y mudhooks onto him," growled Ben, "an' I'll let
Trim know whether I'll stan' it or not."

"There are people on the island besides ourselves," muttered young Smith,
getting close to Jack and Dick. "Maybe they own the calf."

"If you tell them anything about me," sputtered Billy, "I won't speak to
you again in a week."

Then there was more talk in Spanish and Bucephalus put his hands over his
ears and whistled.

"Mah wo'd! Ah done hear disreputable language in mah days, but nothin' to
compaiah with that!" he declared emphatically. "It ain't respectable. Ef
Ah meet de fellah wha' talk lak dat Ah's gwan to tell him wha' Ah done
thought ob him."

There was still more of the talk, and Ben Bowline doubled his fists and
said angrily:

"It's as bad to be told you're a liar in Spanish as it is in English or
French or Dutch or any other lingo, an' I'm not goin' to take it from
nobody. Just wait till I get hold----"

Dick and Jack were both laughing heartily now, much to young Smith's
amazement, Billy's surprise and the disgust of Ben Bowline, Bucephalus
looking on and wondering what had come over his "young gentlemen" as he
was accustomed to call them.

"What are you two fellows laughing at?" asked Billy.

"I don't see anything funny in it!" sputtered Ben.

"I think it's awful!" murmured Jesse W.

"Why, those are not men talking," laughed Dick.

"They aren't!" exclaimed Billy.

"Mebby dat am all imagination, sah!" added Bucephalus.

"What is it if it isn't men!" asked Ben.

"Parrots!" laughed Jack. "Don't you remember, you fellows, what we told
you happened to us the other day when we were ashore together, Dick and
I?"

"H'm! and I forgot all about it," chuckled Billy.

"Oh, that's different!" said J.W., greatly relieved.

"Parrots?" asked Ben. "Poll parrots? Well, I'll be keelhauled!"

"Mah we 'd! Ah knowed parrots could talk an' use de mos' obstreperous
vocabulary at dat," declared the negro cook, "but Ah done suspected dat
dey was men, fo' shuah Ah did."

The parrots, for such indeed they were, as all the party now realized,
continued to talk and scream and chatter, and in a short time the boys and
their companions caught sight of a number of them as they came out into a
more open bit of woods.

"We were a bit alarmed ourselves, as you may remember," said Jack, "when
we first heard them, and it was some little time before we realized that
they were not men."

"They have caught the talk of men who h