CHAPTER XVI.
A SCREECHER FROM THE NORTH.
All of them awaited the verdict with bated breath. Jack was down on his back under the boat, and carefully examining the fracture made by the snag.
“We can mend it, all right,” he announced, as he finally snaked his way out.
A chorus of approval greeted the announcement.
“How long will it take us, do you think?” asked Herb, who looked relieved to know that, after all, his boat would not be lost.
“Oh! that depends. Perhaps by tonight it may be in apple-pie shape, good enough to hold out till we get to Tampa,” Jack replied.
“Say, looks like we might have the whole bally armada in the hands of the ship joiners at the same time,” chuckled Nick. “Because, you know, George and me want to get a new engine installed the worst kind, don’t we, George?”
The skipper of the Wireless grunted in reply; Nick was evidently running things now with regard to that change in motive power, and did not mean to let his mate draw back from his word.
“But first of all, we’ve got to drag the boat up further,” continued Jack. “You see, if I’ve got to work at that broken place for hours, I’m bound to have it more comfortable than now. Lying on my back would knock me out.”
Accordingly they all took hold again, after the tackle had been shifted. It was not so difficult a thing to do, with six sturdy fellows to pull a rope; and presently the Comfort was elevated at a point that would allow one to kneel under her keel.
Jack made his preparations, and set to work. With the willing Herb to assist in any way necessary, the others of course were not needed.
Josh amused himself after his favorite manner, studying up some new dishes with which he figured surprising his chums some fine day. George could always find plenty to do pottering with his engine, and trying to cure its faults; for hope dies hard in the young and sanguine heart.
Jimmy and Nick took to fishing, because that employment seemed to engross their every waking thought. When Jimmy started out, the fat boy grew uneasy; and before long he, too, paddled away in one of the small tenders.
“Be sure and don’t go out of sight of the smoke from the fire,” Jack had cautioned them both; and Josh agreed to make use of some pine wood he had picked up, in order to create a black smoke; for Florida pine is full of the resinous sap that burns fiercely, and makes a dense smudge.
Jimmy did not remain long in one place. He seemed very restless, as though he wanted to move about, in order to be on the lookout for a chance to make a grand haul. Nick followed from time to time, meaning to be an eyewitness to any remarkable event that took place.
“He’s hoping to get fast to one of them tarpon, that’s what,” was the conviction of the fat youth, who had discovered that the king fish of the coast was in evidence in those warm waters. “I just wish he would right now,” he went on, chuckling; “I’d give a whole heap to see Jimmy pulled around by one of them high skippers of tarpon. It’d curb that ambition of his, some, I guess now.”
And, singular to say, Nick’s wish was fated to be realized. Jimmy’s mullet bait was gorged by a tarpon about the middle of the morning. At the time the Irish boy chanced to be either half asleep or else thinking of something else. At any rate, the first thing he knew of the circumstance, and that he was fast to a streak of polished silver, was when the rod he was holding was almost jerked from his hands.
“Whoa, there, ye omadhaun!” shouted Jimmy, immediately bracing his feet so that he might not be pulled from the dinky outright.
Then something sprang from the water not fifty feet away. It was a lordly tarpon, shaking its head, as if hoping to get rid of the barbed hook.
A shriek from Jimmy, echoed by one from Nick, drew the attention of all the others. Even Jack came crawling out from under the motor boat to watch the sport.
It was certainly a great time Jimmy had. That little dinky was dragged around at a furious pace, now darting to the right, and presently whirled about to head toward the left, as some new whim seized upon the captive fish.
Pretty soon Jimmy seemed to be getting dizzy from the rapid evolutions.
“He’ll never tire that monster out!” cried Herb.
“And perhaps it might carry him out to sea, and lose him there!” suggested the cautious Josh.
“Well, even if he tired the fish out, it wouldn’t weigh more than a hundred pounds; so I think he’d better cut loose,” was Jack’s dictum.
Accordingly he made a megaphone out of his hands, and shouted:
“Better let him go free, Jimmy; he’ll upset you, and perhaps bite you after he gets you in the water!”
“Faith, what shall I be afther doing, then?” came back faintly.
“Cut loose! you’ve got a knife, haven’t you?” called George.
“But I’ll lose me line that way, and the hook in the bargain!” remonstrated the reluctant Irish boy.
“Well, better that than your life, or my boat,” George told him.
So poor Jimmy found himself compelled to creep forward, when the chance offered, and push the blade of the knife against the taut line. Of course it parted instantly; and he came near capsizing when the little dinky sprang up again, freed from the drag of the big fish.
The tarpon went speeding away toward the gulf, leaping madly out of the water now and then, as though still trying to shake that jewelry from its jaw, or else making sport of disconsolate Jimmy, who sat there casting yearning looks after his escaped prize.
He always maintained that it was a two hundred-and-thirty-five-pound fish, though just why he hit upon that odd figure Nick alone could guess. The jewfish he remembered had been calculated to tip the scales at two hundred and thirty pounds. And it is always the largest fish that gets away.
Well, after that disappointment Jimmy might have been pardoned had he given up for the day; but that was not his way. He kept at it all the blessed afternoon. Several bites rewarded his diligence, but he did not succeed in getting fast to another of the silver kings.
And, greatly to his disappointment, the evening came on with the grinning Nick still holding high record in the contest.
Jack had been quite as successful as he had ventured to hope. George and Herb both declared that he had patched the fracture in the ribs and planks of the Comfort in a truly shipshape manner; and that there could be no question about the repair holding, up to the time they expected reaching Tampa.
“Then we go on tomorrow, do we?” asked Nick, anxious to get Jimmy away from the tarpon temptation; for he feared the lucky Irish lad might sooner or later get hold of some monster, which would put his prize out of the running.
Jack said there was nothing to hinder; and with all of them, save perhaps Jimmy, feeling quite happy and contented, the night came on.
In the morning they were off again, and that day they saw the last of that weird region charted as the Ten Thousand Islands. None of them were sorry; indeed, the very monotony of those mangrove covered mud flats had begun to pall upon every member of the expedition.
When they began to see plumed palmetto trees along the shore, the sight brought forth cheers from several of the more joyous among the voyagers.
And it certainly looked more like life to note the buzzards floating overhead again, with pelicans skimming the waves out on the gulf, in search of their fish dinner. There were also many water turkeys, with their snake-like necks, and black cormorants swimming in the lagoons behind the keys.
