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," grinned Bob, pulling out his heavy pocket-knife.
He went to work, and remained at work for five minutes. At the end of that time he gazed disgustedly at his hacked knife blade and gave up in despair. Mart suggested warming the oysters over a fire.
"Good idea, Mart!" cried Bob, springing up. "We'll eat a couple, then take a mess back to dad, eh?"
They soon had a small fire of dry bush alight, and under the influence of its heat they got two or three of the oysters open. Each of the boys swallowed one—then they looked at each other blankly.
"Didn't taste right to me," declared Mart.
"Me neither. I never ate any like that in 'Frisco, by juniper!"
They unanimously decided that they would not eat any more, and before they had stamped out their fire Bob found that he wanted very much to inspect a scarlet-leaved tree a short distance back in the bush. Mart saw another tree that he wanted to look at, and after fifteen minutes had passed, two very pale and disgusted boys crawled out to the warm beach again and lay there recuperating.
"By golly, I don't want any more of those oysters," said Mart, gaining his feet after a little. Picking up the offending molluscs, he hurled them out again into the sea, and Bob grinned faintly.