoping no hostile eyes might detect the trailing smoke ascending above the tops of that palmetto clump. Then came the pleasing task of watching his coffee pot as it stood on the tilting firewood, a job that required constant vigilance if he hoped to save its precious contents from spilling. Presently the odor began to fill him with delight and later on he found himself sitting cross-legged, like a Turk, and swallowing gulp after gulp of the amber fluid he loved so well. Taken altogether it proved to be as satisfactory a little lunch as Perk had partaken of in some time. After finishing the entire contents of his coffee pot, he concluded it would be just as [[102]] back contents forward