Mrs. Rushton gasped with astonishment. It was an unusual thing for Aaron Rushton to let himself go in this manner.
“Why, what on earth is the matter?” she asked.
“Matter enough!” replied Aaron, beginning to pace the floor. “The best news I’ve heard for years!”
“Has any one left you a legacy?” she queried, not knowing of anything else that could cause him such joyous emotion.
“No such luck as that,” he replied, “but it may amount to the same thing in the long run.”
He sat down again, fixed his glasses on the bridge of his nose and again ran over the contents of the letter.
“For goodness’ sake, Aaron, don’t keep me on tenter-hooks!” cried Mrs. Rushton, no longer able to restrain her curiosity. “What can Teddy have to say that makes you feel so good?”
“Here,” he replied, thrusting the letter into her hand, “read it for yourself.”
She took it, while he resumed his pacing, and101for the first time in years he actually hummed a tune.
“A chest of gold!” he muttered to himself. “Twelve thousand dollars!”
Mrs. Rushton hurriedly ran over the first few lines of the letter. Then she uttered a frightened exclamation and her cheeks grew pale. She had reached the part where Teddy told of Fred’s daring exploit in diving overboard to rescue Ross.
“A shark!” she exclaimed. “And my Fred in the water!”
“Bother the shark,” cried Aaron impatiently. “It didn’t bite him, did it?”
“No, but it might have,” returned Fred’s mother, in tones that were a blending of pride and terror. “My brave, rash boy!”
“Your ‘brave, rash boy’ is all right,” retorted Aaron. “Get on to the really important part of the letter.”
Mrs. Rushton darted an indignant glance at her brother-in-law, but went on, her eyes shining and her breath coming fast. When she had finished she was almost as excited as Aaron Rushton himself.
They looked at each other in mutual congratulation, he rejoicing in the unexpected windfall, she exulting in the part her boys had played in the affair.
At that moment Mr. Mansfield Rushton, returning102from business, strode into the room. He tossed his hat on a chair and greeted his wife affectionately.
“You seem to be conducting a correspondence school, judging from the letters on hand,” he said gaily.
He seemed to bring a flood of sunshine with him, and it was easy to see where Fred and Teddy got their high spirits and joyous outlook on life.
“You’d never guess what’s happened, Mansfield!” cried his wife. “We’ve just got letters from the boys and there’s the greatest news,” she added proudly.
“Let’s see them,” he said with quick interest.
“Read this one first,” she said, thrusting Teddy’s letter into his hand.
“Why!” he said in surprise, as he glanced at the address, “this is directed to Aaron.”
“Yes,” Mrs. Rushton replied. She could not forbear the thrust and added: “Aaron thought it was an apology.”
Aaron Rushton squirmed in his chair a little uncomfortably.
“Never mind what I thought,” he growled. “Go ahead, Mansfield, and then we’ll talk the matter over.”
Mansfield Rushton’s quick eye ran rapidly over the lines while the others watched him.
“Hurrah for Fred and Teddy!” he cried at the103end. “They’re boys worth having, eh, Agnes? What’s your opinion, Aaron?” he added slyly.
“They’ve done very well in this case,” his brother was forced to admit, though it cost him a pang. “If this thing really pans out as I hope it will, I’ll see that they get a liberal share of what they turn up.”
“Oh, they’ll get all the pay they want in the fun of hunting for it,” laughed their father. “I know if I were their age, there’d be nothing that would suit me better than searching for hidden gold. I’m so much of a boy even now, that if I were down there I’d go into the thing with the same zest as the boys themselves.”
“I’m going to write to them this very night,” said Aaron, “and send them a little money for current expenses. They may run across somebody who can give them some information, and there’s nothing like a little money to make people talk.”
“Well, I certainly hope you get this, Aaron,” said his brother heartily. “Twelve thousand dollars is a whole lot of money.”
“It certainly is in these hard times,” answered Aaron. “I’ve been hit rather hard in some of my investments lately, and this would do a good deal toward helping me out of the hole.”
“How is it that you never happened to mention this matter to me?” asked Mansfield. “I never104heard you speak of Montgomery or of any money that he owed you.”
“It was a long time ago, when I lent it to him,” returned Aaron. “All of fifteen years, I reckon.”
