"You presoom morn's good for you, sonny. Don't suppose 'cos you bin to the Orange River you know everything. The pig didn't climb up; he jes' dropped in on passin'; paid a sort of flying visit. That nest's as big as a cart wheel, and if you stand below and look up the trunk it shuts out the sky, while down below there's bones enough, and of sorts, to build up the skelingtons of a entire museum. That pair of eagles used that nest going on for fifteen years, and each year when the young hatch out they kill off more dassies and cats and blue-boks than you could eat in a year." "You are welcome to the cats, Abe." "Yes, sir. Them eagles have buried, I reckon, as many as two thousand animiles in that leaf-mould cemingtary below the big tree. Well! Grub being skerce, I had a fancy to bury them young squabs of eagles, by way of satisfying my own yearning for food, and giving the ole hook-beaked pirates a hint that they hadn't the sole right over the earth and air. Sonny, that's a big tree, and it took me a fortnight to climb up." "That was quick!" "I've seen quicker climbin', but taking the size of the tree and the height of it--maybe, five hundred feet!" "I thought the height to the nest was about sixty feet?" "Have you clomb that tree?" "No, Abe." "Well, I have; and if it's not a mile high, it's high enuf when you're up aloft, with nothing to keep you from adding your bones to the pile below but an iron spike no bigger'n a nail. I camped out one day at the bottom of the tree, and it was mighty lonesome, when the wind came whisperin' round the trees, and dark shadows peeped from behin' the rocks, while up above the she-eagle would hiss at her mate. For about two days they took no heed of me, but the fifth day, when I was sprawling half-way up, with a looped _rheim_ round the tree, the ole she-bird took a squint at me over the nest, and flopped down to the lowest bough, where she watched me under her brows drive in a three-inch nail. Two inches I druv it in, and when I lowered myself for another, she jes' dropped down, clawing to the tree with her long hooked toes, and yanked that nail out." "Abe Pike!" "Yes, sir; she jes' grabbed hole of it, give it a wrench, and out it come. Then she fetched a yell loud enough almost to split the tree, and went off. Nex' mornin', believe me, there was that nail, and five others, outside the door! Them eagles had fetched them up to give notice it was no good. They're mighty strong in the beak, is eagles," said Abe, pouring out the coffee. "But truth is stronger, eh?"