t will eat all the fruit from a
dozen trees in an hour. It merely stands on the ground, shakes the
tree with its beak until the fruit falls, and then gobbles it up.'

"I asked him what it lived on when there were no peaches to eat, but he
did not know. It did not matter, he added gloomily, it did damage
enough, and had just the day before cleaned off two of his very best
trees.

"For the next few days I wandered about, going to the edge of the
desert and wondering how I was going to get across the yellow sands
over which no traveler had ever journeyed far.

"One day as I sat under a tree on a favorite stone meditating I noticed
a large dark object coming through the air towards me. It was the
toucan. I kept still and watched him. He stopped over a peach tree
which grew at the bottom of an orchard not far off, and alighting on
the ground walked over and deliberately shook the tree. Down fell the
delicious fruit in a shower. Harder and harder he shook until not a
peach that was at all ripe remained. Then he walked around and
leisurely swallowed the peaches as a chicken swallows corn kernels.

"He had not finished before the farmer came running out with his wife
and sons, all beating tin pans and shouting. The toucan let them
approach quite close, and then made a sudden dive at them with his
wings down, rose in the air right over their heads and flew away with a
loud chuckling kind of noise that sounded like a laugh. The farmer and
his family fell over each other in their fright, and when they had
recovered their feet the bird was far away.

"It was all so funny that I had to laugh, and then I thought of a
scheme for getting across the desert."

CHAPTER XIII

That afternoon I went up the mountain sides for a short distance and
found some good reeds that would make a basket. It took me several
days to weave what I wanted. I made a basket five feet long by two and
a half feet wide, and put a false bottom in it, leaving a compartment
underneath deep enough for me to crawl into. I put a hinge on the side
of this bottom compartment so that I could let the side up and down,
and lock it from the inside. When the basket was finished I wove a
strong openwork cover for the top, leaving spaces just a little smaller
than a peach, and fastened it securely to the basket.

"I took my basket to the edge of the desert, hid it in a tree, and went
to purchase peaches enough from the nearest farmer to fill it. I