“It seems to me that it was a good deal to put into one loan,” remarked Mansfield. “What security did he offer?”
“It wasn’t a matter of security, so much as it was of friendship and gratitude,” was the answer. “James Montgomery was one of the most upright men I ever met. His word was his bond, and when he borrowed money it was his character that was the best collateral.
“He had lent me money when I was struggling to get ahead in the world. I had expanded too rapidly in my desire to get ahead, and I was so tied up and so in need of ready cash that I was right on the brink of failure. I couldn’t get a loan from the banks, and I was almost in despair when I applied to James Montgomery. He went over my affairs with me, saw that I was really solvent, and that the trouble was only that immediate cash was needed to pull me through.
“He was doing well in business then, and he lent me the money and gave me all the time I needed to pay it back. It wasn’t long before I was on my feet again, and the first thing I did was to pay him back the full amount with interest.
“I vowed to myself then, that if the chance ever105offered, I’d do the same by him as he had done by me. And it wasn’t a meaningless vow, for I’ve never felt more warmly toward any one outside my own people before or since.
“It was some years, though, before I got my chance. Then I learned that he was in straits. He had built up a big business, but hard times came and squeezed him, and a big bank failure put the finishing touch to his ruin.
“I didn’t know of his predicament until it was too late to save him. But after he had recovered from the illness that followed his failure, I went to him and offered him as much money as he needed to start over again. His wife had a little property on the coast of Canada and with enough money to develop it, it promised to yield big returns. All told, I lent him about twelve thousand dollars.
“He paid the interest promptly every six months, and I never worried about the principal. I was sure if he lived that I’d get it back, and if he died, I’d charge it up to profit and loss.”
“I notice that Teddy says in his letter you refused to take the property he left as payment for your debt,” said Mrs. Rushton. “I think that was fine of you, Aaron.”
“I don’t prey on widows and orphans,” replied Aaron, dismissing the matter with a curt wave of the hand. “Least of all, on the widow and orphan of James Montgomery.”
106“But didn’t you hear of this chest of gold at the time Mrs. Montgomery wrote to you?” asked Mrs. Rushton.
“Only in a vague and jumbled way,” answered Aaron. “She was so much upset and distressed that I couldn’t make much of her letter. I gathered that he had taken a box containing a large amount of money aboard a coastwise craft, and that he had been found later drifting in an open boat. He had been wounded, and the presumption was, of course, that he had been assaulted and robbed of the money. But, of course, I concluded, as I suppose every one else did, that the money had been divided and spent. At any rate, I gave it up for gone from that moment.”
“Did you follow the matter up in any way?” asked his brother.
“Not to any great extent,” was the answer. “I sent a specialist up to Canada to see if he could do anything toward getting back poor Montgomery’s reason, and I offered a reward for the discovery and arrest of the thieves. But nothing came of it, and after Montgomery died a year or so later, I gave the matter up. I haven’t thought of it for a long time, until this letter came to-day.”
“Well, it looks as though there is a chance at least of getting the gold,” commented Mansfield Rushton.
“After all these years!” added Mrs. Rushton,107whose imagination had been captured by the romance and tragedy of the story.
“Of course, it’s only a chance,” said Aaron, on whom doubts began to crowd after the first exhilaration. “They’re a long way off from finding it yet. They have only the most slender kind of clues.”
“I believe they’ll do it,” said Mansfield, buoyantly. “Those boys seem to have a knack of getting what they go after.”
“Yes,” chimed in his wife, her face lighting up, “look at the way they exposed that masquerade of the ghost out on the Garwood ranch this summer. And think how cleverly they got on the trail of the tramps who stole your watch.”
“Ye-es,” assented Aaron slowly, as though the concession was wrenched from him. “They do seem to get there one way or the other. I don’t know whether it’s because they’re smart or lucky.”
“They’re both,” said Mrs. Rushton proudly.
When the boys woke the morning after their adventure, their first thought was of the weather. They had set their hearts on taking the trip over to Milton to call on Mark Taylor and they would have been sorely disappointed at any indication of a storm.
But they could have spared their worry. There was not a cloud in the sky, the sun was rising brilliantly in the east, and the waves fell in a soft monotonous murmur at the foot of the lighthouse.
