WITH BEAK AND CLAW 15 



North Alligator River. So there was nothing es- 

 pecially unusual, when, one evening, a few days 

 after the game warden's visit, Bull said to the lad, 



* ' There 's a chance to get some Fish-Hawk eggs, 

 I reckon. ' ' 



"Where I" asked Shan, eagerly, straightening 

 up from his dish-washing, one of the household 

 tasks that always fell to his share. 



"Down the river a ways," the pot-hunter an- 

 swered. "I ran across it a day or two gone by 

 an' didn' think to tell yo'. It's a big un, too, 

 must have nigh on to a cart-load ' truck up there. 

 Right near the top of a cedar it is, 'bout sixty 

 feet up." 



"Do you suppose I can get at it?" asked Shan. 

 "The last Fish-Hawk's nest I found, the spring 

 before last, was easy enough to climb to, but I 

 couldn't get over the edge of it." 



"Couldn't yo' catch hold 0' the edge an' swing 

 on up?" 



The boy shook his head. 



' ' I tried, ' ' he said, ' ' but just as soon as I started 

 to pull, the sticks came apart and didn't give me 

 any sort of hold. It was about a hundred feet up, 

 too, and looked like a long way to drop." 



"I didn't project 'round this nest none," said 