Jack, who had read up on the subject, related how the Chinese fishermen make use of such birds as these latter, trained for the purpose, to do their fishing for them: a band being fastened around each creature’s neck, so that it can never swallow its capture, which is, of course taken possession of by the master.
“We want to make sure to get a good anchorage tonight,” Jack remarked to Herb; for the two boats were moving along close together, late that afternoon.
“Why so particular tonight; is it going to be any different from others?” asked the skipper of the Comfort.
“Well, I don’t just like the looks of that sky over yonder”—and Jack pointed to the southwest as he spoke. “We’ve been told that in nearly every case these Northers swoop down after the clouds roll up there, the wind changing to nor’west, and the cold increasing. There’s something in the air that makes me think we’re due right now for our first Norther.”
“But to Northern fellows that oughtn’t strike a wave of dread,” declared Herb. “We’re used to winter ice and snow. The thermometer down below zero never bothered me. Why should it down here, when it don’t even touch freezing?”
“Let’s wait and see,” laughed Jack. “After it comes, we’ll know more than we do now. But a harbor we must have. Keep your eye peeled for what looks like a good landing place, Herb.”
They found this presently, though the key was not so heavily wooded as Jack had hoped to find; and he did not think it would wholly break the force of the wind, should a gale come roaring down upon them during the night.
When they crawled under their blankets about ten, the sky was clouded over, but nothing else had come to pass. This condition of affairs puzzled Jack, who did not know what to think of it.
But when he was awakened later on by a dull roaring sound, not unlike the noise of a heavy freight train passing over a long trestle, he sprang up, understanding full well what it meant.
“Wake up, everybody; here comes your first Norther!” he shouted at the top of his young and healthy voice.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE SHELTER BACK OF THE KEY.
“Oh! what happened?” Nick was heard to call out, in a tremulous voice.
“Get up and hustle! Show a leg here, or you’ll be frozen in your blanket!” George shouted, excitedly, for his canvas tent was wabbling in the wind like a thing possessed.
Of course, those in the other boats had little need to worry, since their hunting cabins protected them in a great measure from the violence of the gale. The neglect of George to have the same sort of contrivance placed on the Wireless, for fear lest it might reduce the great speed of the boat, always cost him dear when night came, or a storm howled about their ears. One has to pay in some way or other for his whistle; and George was a “speed crank” without any doubt.
For a short time it was feared that the tent on the Wireless would actually blow away. Half dressed, the pair aboard hung on with might and main to save the canvas, Nick’s teeth chattering tremendously as he shivered in the rapidly falling temperature.
It certainly did get cold in a hurry, too. Jack would never more smile when he heard old “crackers” tell about the terrors of a Norther. Why, in spite of the protection of the cabin walls, the bitter wind seemed to penetrate to their very marrow.
“Say, Jimmy, this is mighty tough on George and Nick,” he remarked to his boatmate, when the wind had passed its worst stage, but the cold seemed to be on the increase.
“It do be the same; and ’tis myself that feels bad for thim this blissed minute,” the warm-hearted Irish lad answered, as he swung his arms back and forth to induce circulation, and bring a bit more comfort.
“Just as I feared, the growth ashore is too thin to fend off all the wind; and if this keeps up we’ll have the meanest night we ever struck,” Jack continued.
Jimmy knew from the signs that the skipper had an idea. He was used to reading Jack by now.
“What can we be afther doing, I dunno, Jack darlint?” he remarked, or rather shouted; for it was simply impossible to hold a conversation in ordinary tones as long as that howling wind kept shrieking through the mangroves and cypress trees near by.
“Get ashore, and throw up some sort of protection, behind which we can make our fire,” Jack answered, readily enough.
“Hurroo! that’s the ticket! Let’s be afther getting to worrk right away. Sure, annything is betther than howldin’ the fort aboard, and shakin’ enough to loosen ivery timber in the hull of the dandy little Tramp.”
Jimmy was always enthusiastic about everything he went about doing. Consequently, he started ashore immediately, with Jack trailing behind.
When George realized what his chums were doing, he made haste to join them, for he could not but understand that it was mostly on account of the unfortunates aboard the exposed Wireless that the effort to build a fire was attempted.
Many hands make light work; and as there happened to be plenty of wood available near by, a fire was soon blazing. Then Nick, unable to hold aloof any longer, came waddling ashore, to offer his services, when nearly everything had been completed.
Jack had found a means of building a wind shield out of various things, and in the shelter of this they hovered, keeping the fire going at top-notch speed.
That night seemed endless to several in the party. They huddled around, swathed in blankets like Esquimaux, and trying to sleep, though Nick was about the only fellow who managed to accomplish much in that line.
Fortunately it did not rain, which was rather an unusual thing, since these cold storms generally start out with a downpour, until the wind shifts into the northwest, when it clears, and turns bitterly severe.
But morning came at last, when they could see to improve the situation. After Josh had cooked the breakfast—and he had plenty of help on this occasion, since every one wanted to cling to the fire as close as possible—all felt better able to meet the situation.
“Nothing like a full stomach to make things look brighter,” commented Nick, sighing, as he scraped the frying pan for the last remnant of fried hominy.
The wind kept up all that day, so that the pilgrims found themselves actually stormbound. Jack would have made a try for another harbor of refuge, only it was so very rough between their key and the main shore that he doubted the ability of the speed-boat to make the passage without a spill; and surely a bird in the hand was better than two in the bush. They could not be sure about improving on their quarters by going further.
Another thing influenced him to remain where they were. Gradually but surely the wind was going down. The cold remained, but with a dying breeze it did not penetrate so much. It was decided that all of them but the crew of the Wireless should sleep aboard their boats on this night. George and Nick were made fairly comfortable by the fire back of the wind shield.
And as Jack had expected, during the night there came another shift of the wind. Following the natural course of the compass, it was in the northeast when dawn arrived, and would soon work around to the east. For, strange to say, down in this country, during the winter season at least, the southeast wind is the very finest that blows; whereas in most other places it has a reputation for being just the meanest known.
All of them were so dead for sleep that the next night passed very quickly. And when morning came the change in the temperature pleased them greatly.
“Let’s get a move on, fellows,” Jack said, after the customary attention had been given to taking care of the inner man. “We ought to make a big dent in the distance separating us from Meyers today.”