“It’s going to be a dandy day,” reported Teddy gleefully, as he came back from the window. “Get up there, you sleepy heads,” he commanded, with the conscious virtue of the one who rises first.
Three rumpled heads turned on the pillows of the various cots in the big room where the boys slept. A well-aimed pillow caught one of them plump and full, and caused a hasty withdrawal beneath the sheet.
“Cut out the rough house, or I’ll get up there and fan you,” came the drowsy voice of Bill, who happened to be the victim.
109“No danger,” jeered Teddy. “You haven’t ambition enough to make a move.”
“I haven’t had half sleep enough,” yawned Fred. “Why don’t you get up in the middle of the night and be done with it?”
“‘’Tis the voice of the sluggard, I hear him complain,’” quoted his brother. “I’d hate to be as lazy as this bunch of hoboes. If you don’t hurry, I’ll go out and find that chest of gold all by my lonesome.”
The mention of the gold had a magical effect. It acted like a dousing of cold water. In a moment the boys were on their feet and hurrying into their clothes.
“By ginger! I hadn’t had time to think of that,” remarked Bill, as he poured the water in his basin, “or you wouldn’t have needed a pillow to rout us out.”
“Dad has the coffee pot on already,” said Lester as a savory aroma came up the stairs. “Let’s get a wiggle on.”
The boys trooped down the stairs to find breakfast ready for them.
“We want to eat a plenty, fellows,” observed Lester, setting them the example. “We’ve got a long sail before us.”
The lads needed no urging and the way the food disappeared was almost miraculous.
“Now,” said Lester when the breakfast had been110finished, “you fellows go out and get the boat ready to start, while I get enough grub together to last a couple of days. We may not always have clams and bluefish just when we want them, and I’m not going to take any risks.”
“Do you think we’ll be away over night?” asked Bill.
“I shouldn’t be surprised,” answered Lester. “Maybe we’ll be gone for more than one. It’s a pretty stiff sail up there, and we may have to do a good deal of tacking on the way back. Then, too, Mark may not be in when we get there, and we may have to wait till he gets back.”
“What kind of a fellow is this Taylor, anyhow?” asked Fred. “Has he any family?”
“No, he lives all alone in a little cabin down near the beach. Spends his time fishing and doing odd jobs. He’s a little wizened-up fellow. He’s fond of talking, and all we’ll have to do is to get him started and he’ll do the rest. I only hope we’ll find him in condition to talk.”
“What do you mean by that?” asked Teddy.
“Mark is a little too fond of a black bottle that he keeps in his cabin,” explained Lester. “But he’s usually sober in the daytime, and if we get to him before night, he’ll be all right.”
The boys went down to the little dock where theArielwas riding. They had all grown more or less expert in handling her since their arrival at the111Shoals, and in a very short time they had her ready for the trip.
“I wonder if Uncle Aaron has got my letter yet,” remarked Teddy, as he helped Bill pull up the anchor.
“Not yet,” replied his brother, “but he’s sure to get it before the day is over.”
“I’d like to see his face when he reads it,” chuckled Teddy.
“You aren’t usually so anxious to see his face,” laughed Fred. “That time, for instance, when he came up on the bank after his ducking in the river.”
“No,” admitted Teddy. “But this time things are different.”
Lester had made several trips to the boat, each time loaded with provisions, and by the time everything else was ready the little larder was well stocked.
“No danger of starving on this trip,” smiled Mr. Lee, who had come down to see them off.
“Not much,” laughed Lester. “Now, Dad, don’t worry if we’re gone longer than we expect to be. We’ll be back when we get here.”
“I’ll not worry,” promised his father. “Any one who can take a boat through Sentinel Rocks in such a blow as we had the other day, can get out of any kind of scrape.”
He waved his hand genially in farewell as theArielfell away and set her course for Milton.
112“We’ve a following wind,” remarked Lester, as he settled himself at the tiller, “and if it holds out, we ought to make Milton in three hours.”
“We want to keep a sharp lookout for Mark on the way,” suggested Teddy.
“That’s right,” agreed Lester. “He’s more than likely to be out fishing somewhere in our course. And this time we won’t have to rely on Bill’s eyes alone, for I’ve brought a pair of dad’s binoculars along.”
