"corraled" in
their swoop upon the fighting smugglers and hijackers--took a pad of
paper and a pencil and proceeded to go over the entire vessel, securing
a rough invoice of the numerous piled-up cases bearing that foreign,
burnt brand.

Then a temptation gripped him, and, as he took another "eyeful" sweep of
the azure arch overhead, to again find the coast clear, he tortured
himself with the vision of a pot of boiling coffee to go with his
otherwise dry midday snack of lunch.

"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 well for him to clean up,
destroying all signs of the fire, and return to the sloop.

He had good reason to shake hands with himself because of this
exhibition of caution, for later on, as the afternoon began to lengthen,
with the sun starting down toward the western horizon, he suddenly began
to catch faint sounds such as sent a sudden thrill through his whole
nervous system.

"Dang it if I ain't hearin' somethin' right like human voices," he told
himself, cocking up his head the better to listen, and applying a cupped
hand to his right ear. "Yep, that's a fact, an' over in that quarter to
boot," nodding toward the northeast wher