“And by the same token,” piped up Jimmy, eagerly, “I’m afther hearin’ that the fishing is mighty foine around this section.”
“Huh!” grunted Nick, scornfully; “when you beat that record I’ve hung up, just wake me, and let me know. Time enough then to get a hustle on. Just now it’s up to you, Jimmy, to do all the worrying. I’m going to take things easy after this.”
“All right, me bhoy, just do that same, and by the pipers it’s ye that will be hearin’ a cowld, dull thud, which will be that record droppin’ to the earth. Sure, it do be a long lane that has no turnin’; and sooner or later, belave me, ’twill be me day.”
They made a brave start. George was quite elated with the splendid way his engine worked, and frowned whenever Nick made out to mention that his word had been pledged about that change of motive power at Tampa.
Two hours later the inevitable came to pass.
“George has hauled up short, Jack!” Herb called out; for the Comfort was not a great distance behind the Tramp at the time, with the other boat, as usual, ahead.
“Perhaps waiting for us?” suggested Jack; but the smile on his face declared that he entertained different ideas about the stoppage.
“That may be,” replied Herb, skeptically; “but the chances are he’s bucking up against trouble again. Won’t we all be pleased as Punch when he does get a motor that can motor without eternally breaking down? There, Nick’s waving his red bandana, which I take it means they’ve broken down.”
And so it proved. A weak place had developed as usual, so that George would be compelled to spend an hour or two mending the same.
Herb generously offered to give him a tow; but this the proud spirit of George would not brook. It was bad enough having to suffer that ignominy when threatened with a storm, but when the gulf was smooth nothing could induce him to accept.
“You fellows go right along,” George called out; “and I’ll overtake you later.”
But neither Jack nor Herb would think of such a thing. If a heavy wind chanced to come up while the Wireless lay there, positively helpless, she would roll frightfully, and stand a chance of capsizing.
And so they simply hung around until the makeshift repairs had been completed, so that the speed boat could again proceed under her own power.
This lost them so much time that it was no longer possible to think of reaching the mouth of the Caloosahatchee River, and ascending as far as Meyers, that day. So they kept an eye out for a snug harbor, where they might pass the night.
The coast was not so desolate here as below. They had passed the settlement of Naples; and here and there could see where shacks, or more pretentious buildings, told of the presence of fruit or truck growers.
Finally, toward the middle of the afternoon, coming upon just the place that would afford them a good camping ground, the three boats pulled in.
Jack had noticed that Jimmy was showing signs of growing excitement as they proceeded to anchor. The Irish boy had been using the marine glasses with more or less eagerness; and no sooner was the boat made secure than he broke out with:
“Excuse me, if ye plase, Jack darlint, but I’ve a most pressin’ engagement this minute. I do be sayin’ me chanct to get aven with me rival.”
He was even at the time throwing a number of things into the little dinky, among others a section of rope. Nick, while not overhearing what was said, must have noticed the active preparations for a sudden campaign. His round, red face appeared over the side of the Wireless, as Jimmy pushed off and rowed furiously away.
“Now, what in the dickens does all that mean, Jack?” he asked. “Is Jimmy going to make the trip to Meyers in that dinky, or has he got an idea in his head he can bag something that will make me look like thirty cents?”
“I rather guess that’s just the sort of bee he’s got in his bonnet, Nick,” laughed Jack, “and if you look out yonder, where that reef lies in shallow water, with the little waves breaking over it, you’ll see what’s started him going.”
Nick hunted around until he found George’s glasses, which he clapped to his eyes, to burst out with a cry of astonishment and chagrin.
“Say, it must be a big porpoise that’s got stranded out there! My eye! look at it kick up the water, would you? Oh! if Jimmy ever gets a rope around that thing, and tries to ride it ashore, won’t he be in a peck of trouble, though? But when Jimmy sets out to do anything, you just can’t frighten him off; and, honest now, I believe he’s bent on doing that same mad caper!”
CHAPTER XVIII.
JIMMY FORGES TO THE FRONT.
None of them could have any doubt about it; for was not the excited Jimmy making toward that same reef with all speed? Determined to wrest the laurels from his rival, if it could possibly be done, he had only too eagerly seized upon this fine chance to get in some strenuous work.
Looking beyond, they could see that the stranded porpoise, if the object out yonder really proved to be such a creature, still threshed the water and strove to break away from its place of captivity.
“What ails the bally thing?” grumbled the anxious Nick. “Why don’t it back off, the same way it came on? That’s the only way it could get into deep water. Did you ever see such a looney, trying to keep on shoving ahead, when all the while it gets in more shallow water?”
“Huh! seems to me there are others!” chuckled Josh; “jewfish, for instance, don’t seem to have one bit more sense. Sometimes they get left on a shallow place, and kick like fun, while waiting for the tide to rise and help ’em off.”
“Ah! let up on that, Josh; ’taint fair to take his side all the time,” complained the fat boy, straining his eyes to follow the movement of his rival, now more than half way out to the reef.
“Well, we always stand up for the under dog; and just now Jimmy’s in that position,” continued Josh.
“Yes,” spoke up George, encouragingly, “and when you get there, Nick, as you may sooner or later, you’ll see how gladly we’ll all give you our sympathy, eh, boys?”
Nick refused to be comforted by the prospect.
“Hey! Jack,” he said, turning to the skipper of the Tramp, who seemed to be bending over his motor, as if about to turn his engine; for a sudden idea had come into his head, “is a porpoise a real fish, now?”
“Whatever makes you ask that?” demanded Herb.
“Oh! I want to know, that’s all,” replied Nick, coolly. “That Jimmy tries to just throw his old net over anything that creeps, swims or walks, and call it a fish. He tried it on us with his blessed old alligator, you remember, fellers; then, when we wouldn’t stand for that, don’t you know how he tried to hook up one of the sea cows they call a manatee, and make us take that? Now he’s after a porpoise; and if he keeps on he’d grab a hippopotamus, and try to bluff us at that. Anything that goes in water answers for Jimmy.”
“Well, if he gets a porpoise, he’s got a fish without any reason to kick over the traces, Nick, and don’t you forget that,” George declared.
“Say, where you going, Jack?” demanded Nick, suspiciously.
“Why, I thought I’d better take a little spin out there, to keep an eye on Jimmy,” replied the other.
“What for? You don’t think of lending him a hand, I hope? Remember, the rules of the game knocks all that sort of thing on the head,” Nick protested, vigorously.