“You’ve brought something else along,” said Teddy, as his eyes fell on a big hook at the end of an iron chain. “I never saw this thing before. What are you going to do with it?”
“Hook a shark if I can,” was the answer.
“What!” came in an excited exclamation from the other three.
“That’s what I said,” repeated Lester, enjoying the sensation that his words had caused.
“Have you ever caught any before?”
“How do you do it?”
“Do you think we’ll catch sight of one?”
The questions poured in upon him and Lester laughed, as he raised his hand in protest.
“One thing at a time,” he answered. “Anybody’d think this was a political meeting where every one’s trying to heckle the speaker at once.
“I’ve caught them before,” he went on, replying to the first question that had been hurled at him.113“Not often, of course, because they’re not as common as other fish. But there are altogether too many on this part of the coast. They scare off the fish and break the nets of the fishermen. Then, too, they’re dangerous if any one falls overboard, and no one can be comfortable when he knows those pirates are cruising around, ready to gobble him up.”
“It isn’t exactly a pleasant sensation,” agreed Fred, with a little shiver as he thought of the time he had gone over the side for Ross.
“All the people along the coast hate them like poison,” continued Lester, “and it is looked on as a public duty to put them out of business whenever they are come across.”
“Just the way we feel out West about rattlesnakes,” put in Bill.
“I suppose so,” agreed Lester.
“Perhaps we’ll run across the very fellow we saw in the storm,” suggested Teddy.
“Perhaps,” assented Bill, “although there won’t be any strawberry mark by which we can identify him.”
“If he doesn’t turn up, his brother or his cousin will do just as well,” laughed Fred.
“What kind of bait do you use?” asked Bill.
“I’ve got a few chunks of pork stored away in the locker,” returned Lester. “If we catch sight of one swimming around, we’ll throw over some small114pieces. Their sense of smell is wonderful, and they’ll get on the job right away. The shark will follow us for more, and just when he thinks he’s found a regular meal, we’ll heave over the big piece attached to the hook. He’ll nab it in a hurry, and then his guileless and unsuspicious nature will receive a sudden shock.”
“But how will you get him on board?” asked Bill.
“If he’s a big fellow, we’ll not,” was the answer, “unless we can get him near enough to stun him with a hatchet. Even on board a big ship the men often have to attach the rope to a windlass to draw the big fellows in while they’re still full of fight. Even if he were stunned, I don’t think that all of us pulling together could lift his dead weight on board theAriel.”
“Then what would we do with him?” asked Teddy.
“We’d have to tow him astern until we could run in somewhere and pull him ashore,” answered Lester. “That’s what the fishermen round here usually do when they hook one. Once get him on the beach, and the rest is easy.”
“Perhaps we’ll have a shark steak for supper,” said Teddy.
“Perhaps, but I wouldn’t recommend it,” said Lester, with a grimace. “I’ve tasted it and I must admit that it’s pretty rank. I wouldn’t care to have it as a steady diet, unless I were starving and115couldn’t get anything else. The Chinese make soup of its fins though, and they say that it’s dandy.”
“You say you’d try to stun him with a hatchet,” said Bill, the skeptic. “But suppose you couldn’t get him near enough for that?”
“Then we’d try something else,” replied Lester. “Here, Teddy, take the tiller for a minute.”
Teddy did as requested, and Lester, reaching down into the cabin, drew out and displayed to the astonished eyes of the boys a long harpoon.
“Where on earth did you get that harpoon?” asked Fred.
“It belongs to father,” was Lester’s answer. “He shipped on board a whaler once and made a three-year cruise. He was the head harpooner of the first mate’s boat and many’s the time this old harpoon has struck a ninety barrel whale. Dad has any number of yarns to spin about it, and some day I’ll set him going and you’ll hear them all.”
“That’ll be dandy!” exclaimed Teddy. “There’s nothing stirs me up so much as a whaling story. I’ve often thought I’d like to make a voyage on a whaler when I am old enough.”
“There’s a good deal of romance and excitement about it,” admitted Lester, “but it’s very hard and dangerous work. A man takes his life in his hands when he ships for such a cruise.”
“This certainly looks as though it meant business,” commented Bill, as he examined curiously the broad, flat, triangular head. “The edge is like a razor, and nothing could pull this barb loose after it once entered.”
