"It's queer that a man who has just come down here should
remember such a technical thing," said she. "And yesterday
you warned me against letting Bobby Burns wander in the
palmetto scrub, for fear of rattlesnakes. I--"

"That deep mystery is also easy to solve," he said. "In the
smoker on the way South several men were telling how they had
lost valuable hunting dogs. hereabouts from rattlesnakes. I
like Bobby Burns. So I passed along the warning. What are
those queer trees?" he asked shifting the dangerous subject.
"I mean the ones that look like a mixture of horse-chestnut
and--"

"Avocadoes," she answered, interest in the task of farm guide
making her forget her momentary bewilderment at his scraps of
local knowledge. "They're one of our best crops. Sometimes a
single avocado will sell in open market here for as much as
forty cents. There's money in them, nearly always. Good
money. And the spoiled ones are great for the pigs. Then the
Northern market for them--"

"Avocadoes ?" he repeated curiously. "There! Now you see how
much I know about Florida. From this distance. their fruits
look to me exactly like alligator pears or--"

Again. her laugh interrupted him.

"If only you'd happened to look in one or two more government
reports at the library," she teased. "you'd