“No danger of my forgetting,” laughed Jack. “But I happened to think how bold Jimmy can be, and wondered if he mightn’t get in trouble somehow.”
“That’s right, Jack,” spoke up George, himself a very rash fellow on occasion; “it’d be just like him to hitch on to that porpoise, and help work him loose. Then we’d see our poor chum going out to sea like a railroad limited express. And Jack, if you’ll allow me, I guess I’ll drop in, and keep you company.”
“Same here,” declared Herb, crawling aboard, as he pulled the Tramp close to the starboard quarter of the Comfort.
“Hey! wait for me, can’t you!” exclaimed Nick, all excitement now. “Who’s got as much interest in this business as me, tell me that? I ought to be along to judge if he takes his fish in fair play, you know.”
“Fair play!” jeered Josh, as he too slid into the other boat after Nick; “well, I like that, now, after the way you lugged that poor old weakened jewfish to camp. Any way Jimmy can grab his game will count; and you might as well make up your mind to it first as last, my boy.”
“Oh! don’t you get to bothering your head about me, Josh Purdue,” Nick went on to say, stoutly; “I’m a true sport, and can take my medicine when I have to, as good as the next one. And I guess I don’t give up easy, do I? But it ain’t time for the shoutin’ yet. Jimmy hasn’t got his porpoise; and it mebbe don’t weigh more’n two hundred and thirty pounds, either.”
Leaving the other two boats anchored in quiet water, Jack headed the Tramp for the reef, where the water was breaking softly over the submerged rocks; with the unfortunate porpoise floundering in a helpless manner, for the tide was almost at its lowest level.
Jimmy had by now arrived on the spot. He must have arranged his plan of campaign as he was rowing frantically out, for he lost no time in getting down to business.
Those who looked saw him push his way up to the reef after his usual bold fashion. If some water came aboard the little dinky, Jimmy gave the circumstance no heed. All he could see was that struggling monster of the deep, and the happy opportunity that had been thrown in his way whereby he might cut his rival out of the lead he had held so long.
For that joyous conclusion Jimmy was ready to take all sorts of chances.
“Look at him, getting right up alongside the kicker!” exclaimed Nick, with an expression of amazement on his rosy face; for he could not help admiring the nerve exhibited by his rival, even though deep down in his heart he hoped the other might fail to land the prize.
“Sure he is!” laughed Josh. “Why, just keep your eye peeled, Nick, old boy, and my word for it, you’ll see our little chum climb right on the back of that bucking broncho of the gulf, put a bridle in his mouth, and ride him home!”
“Oh! rats! you can’t get me to believe that!” Nick flashed back; and yet, despite his brave words, he watched the actions of the Irish lad with deep anxiety, as if believing that no one could tell what wonderful things Jimmy might not attempt.
“Look there, would you!” he exclaimed, a few seconds later; “what under the sun has Jimmy got now!”
“Seems to me like it’s our ax!” declared George, with a harsh laugh.
“Ax!” snorted the indignant Nick; “d’ye mean to tell me he expects to knock that poor porpoise on the head, just like they do steers at the stockyards; and then claim he caught him? Well, I like that, now!”
“It’s all in the game, Nick,” declared Herb, consolingly. “Remember, you didn’t use a fish hook and line to bag your big jewfish; just slung a rope around his gills, and walked away with him through the shallow water near the shore. I reckon even an ax might count, so long as he keeps the fish, and brings him in!”
“Sho!” Nick went on, as though disgusted; “but just think of getting a fish with such a tool, as if you were just chopping a tree!”
“Watch him, now, if you want to see how Jimmy goes at it; perhaps you may be only too glad to do the same thing later on, when you want to climb up and throw him off the first rung of the ladder,” Herb remarked.
“Yes,” said wise Josh, “it makes all the difference in the world what position you hold when condemning practices. What looks bad to you, seems fair and square to Jimmy right now.”
“Wow! what a crack that was!” George exclaimed, as Jimmy brought down the ax on the struggling fish.
“But he hasn’t got him yet, anyway,” muttered Nick, as they saw the water whipped into foam around the little, wabbling dinky boat occupied by Jimmy.
“He nearly took a header that time, let me tell you!” cried Herb.
“But he sticks to his job, all right!” laughed Jack. “See, he’s aiming to get in another crack, and there it goes. Whew! that was a stunner, though!”
“A regular sockdolager!” avowed Josh, who was apparently enjoying the circus first-rate.
“And it looks like it knocked the poor old porpoise out of the running,” commented Herb.
“That’s what it did!” George declared; “and there’s Jimmy trying to get a hitch with his rope around the thing’s tail. He’s gone and done it, as sure as you live! See him stop to wave his hand at us; and he’s got the widest grin on his face you ever saw. Victory comes sweet after having it rubbed in so long.”
“Huh! how d’ye know the bally old porpoise is goin’ to stand for more than my jewfish?” Nick grumbled; though his face began to wear a look that comes with chagrin and defeat; “and even if it does, that don’t wind things up. Ain’t I got just as much chance to bag something bigger before we haul up at New Orleans, tell me that, Josh Purdue?”
“Course you have, Nick, old top,” declared Josh, who hoped to see the rivalry kept up to the very last, since it was affording them all so much fun; “and we’ll back you for the boy who can do big stunts, once you wake up to it; eh, fellers?”
Jimmy was now starting to row back toward where the two other motor boats were at anchor. He made but slow progress of it, towing that now quiet captured porpoise; but the rules of the game prevented the others from giving him any sort of a lift.
Now and then the porpoise would get stranded in the shallow water, and at such times Jimmy was put to his wits’ ends to manage. But by slow degrees he succeeded in accomplishing the object he had in view.
Of course the others did not wait for him, but ran back to where the camp was to be made for the night. Josh was anxious to get ashore, and start a fire; for all of them confessed to being hungry. Nick only made one more remark on the way back, and that gave them an inkling of his ruling passion.
“I say, Jack, do you know whether a porpoise is good to eat?” he asked.
Jack replied that he had never heard of any one eating one, though perhaps the meat might appeal to certain appetites, like those of Esquimaux, or the Indians of Alaska.
“I don’t think we’ll bother about it, however,” Josh remarked, “because we’ve got plenty besides.”
Supper was well on the way when finally Jimmy landed, his beaming face wet with honest perspiration, and filled with the pride that followed his recent exploit.