117The shank was about two feet long and served as a socket to the shaft which gave a total length to the harpoon of more than six feet.
“My, but it’s heavy,” said Fred, as he lifted it. “It must take some muscle to handle a thing like that.”
“It takes a good deal of experience to master it,” said Lester.
“Do you know how to throw it?” asked Teddy.
“Father has shown me how, and I’ve practised a good deal on and off just for fun,” was the reply. “I might be able to hit a shark with it, if he wasn’t very far off, and I might not. I’d have a chance though, and if I missed I could try again. This rope attached to it prevents its being lost, and I could draw it in again and make another attempt at it.
“Of course this is rather old fashioned these days,” Lester went on. “Now, in most of the whaling boats, they put the harpoon in a gun, just as you might thrust a ramrod down the muzzle of a rifle. The harpoon has an explosive shell attached to its head like the torpedo of a submarine. The harpoon is shot from the gun, and after it leaves the muzzle, a rocket charge attached to it carries it still further. When it hits the whale, the bomb explodes and it’s all over. Of course, it’s safer and surer than the old way, but it’s too much like118business. It does away with the exciting, desperate struggle between man and whale.”
“What stories this old weapon could tell, if it could only talk,” mused Fred.
“Yes, and they’d be more exciting than anything you read in fiction,” added Bill.
“We may have a chance to use it before the day is over,” said Teddy hopefully, as he looked over the waves on every side.
“It’s a bare possibility,” assented Lester. “I thought it wouldn’t do any harm to bring it along anyhow just on the chance.
“You fellows want to keep a keen lookout for anything that looks like a fin,” he continued. “It would be too bad to let any guilty shark escape.”
As Lester had charge of the tiller and Fred was looking after the sail, the work of watching devolved on Teddy and Bill. They took opposite sides of the craft, Teddy handling Mr. Lee’s binoculars while Bill depended upon the remarkably keen eyes with which nature had gifted him.
An hour went by, during which the little boat made rapid progress. But nothing rewarded the vigil of the two, and Teddy began to grow disgusted.
“Nothing doing to-day, I guess,” he grumbled. “Somebody’s sent a wireless to the sharks telling them to keep out of sight.”
“And after Lester has taken all that trouble in119getting a warm welcome ready for them,” mourned Fred.
“It’s certainly very ungrateful on their part,” grinned Bill.
“The shark who hides and runs awayMay live to bite another day.”
“The shark who hides and runs awayMay live to bite another day.”
Teddy was the perpetrator of the lines.
Fred groaned and, as he made a pass at his brother with his unoccupied hand, asked: “What have we done that such awful stuff should be pulled off on us?”
“Hi, there!” shouted Bill suddenly. “I saw something just then.”
“Hang out the flags,” drawled Fred unbelievingly. “Bill saw something.”
“He saw the sea, he saw the sky,He saw the drifting clouds go by,”
“He saw the sea, he saw the sky,He saw the drifting clouds go by,”
chanted Teddy, the irrepressible.
“I’d see a couple of boobs, if I looked over your way,” retorted Bill. “Cut out the chatter and hand me those glasses.”
The binoculars were passed over to him, and he turned them on an object far out to starboard.
“I thought so,” he said exultingly a moment120later. “I can see the dorsal fin of a shark out there.”
Disbelief vanished before his confident tone, and all looked eagerly in the direction he indicated.
“Perhaps it’s only a floating bit of wood,” said Teddy doubtfully, after a long gaze through the glasses.
“Let Lester look,” suggested Bill. “He knows a shark when he sees one.”
Lester relinquished the tiller to Bill and took a long, steady look through the binoculars.
“Bill is right,” he announced at last. “It’s a shark and a big one too. I guess we’re going to have some sport, after all.”
“But how are we going to get a trial at him?” cried Teddy. “He seems to be going in the opposite direction.”
“I guess he won’t go far,” replied Lester with easy confidence. “This is probably his feeding ground, and he’ll keep going round and round in lazy circles. We’ll get a little nearer to him before we do anything else.”
He retook the tiller and changed theAriel’scourse toward the spot where they had seen the shark.
“Lower the sail, now,” he commanded, when they had gone half a mile. “Just keep up enough to give us steerage way. A shark thinks a boat’s disabled when it isn’t moving much, and his instinct121teaches him that the occupants are probably in trouble and his chance of finally getting them will be better.”
