Why, it was evening almost before Andy realized it, so quickly had the hours sped along.  How proudly had his father asked all about the monoplane, which he examined with the most intense interest, knowing it to have been mostly made by the two enterprising Bird boys.

Prom the way in which he smiled and nodded his head after this survey it was evident that he was very well pleased with what they had done.  And he also made them tell all about that famous race through the air to the hitherto unsealed crown of Old Thunder Top, which he remembered very well.

“And now, let’s think of having a jolly little meal,” said Frank, as the shadows began to lengthen down below the lofty cliffs, which was a pretty good indication that night could not be far away.

“Count me in,” said Andy, jumping up, for it was his duty to get busy when the time came to make a fire and prepare a repast.  “I guess we’ve got coffee for a few times yet, and I smuggled a can of Boston baked beans along when Frank wasn’t looking, knowing that father used to be right fond of ’em.”

“Coffee!  Beans!  Why, you fairly take my breath away!” exclaimed the one who for so many months had been deprived of all the comforts of civilization and forced to sustain his life in the most primitive manner.

When supper was cooking the professor made some excuse to wander off.  Frank knew, though, what ailed him.

“It’s the aroma of that blessed coffee, that’s what,” he said to Andy, who had looked a little troubled at this action on the part of his father.  “It’s been so long since he’s smelled it that it just makes him wild.  I know, because I had a little experience that way myself once, only it was two weeks I had to go without when we were camping and not many months.  When supper’s ready he’ll come with a rush, mark me, Andy.”

And he proved to be a true prophet, for no sooner had Andy lifted up his voice to call that the meal was ready than the professor broke through the bushes and hastened to take his place.

Frank lost not a second in filling a tin cup of the amber liquid and handing it to the late prisoner of the valley.

He tasted and then nodded his head.

“Nectar for the gods, my boys!” he declared.  “One never knows how little things like this go to make up a portion of one’s life until a cruel fate has deprived him of them all.  And to think I have a boy so thoughtful as to fetch along a packet of smoking tobacco and a can of the real Boston baked beans.  Thank you, Frank, that’s a heaping pannikin you’ve given me, but I suspect I’m equal to the job.”

They made a happy trio as they ate and chatted and laughed.  Perhaps that was the first hearty laugh Professor Bird had given utterance to since the day he started in his ill-fated balloon from Colon on the Caribbean coast to cross the Isthmus of Panama.