They all came down to view his capture, and estimate the weight of the porpoise. The opinion seemed to be that, while a small one, it must weigh something close on to two hundred and fifty pounds; but Nick declared he would have to demand the proof before giving in.
CHAPTER XIX.
FROM TAMPA, NORTH.
Everybody was merry that night at supper but Nick. He tried not to show that he felt his sudden and unexpected drop from the top of the ladder to the lower rung; but it was hard work. His laughter was only a hollow mockery, so Josh declared; for the lean boy certainly did like to rub it into his fat chum when he had a chance.
Jimmy did not sleep well that night, though everything combined to make it a pleasant occasion for most of the others. Half a dozen times he would creep out of his blankets to see if the porpoise was still where he had tied it, and lying in shallow water. Evidently he feared lest some adventurous and hungry shark come nosing around, and attempt to run away with his prize, before its weight had been positively settled.
Once Jack heard him poking vigorously in the water with a pole, and muttering to himself.
“Want to take a lunch off me porpoise, is it ye’d be afther doin’, ye sly ould thafe of the worrld?” Jimmy was saying, as he punched vigorously.
“What is it?” asked Jack, looking over the side of the Tramp; as he happened to be up just then, to find out what his shipmate meant by getting out long before the first streak of daylight was due.
“Sure, it’s the bally ould crabs; they do be tryin’ to nibble at me fish; and it kapes me busy shooing the same away,” Jimmy answered back.
“But what’s the use bothering, since we don’t expect to eat the thing?” asked the other.
“Yes,” said Jimmy, quickly; “but they say ivery little bit helps; and wouldn’t I be the sad gossoon, now, if me fish weighed just the same as Nick’s, with some missing where thim sassy big crabs had had a breakfast. Sure, I want all I got, till we weigh the beauty. Afther that they can have it all, for what I care.”
“Oh! that’s where the shoe pinches, does it?” chuckled Jack. “Well, perhaps you’d better sit up, and keep watch, Jimmy. But please don’t shake the boat so much, and wake me again. It’s only three o’clock, with the old moon near the eastern horizon. Me to bed again for another snooze.”
When morning came Jimmy blandly informed Jack that he had actually spent the balance of the night with that pole in his hands, every now and then stirring the water in the vicinity of his prize.
“And I do be thinkin’,” he added, triumphantly, “that the crabs niver got aven a teenty bit of me bully ould fish. Now to rig up that balance once more, and settle the question once for all.”
“Now, just you hold your horses, there,” spoke up Nick, shaking his head grimly. “You’re wrong, that’s what. Even if your old porpoise does happen to be a little heavier than my splendid jewfish, don’t you think for a minute I’m going to give up the ship. I’ll be warm on your trail, old chap, to the last gasp!”
“Hear! hear!” cried Josh, clapping his hands in a manner which was calculated to encourage both stubborn contestants. “I’m backing Nick for a game one. He’s got the real bulldog grit, and don’t you forget it, boys! And even if Jimmy wins this time, he’ll have to watch out, or he’ll find himself left in the lurch.”
The rude balances were constructed as before, and after getting the porpoise ashore, it was duly weighed. Had it happened to be a close thing, Nick of a certainty would have entered a protest, and demanded that they tow the prize to the next town, where it could be tested on the dock with some capable scales. But it was quickly discovered that the porpoise was many pounds heavier than Nick’s record; indeed, they decided finally, after making all due allowances, to put it down positively at two hundred and seventy-five pounds.
Even Nick concurred in this, although with a wry face, for he had clung tenaciously to hope up to the very last moment. And so the crabs had a chance to feast on the bulky object after all; though Jack declared that if they had had the time he would have liked to try and render the porpoise for its oil, just to say he had secured a supply that way.
“And think of the numberless fine shoe laces we’re throwing away,” sighed Josh, after they had abandoned Jimmy’s prize.
After a fine run they made Miami, and spent a day in the enterprising little town; but all of them were anxious to be getting on, since they expected the next mail to be awaiting them at Tampa; and it had been a long time now since they had heard from the dear ones at home.
Tampa was reached without any further adventures, though Nick proved that his words had been no idle boast when saying that if Jimmy went up head in the little game of fish rivalry, he would leave no stone unturned in the effort to regain his lost laurels.
He never let a chance pass to put out one or more lines. And since size was now his one object in life, he no longer bothered with a rod and line. If the fellows wanted fish for eating purposes, somebody else must take the trouble to capture them, because he was too busy to bother with small fry.
So every night he would get out his shark hook, and set it in the best place he could find, where he believed he would have a chance to make a capture.
The tables had turned, and it was now Jimmy’s turn to strut around with that look of superiority on his face. He would watch Nick’s feverish labors, and just grin in a way that gave the rest of the boys great amusement.
But, although several sharks were caught, they seemed to be in league with Jimmy; for it was only the small fellows who took the hook. Nick’s excitement, when he was working his catch in by the aid of a snubbing post which Jack showed him how to make, was always succeeded by bitter disappointment, after he had discovered the disgusting size of the caught sea tiger.
Not one of them up to now had weighed anything near the required weight. But all the time the sanguine fat boy lived in hopes of some fine day making a record strike.
The others hoped he would, seeing how much his heart was set on proving himself true game. This rivalry would prove to be a great thing for Nick. It had started him into doing things that otherwise he would never have dreamed of attempting, being somewhat given to laziness, as so many boys built after his stout fashion seem to be. And it had made him think, too, which was a fine thing; throwing him on his own resources, as it were, and bringing out many hidden attributes which the others had never dreamed he possessed.
At Tampa Nick insisted that George keep his word. So, as the three boats had been laid up in the yard of a boat builder, a new motor was installed aboard the Wireless. George was so devoted to his boat and its speed record, that he refused to be away from the scene of operations for any length of time.
“One day around Tampa is enough for me, boys,” he had declared, when they tried to tempt him to accompany them on the second day. “I want to be around, and watch how they do this job. It would give me a bad jolt, you know, if I had to sacrifice speed for steadiness after all, when I’m hoping to combine both.”
“Yes,” laughed Josh, “it’d sure break George’s heart if he couldn’t just shoot through the water like an arrow. If he had his way he’d go at about the rate of ninety miles an hour.”
“Make it an even hundred, Josh, while you’re about it,” George remarked, calmly; and meant it, too.