“Do you think that will bring him around?” asked Bill.
“It’ll help, anyway,” replied Lester. “But to make it surer, we’ll cut up the pork into small pieces and scatter it on the water. He’ll smell it as sure as guns, and I’ll wager you that before ten minutes are over you’ll see the old rascal swimming toward us.”
The boys got their clasp knives out at once and slashed the pork into bits, taking care however not to touch the big piece.
“He’s coming,” cried Teddy, after perhaps five minutes had passed. “I saw his fin just then, not fifty feet away.”
The pieces of pork were now bobbing up and down on the water at the stern of theAriel, which had almost stopped moving.
There was a twitch and one of the pieces disappeared. For an instant the boys saw a long black body, the wet skin glistening in the rays of the sun like so much velvet.
“By jinks!” whispered Bill in awe. “What an old sockdolager!”
“He’s one of the biggest I’ve ever seen,” returned Lester. “Fellows of his size don’t get up this way very often.”
122“I’d hate to fall overboard just now,” said Teddy.
“You’d make just about one mouthful for him,” was Fred’s comforting rejoinder.
Lester was making feverish haste in the task of preparing the hook. He sank it deep into the yielding pork, so that the point was at least six inches from any surface.
“Suppose he nibbles it off,” suggested Bill.
“Sharks don’t eat that way,” grinned Lester. “They’re gluttons, and if they bite at all they take everything down–hook, line and sinker.”
“I’m afraid we couldn’t hold him if we did hook him,” said Teddy. “He’d yank us overboard in a minute.”
“I’ll take care of that,” replied Lester, at the same time taking several turns around the mast with the slack of the rope. “He’ll have to pull the mast out of theArielto get away.”
By this time all the floating bits of pork had been snapped up by this cormorant of the sea.
“He seems to like our lunch counter,” laughed Teddy.
“We’ve made him a steady customer, I guess,” returned Bill.
“Well, if he likes the samples, we’ll show him some of the real goods,” chimed in Lester, as he prepared to throw the baited hook overboard.
Just then the shark appeared, swimming lazily under the counter of the boat. He was just under123the surface, and his glassy, wicked eyes looked full in the faces of the boys as they crowded to the side.
“My, he’s a terror!” exclaimed Teddy, as the pirate of the seas slowly moved past. “Is he going away do you think?” he asked in alarm, as their intended prey vanished in the direction of the bow.
“No fear,” responded Lester cheerily. “The pickings round here are too good for him to think of going away just yet.”
“Why don’t you wait till he comes around again and then make a throw at him with the harpoon?” asked Bill. “I should think you might hit him.”
“Wouldn’t have a chance on earth,” was the answer. “He’d dodge it like a flash of lightning. Then he’d take alarm and make a quick sneak away from here. After we get him hooked, we can hold him steady and I’ll have a chance to take aim.”
With a mighty heave, Lester threw the hook as far as he could over the stern. The iron chain attached to it hung several inches under the water, but its buoyancy kept the huge chunk of pork floating on the surface.
For several minutes the boys waited, their hearts beating so hard that it almost seemed that they could be heard.
“Do you think he’s really cleared out and left us?” asked Teddy, with disappointment in his tone.
“Don’t worry,” was Lester’s encouraging reply.124“He thinks he has too soft a snap here to dream of giving it up.”
Just then Teddy’s question was answered by the shark himself. There was a swish in the water on the other side of the boat, and the boys saw that ominous fin sweep past.
The shark made straight for the hook with its tempting bait. But he sniffed at it a moment and then commenced to swim slowly around it in wide circles.
“He’s a little bit suspicious,” whispered Lester. “This is so much bigger than the others that it seems too good to be true.”
For several minutes the great fish kept up his circular movement, but the onlookers noticed that the circles were steadily growing smaller.
“He can’t resist it!” exulted Fred. “His judgment tells him he’d better not, but his appetite urges him on.”
“From what I know of sharks, I’ll wager that his appetite will win,” chuckled Lester.
Suddenly the shark seemed to reach a decision. Like a flash he darted toward the bait and it disappeared in his rapacious maw.
