all colors and hues. Then, in a little bay of the shore, Mart stumbled
on a starfish, deep red, with rich black bosses, and Bob splashed into a
pool to extricate two small but very gaudy sponges.

Then there were smaller fragments of coral, ruby red and white, and
oyster shells--some brick-red, others of mixed and more gorgeous
hues--while more complex shells whose names the boys could not guess lay
strewn about indiscriminately with fragments of streaming seaweed. Then
Bob wandered ahead, and Mart saw him turn with a cautious gesture,
motioning to him.

Mart stuffed the starfish into his pocket and caught up his all but
forgotten camera. When he joined Bob at one side of the little bay and
looked through the bushes at the shore beyond, he understood. For there
was a long stretch of mingled coral and sand exposed by the low tide,
and perhaps fifty yards distant were two birds--curlews--running toward
the boys with nervous, jerky motions. They were furtively picking up
crabs, and Mart quickly set up his camera and focused it. But the
instant he began to turn the crank, the two birds ceased their antics.
With an inquiring pipe, they looked toward the slight click; then one of
them desperately snatched up a crab and both flew off together.

"By golly!" exclaimed Mart. "I got 'em anyhow! Let's go see the crabs!"

They found them--big gray fellows that scuttled away or disappeared in
the sand as the boys approached. Try as they would they could not catch
one, and being unable to dig, they finally gave up, tired and winded.

"Say, do you like raw oysters?" exclaimed Mart, while they were resting
in the hot sand.

"You bet!" returned Bob. "Why?"

"Well, look out there where that coral shows."

Perhaps twenty feet from the edge of the water protruded the low ragged
edges of a coral reef, and Bob gained his feet instantly. The water
inside the reef was only a few inches deep, and even from where they
stood they could make out splotches against the coral that told of
oysters.

Without a word Bob led the way, Mart following hastily. Getting their
shoes wet mattered little, for they would dry again in five minutes of
walking in the blistering sand, and when they finally stood on the coral
reef they soon had torn half a dozen good-sized oysters from their perch
and waded in to shore again.

"They look good," said Mart, gazing doubtfully at the tightly-closed
gray-green shells. "How you goin' to open 'em?"

"With a knife