A number of days were passed in the hustling city on Tampa Bay. Jack had always been anxious to see the place; and during the time of their enforced stay they certainly took in every point of interest worth observing.
And of course the Comfort was duly repaired in a proper manner while the opportunity offered. The boat builder complimented Jack on having done such a reliable job under such difficult conditions. He declared that the chances were, the repairs would have held out through the whole cruise, though it was best that they have the hole obliterated in shipshape style once for all.
But all of them were really glad when, one fine morning, after another Norther had blown itself out, and the big bay calmed down, the little flotilla of three motor boats started away from Tampa, headed south, so as to get around the end of the Pinellas Peninsula.
Nick especially was sighing for new chances to show what he could do in the fishing line.
“There must be sharks upwards of three hundred pounds and more that will take my hook,” he declared, stoutly, to George, as they boomed along down the bay; “and in good time I’m going to show you something that will make you sit up and take notice, see if I don’t.”
“Say, she runs like oiled silk!” exclaimed the skipper of the new Wireless; and from this remark Nick realized that, according to George, all his affairs were as a mere dot compared with the great question as to what the new motor would do.
After trying the boat in various ways, George expressed himself as satisfied that he had made a good thing when he decided to have the engine changed. And all the others began to hope that the troubles of the speed boat skipper might now be in the past.
Tampa Bay is so big that the motor boats felt the swell almost as much as though they were upon the gulf itself. And that afternoon, when, after passing sharply to the right, they placed Long Key between themselves and the sea, all expressed themselves as pleased at the change.
Here they made out to pass the night. Nick could hardly wait until the anchors had been dropped before he was begging Jack to go off with the castnet, and get him a supply of mullet for bait, so he could begin his fishing operations. And as Jack was feeling that a supper of mullet would taste rather good, if so be the jumping fish proved to be plentiful, he did not have to be coaxed long.
Consequently the shark line was soon doing business at the old stand; and as usual there arose a wordy war between the two rivals concerning the finish of the game; each feeling stoutly confident that in the end he would be in a condition to carry off the prize.
CHAPTER XX.
THE SHARK FISHERMAN.
“How long have we got before we ought to be home?” asked Herb, that night, as they prepared to camp ashore.
“Nearly three weeks left of our time,” remarked Josh, sadly; for, much as they wanted to see the dear ones, they would all be sorry when the vacation had reached its end, and once more they must take up school duties at home.
“But looky here,” piped up Nick, “my dad wrote me that they’d had a bad hitch about building the high school again. Seems like there was a labor strike that tied up everything. It ain’t settled yet, he says, and if it ain’t done soon, why, the chances are there won’t be any session at all this Spring, because they don’t know just where to house us!”
“Glory be!” cried Jimmy; “oh! what an illegant toime we could be afther having, down in this cruiser’s paradise, if so be thim laborin’ men only hold the fort a little longer!”
He voiced the sentiment that filled every heart, although no one else had spoken a word as yet.
“That would be too good to be true,” Jack laughed, shaking his head.
“Yes, and we mustn’t let the idea get hold of us, because we’d only be disappointed all the more,” Herb remarked.
“But we’ll know by the time we get to New Orleans, won’t we?” demanded Nick, with set jaws, and a flash to his blue eyes; “because, you see, I’m interested more’n the rest of you.”
“Say ye so?” burst out Jimmy, wickedly, and chuckling under his breath.
“Because it would give me plenty of time to burst bubbles that are floating around here, and establish a new record,” Nick went on, pugnaciously.
“Then, by the powers,” Jimmy declared, “I do be hopin’ that we spind the whole bally winter down here. It amuses me to see ye worrk, Nick. An’, by the same token, it’s doin’ ye a hape of good in the bargain, so it is.”
They had reached Cedar Keys, and everything was going well. George still found more or less reason to congratulate himself on his wisdom in making that change in his motive power. Now and then Jack saw him pondering, and understood that there was a fly in the ointment somewhere; but George had said nothing, and they could only hazard a guess as to whether it might be a diminution of speed, or the old haunting fear of a breakdown still gripping his heart.
“Where do we strike next for mail?” asked Herb, the night after leaving the city on the key, when, after passing the mouth of the famous Suwannee River, they had pulled up back of a friendly key.
“Pensacola is our next port; and I hope we find more letters waiting for us than there were here,” George replied.
“Now, that’s quare,” remarked Jimmy, with a twinkle in his eye; “when ivery one of us got a letter from the folks back home. But I do be fearin’ the little girlie with the rosy cheeks, and the dimple in her chin forgot to write that toime.”
“Well, what’s that to anybody but me?” said George, facing them all boldly.
The conversation immediately switched to another subject, for George was rather touchy about having his private affairs talked about by his chums. Had it been Nick, now, or even Jimmy, they would have answered back in the same humor, and the fun waxed fast and furious.
But at the time Nick was busy with that shark line of his. He fancied that as the tide came in and went out through what might be called an inlet, always with more or less confusion, there was a pretty good chance to hook one of the sea tigers, if only he took pains.
“We’ve changed our course again, haven’t we, Jack?” Herb asked.
“That’s so,” came the reply; “you see, the coast no longer runs nearly north and south here, but turns to the west. And if one of those old Northers bursts on us now, why, we’ll get it from land side instead of the gulf; unless it whirls around, something these winter blows seldom do; because, you see, they don’t happen to be of the tornado, or hurricane type, just straight wind storms.”
Jack was always a fund of information to his mates. He studied things at every opportunity, and never forgot a fact he had learned. And it was surprising how the others had come by degrees to depend on him in all sorts of emergencies.
“I do be glad, Jack, darlint,” remarked Jimmy, just then, “that ye make Nick put on a loife preserver ivery toime he do be going in that cranky dinky, to carry out his baited shark hook. It’s him that is so clumsy, the boat looks like ’twould turrn over at any minute, so it does. And he so fat and juicy, how do we know some hungry shark mightn’t loike to take a bite out of him? Look now at the gossoon, would ye, and how he worrks? In all me experience I niver yit saw such a change as there has been in our Nick.”
“Yes, that’s so,” laughed Herb. “You know, they say competition is the life of trade; and it seems to be putting a good lot of life in Nick Longfellow. Why, he jumps around now like nobody ever saw him do before. If this keeps up long, he’ll be able to play on our baseball team next season. Wow! just imagine the Ice Wagon galloping across centre to grab a long fly!”
