"But this here dope I'm startin' in to cook for you is a straight, reelible, an' hones' pill. P.T. Barnum he would have went a million miles to see what I seen last Janooary down in the Coquina country--" "Where is that?" "Say; that's what costs money to know. When I put you wise I'm due to retire from actyve business. Get me?" "Go on." "Sure. I was down to the Coquina country, a-doin'--well, I was doin' rubes. I gotta be hones' with _you_, Prof. That's what I was a-doin' of--sellin' farms under water to suckers. Bee-u-tiful Florida! Own your own orange grove. Seven crops o' strawberries every winter in Gawd's own country--get me?" He bestowed upon me a loathsome wink. "Well, it went big till I made a break and got in Dutch with the Navy Department what was surveyin' the Everglades for a safe and sane harbor of refuge for the navy in time o' war. "Sir, they was a-dredgin' up the farms I was sellin', an' the suckers heard of it an' squealed somethin' fierce, an' I had to hustle! Yes, sir, I had to git up an' mosey cross-lots. And what with the Federal Gov'ment chasin' me one way an' them rubes an' the sheriff of Pickalocka County racin' me t'other, I got lost for fair--yes, sir." He smiled reminiscently, produced from his pockets the cold and offensive remains of a partly consumed cigar, and examined it critically. Then he requested a match. "I shall now pass over lightly or in subdood silence the painful events of my flight," he remarked, waving his cigar and expelling a long squirt of smoke from his unshaven lips. "Surfice it to say that I got everythin' that was comin' to me, an' then some, what with snakes and murskeeters, an' briers an' mud, an' hunger an' thirst an' heat. Wasn't there a wop named Pizarro or somethin' what got lost down in Florida? Well, he's got nothin' on me. I never want to see the dam' state again. But I'll go back if _you_ say so!" His small rat eyes rested musingly upon the river; he sucked thoughtfully at his cigar, hooked one soiled thumb into the armhole of his fancy vest and crossed his legs. "To resoom," he said cheerily; "I come out one day, half nood, onto the banks of the Miami River. The rest was a pipe after what I had went through. "I trimmed a guy at Miami, got clothes and railroad fare, an' ducked. "Now the valyble portion of my discourse is this here partial information concernin' what I seen--or rather what I run onto durin' my crool flight from my ree-lentless persecutors. "An' these here is the facts: There is, contrary to maps, Coast Survey guys, an' general opinion, a range of hills in Florida, made entirely of coquina. "It's a good big range, too, fifty miles long an' anywhere from one to five miles acrost. "An' what I've got to say is this: Into them there Coquina hills there still lives the expirin' remains of the cave-men--" "What!" I exclaimed incredulously.