Page:Tom Swift in Captivity.djvu/101

Rh caught up a dead branch, and threw it at a monkey. The chattering increased, and almost instantly a shower of cocoanuts came crashing down, narrowly missing some of our friends.

"Hold on, Rad! Hold on!" cried Tom. "Some of us will be hurt!"

Crack! came a cocoanut down on the skull of the colored man.

"Bless my court plaster! Someone's hurt now!" cried Mr. Damon.

"Hurt? Bless yo' heart, Massa Damon, it takes mo' dan dat t' hurt dish yeah chile!" cried Eradicate with a grin. "Ah got a hard head, Ah has, mighty hard head, an' de cocoanut ain't growed dat kin bust it. Thanks, Mistah Monkey, thanks!" and with a laugh Eradicate jumped off his mule, and began gathering up the nuts, while the monkeys fled into the forest.

"Very much good to drink milk," said San Pedro, as he picked up a half-ripe nut, and showed how to chop off the top with a big knife and drain the slightly acid juice inside. "Very much good for thirst."

"Let's try it," Proposed [sic] Tom, and they all drank their fill, for there were many cocoanuts, though it was rather an isolated grove of them.

The monkeys became more numerous as they proceeded farther north toward the equator, for