Paddling under Palmettos — page 99: what you’re looking at

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

92 Paddling Under Palmettos. In fifteen minutes he returned with a hundred fine ones, picked up by hand in the shallow water. ‘They needed a little salt, but were fat and luscious, some being as large as the palm of the hand. Here Dick proved his right to the title of the oys- ter king. He said he ate fifty-seven raw, and the pyramid of shells under the canoe seemed to verify it. A dozen satisfied Archie, but he opened a tin cupful to fry for breakfast. They had only made about five miles that day, but hoped to do better on the morrow. | Archie boiled a saucepan of rice, a favorite dish with him, and invited Dick over to help eat it; but a woeful accident allowed the lantern to drop square into the kettle from the hook above in the tent, just after the condensed milk and sugar had been stirred ys There was a suspicious odor of kerosene about the feast, although Dick, who had not eaten any sup- per since punishing the oysters, declared he liked it. Archie was up at dawn and had finished his break- fast long before Dick. The wind arose gently in the east and gave promise of some weather. When Archie had packed his tent away and MGOmichbooks,; Go m