Meanwhile, the object of all this talk was paying strict attention to business. He had been shark fishing so many times now that he seemed to have the whole thing down to a fine science. After baiting his bog hook, with its attendant chain, he dropped it in a promising place. Then he made for the shore, paying out the stout line as he went most carefully.
Once on the sandy strip of beach, Nick fastened the rope to the nearest tree he could find, first taking a couple of hitches around a stake he had driven in deeply, not far from the water’s edge, and which was to serve as a snubbing post, in case he were lucky enough to make a strike.
“It’s very pat,” remarked Jack, when the stout youth rejoined the group about the fire, “that if any of us want to know about sharks, their habits, and how best to get the pirates of the sea ashore, we’ve got to go to Nick here.”
“Yes,” spoke up George, “he ought to be a walking dictionary of terms; because he’s always asking questions of every cracker and sponger we meet. I honestly believe, boys, he keeps a shark book, and that he’s got an idea of writing the family tree up some day.”
“Oh! come off,” grinned Nick; “after I’ve hauled a dandy weighing about half a ton on shore, and showed you what I can do, I guess the whole business can go hang, for all of me. What use are they, anyhow? You can’t eat ’em.”
“That’s the way Nick always judges things,” declared George. “If they don’t happen to be good for food, he’s got mighty little use for the same.”
“I ain’t denying it, am I?” queried the other, good-naturedly. “What are we here for, anyway, but to eat our way through this dreary old world? Of course, don’t go and think I believe eating’s the only thing worth living for; but it cuts a big figure with me. Guess I was born half starved, and I’ve been tryin’ all I knew how ever since to make it up.”
“And by the powers, ye look that happy now, I be afther thinkin’ ye must expect to pull in the champion fish this same night,” Jimmy commented.
“Well, I’ve got a hunch that something is about due,” Nick replied, confidently. “There’s a fishy smell about this place, seems to me; and I just reckon that in times past many a dandy old shark has been yanked up on this same beach. That tideway looked good to me, too; and by now, as Jack said, I ought to know something about the hungry crew. Just wait and see what happens, that’s all.”
Jimmy became a little uneasy. Perhaps it was in the air that his day to fall had come around in due time. He cast frequent glances over toward the snubbing post as the evening drew on, with twilight succeeding the setting of the sun.
Nick had heard Jack telling how he went pickerel fishing on the ice one winter, and the methods of telling when a fish took the hook appealed to him. Consequently he employed the same sort of tactics when in pursuit of nobler game.
“For, you see, they call a pickerel or a pike a fresh-water shark,” he had explained, when first testing the plan; “and what is good for one, ought to work with the other.”
At the top of the snubbing post he had fastened an iron ring. The rope passed through this, being secured by a staple that could be easily dislodged, as it was intended for only temporary use.
Back of the post the line was coiled up several times, and a white rag fastened to it at a certain point. When a shark carried off the baited hook, this slack would quickly pass through the ring at the top of the stout post, so that the flag must mount upward, and signal to the alert fisherman that he had made a strike; when he could hasten to attend to his captive.
They were eating supper, as the night closed in. Nick had seated himself in a comfortable position, where he might occasionally raise his eyes, and by a turn of the head look off in the direction where his trap was laid.
During the earlier part of the meal he had paid strict attention to business, and glanced that way about once a minute faithfully. But as the spirit of feasting took a firmer clutch upon his soul, the fat boy began to forget.
Not so Jimmy. He had taken up his quarters so that he might observe the goings on at the snubbing post without even turning his head. And as he munched away at what he had on his tin platter, the Irish lad kept a close watch for the flaunting of the tell-tale signal.
Jack saw this, and he knew that all he had to do in order to keep fully posted as to the way things were working, was to watch Jimmy, whose freckled face would serve as a thermometer.
And after a while, when it was almost pitch-dark around the camp on the edge of the water, he discovered that Jimmy was staring at the snubbing post as though fascinated. His lips were working, too, though apparently he was having a hard time trying to speak, and tell his rival that the trap was working.
But Jimmy was clean-cut and generous, even to one with whom he had entered into a contest for supremacy; and presently he burst forth.
“Would ye be afther getting a move on, Nick?” he exclaimed. “There’s the flag a flutterin’ on the top of the post like a signal man wigwaggin’ in the Boy Scouts troop! And by the powers, it’s gone now, pulled clane out of the socket. Be off with ye; for, by the same token, ye’ve cotched the granddaddy of all the sharrks, I do belave!”
CHAPTER XXI.
VICTORY COMES TO NICK.
“Whoop! here I go, fellers!” shouted Nick, as, scrambling awkwardly to his feet, he hurried along the beach toward the spot where he had left his shark line.
Of course the rest hastened to follow after him. They found the fat boy bending down and feeling of the taut rope.
“Gee whittaker! but I’ve caught the biggest ever, I do believe!” Nick was crying. “Just feel that line, would you? Acts like it had hold of a house, with the tide running out. Say, it’ll take me all night to get that monster ashore; but I’ll do it; you hear me warble, Jimmy, I’ll do it!”
“Good for you, Nick!” laughed Jack.
“We’ll back you up to win out, if you only keep everlastingly at it,” remarked Herb.
“And don’t be afther forgettin’ the rules of the game, all of ye,” warned Jimmy. “Nobody must put a finger on the loine to hilp Nick. I want to see him have fair play, so I do. And, by the same token, if he bates me by three hundred pounds, I’ll be the firrst gossoon to congratulate him on his success. You know that, boys.”
“Sure we do, Jimmy,” spoke up George.
“It wouldn’t be like you not to do the same,” declared Josh.
“You know what you’ve just got to do, Nick,” remarked Jack.
“Guess I do,” chuckled the owner of the outfit, as he looked eagerly out over the darkening water to that point toward which the taut line seemed to extend; but if he entertained a faint hope that the prisoner would leap into view while trying to get rid of the steel barb, he mistook the nature of the shark, which bores deep, and tries to do by main strength what a tarpon, a trout, a salmon or a black bass attempts by that upward fling, and shake of the head.
“He’s going it pretty furious right now,” Josh observed.
“Yes, and the harder he pulls the better,” Nick said. “That’ll help to tire the old chap out, and make it easier for poor me to get him ashore, foot by foot, by making use of my snubbing post here. But let’s go back and finish our supper, boys. If the hook holds, and the rope is as good as I think, he’ll be here tugging away an hour from now, just as much as he is now.”
“That’s where your head’s level, Nick,” commented Jack.
And so the whole party wended their way back to where the camp-fire blazed on the shore. Here the pleasant task of finishing their meal was once more resumed. Some of them thought Nick was really devouring even more than usual, though that might be hard to believe.
“He wants to get his strength up to top-notch!” laughed Herb.
“Well,” observed Nick, calmly, as he reached deliberately over, and took the last helping of Boston baked beans from the tin kettle in which they had been heated for the meal; “I hate to see things go to waste; and there are some fellers around who don’t seem to know what’s good.”
“I’ve noticed,” Josh remarked, drily, “that you don’t mind how much goes to your waist, all right.”
Nick only groaned at the pun, and went on cleaning out his platter, as though he believed in always laying in a healthy supply of food, since nobody could tell when another chance might come around.
Afterwards they lay about the camp and told stories, joked and even sang school songs. Nick seemed in no great hurry to take up the task that awaited him. He knew from former experiences just what it meant. But that the subject was on his mind all the while was made manifest from what he said.
“Jack, I want to ask you a question!” he began.
“Well, fire away, then,” suggested the other, with a nod of invitation.
“If, now, this fellow at the end of my line turns out to be so heavy that I just can’t budge him, when I get the chump at the edge of the water, would it be breaking the rules if I borrowed that block and tackle to help yank him out, so you can all see him, and estimate his weight?”
“How about that, fellows?” asked Jack, looking around with a wink toward the other chums.
“Why, of course he can make use of any means, so long as no other person lends a hand to assist him,” George gave as his opinion.
“That’s what!” Josh added.
“If he goes and gets the falls and fixes the whole blooming business himself, of course he’s got the right to do it,” declared Herb.
“And I do be saying that it’s a clever schame, that does Nick credit,” was the verdict of Jimmy.
“That settles it, then, Nick,” Jack decided. “It’s unanimous, you hear; and if you want, you can go and get the block and tackle arranged right now.”
“Oh! do you think, then, I’ll surely need it, Jack?” asked the fat boy, trembling with joyous anticipations; for from the tenor of Jack’s words he expected that they all believed he had caught the biggest of sharks, one that would make that little porpoise of Jimmy’s look like a baby.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if you did,” Jack replied, with a reassuring nod.
Accordingly, after he had cleaned off his pannikin, and not a second sooner, Nick hunted up the rope and blocks with which they had hauled the Comfort out on skids at the time of her accident.
By a skillful use of such an apparatus, one man’s strength is made equal to that of several; and the boys had learned this fact through actual experience.
“Let us know when you expect to get busy,” called out Herb, as Nick went off with the falls.
“Yes, because we want to enjoy it all, you know, Nick,” sang out George.
Perhaps half an hour passed, with the fat boy busily engaged getting his apparatus ready. Then they heard him give a call.
“Hi! hello, there! fellers; suppose somebody starts a fire agoing for me here; that’s allowable, ain’t it, Jack?” he demanded.
“Why, of course, since it hasn’t anything to do with getting the shark ashore,” the one addressed responded, as all of them jumped up.
“I’m ready to begin yanking him in now; but it’s so pesky gloomy I ain’t able to see just right,” Nick continued. “It’d be a shame now if I lost this dandy chap just because I didn’t see how to work him.”
Some of the boys gathered dead leaf stalks from under a nearby palmetto, and in next to no time they had a fine, ruddy blaze crackling close by the spot where Nick was standing, his shirt sleeves rolled up, and an air of grim determination about his whole person.
The first thing he did was to make sure the rope went twice around the snubbing post, so that he might always have a hitch. Then he fastened the end of the rope belonging to the falls to the strained fish line, a dozen feet beyond the snubbing post.
His operations were watched with considerable interest by his mates, who realized that quite a transformation was rapidly taking place in the character of the once placid and indolent fat boy.
“Here goes, then!” exclaimed Nick, as he threw his full weight on the rope that went through the several blocks.
They could hear him grunting at a great rate, which indicated what an effort it was to get the shark started shoreward against his will.
“Bully! he’s beginning to make it!” whooped George, greatly excited.
“Hurrah for Nick!” shouted Josh.
“Walk away with it, me bhoy!” cried Jimmy, as though quite forgetting that success for Nick meant defeat for him.
The stout fisherman was indeed doing just what Jimmy advised, and walking away with things. When he had gone as far as he could, he managed to whip the rope around some object. Then, returning to the now slack fishing line, above the spot where he had fastened the falls, he drew it taut around the snubbing post.
“He gained at least ten feet that time,” declared Jack.
“But, oh! my! ain’t the old terror mad, though?” exclaimed George. “Just see how he pulls, would you, boys?”
“Give him another turn, Nick,” advised Jack.
Unfastening the falls, Nick took the second hitch, and as before this was some distance below the snubbing post.
Again he bent his stout back, and, aided by the tackle, he succeeded in bringing the struggling sea monster closer in to the shore.
Everything was working smoothly, and by the time he had repeated his effort a good many times they could see from the terrific splashing that the prisoner was already in shoal water.
“Do you think I’m going to get him?” gasped poor, winded Nick, as he wiped his streaming forehead, and tried to get ready for the hardest tug of all; for, with a dead weight on the sand to haul, he could no longer count on the buoyancy of the water.
“Well, I should smile, yes,” declared George. “At him again, Ginger; never say die! Set ’em up in the other alley! This is a great treat to us, Nick, I tell you!”
But Nick was already busy. With the rope over his shoulder, and his toes digging in the sand, he tugged away like a good fellow, gaining inch by inch. This time he succeeded in dragging the shark all the way out of the water, so that it lay exposed to their view.
“Hurroo! he done it!” shouted Jimmy, with an utter disregard for the rules of grammar, that would have horrified his teachers, had any of them heard him; but Jimmy had one set of rules to mark his vacation manners, and another covering his connection with the seats of learning; and when he wished could talk just as correctly as the next one.
They gathered around, full of wonder at the size and ferocity of the monster, that even then lay there on the sand, snapping savagely at everything.
“Will it beat Jimmy’s porpoise?” asked Nick, proudly.
“Half again as heavy!” declared Jack; “for I reckon it must weigh all of four hundred pounds.”