“Hurrah!” yelled Teddy in uncontrollable excitement. “He’s hooked at last!”
For a second after swallowing the bait the shark remained perfectly still. Then he darted away, only to be brought up with a round turn as he reached the end of the rope.
It half stunned him and wholly bewildered him. He did not know what had happened. He tried again, but with the same result.
Then, as he realized that he was hooked, the fury of the shark became frightful. He sprang out of the water, lashing the waves into foam. The mast creaked and strained, and the counter of theArielwas pulled down until the water rushed over the side.
“Get up the sail,” shouted Lester, rushing to the tiller. “He’ll capsize us if we don’t.”
Teddy and Bill sprang to help Fred, and the sail was quickly hoisted. The wind caught it at once, and as the breeze was a stiff one, it swelled out the sail to the fullest extent, and with this added resistance against the struggles of the shark, theArielwas soon on an even keel.
“There!” exclaimed Lester, with a sigh of relief,126“now we can hold our own. I thought for a minute that we were going over. And just now I wouldn’t want to get too close to that pirate. Something seems to have ruffled his temper.”
The rage of the shark was beyond belief. At first he tried to disgorge the hook. But it had a secure grip and his efforts only served to exhaust him. Then he snapped furiously at the chain with his mighty jaws.
“Do you think he can break it?” asked Bill anxiously.
“Not on your life,” answered Lester serenely. “If it were rope, he’d snap it as though it were thread. But even the jaws of a shark can’t bite through a three-inch iron chain.”
The shark darted here and there, trying by sudden jerks to break the chain. But it held fast despite his tremendous efforts. Then he changed his tactics and hurled himself against theArielwith a force that made the timbers shiver.
“Do you think he can start a leak?” asked Fred, as the deck shook under him.
“I hope not,” answered Lester, “but he might. TheArielis a mighty stout boat, but she wasn’t built to stand the rushes of a crazy shark.”
“What about giving him a clip with the hatchet the next time he comes close enough?” suggested Fred.
“Suppose you try it,” was the answer. “Get a127tight grip on the rail and bend away over. Then the next time he hits the boat, hit him on the nose. If you catch him right it will stun him, and then I can finish him with the harpoon.”
Fred grasped the hatchet and disposed himself to take advantage of the next rush. He gripped the rail with his left hand, while Bill and Teddy held his legs tightly.
“If you go over, we go over with you,” Teddy assured him.
“The shark would have a square meal then for fair,” laughed Fred.
But the shark seemed to understand the trap laid for him and refused to fall in with their plans. He resorted again to fierce lunging and diving, but did not again approach the boat.
“He’s laughing at you,” jibed Teddy.
“I don’t think he feels like laughing at anything just now,” replied Fred, as he rose to his feet. “But he’s evidently given up the idea of dashing his brains out against the boat.”
“He’ll be tired out before long,” judged Lester, “and then I’ll give you a chance to see what an expert I am at throwing a harpoon.”
It was clear that the sea pirate was exhausting his strength in his futile struggles. His long career of cruelty and rapine was rapidly coming to an end.
“I think I have a chance now,” said Lester, after128a few minutes more had passed. “You take the tiller, Teddy, while Bill and Fred haul him in.”
But this was not an easy task. Fred and Bill strained until they felt as though their arms were being pulled out of their sockets. But the shark still had enough strength left to make them pay dearly for every inch they gained.
But they were gaining, nevertheless. They wound the slack around a cleat as they pulled it in, so as not to lose what they had once won. Lester joined them after he had got the harpoon ready to throw, and with this reinforcement they soon had the shark within three feet of the stern of the boat.
“That’s near enough,” said Lester, rising to his feet and grasping the harpoon. “Now hold fast while I throw.”
He took careful aim, poised himself so as to get his full force into the cast and let his weapon go. It hissed through the air straight at its quarry. But the shark lunged aside, and the harpoon clove the water three inches to the right.
“Good shot, old scout!” cried Fred, as Lester, a little chagrined at the miss, drew the dripping harpoon in over the side. “It wasn’t your fault that you didn’t get him. It was going at him straight as an arrow when he dodged.”
“I’ll get him yet,” muttered Lester to himself, as he straightened up for another effort.
129He took his time in aiming and summoned up all his strength. Then he threw.
The sharp point caught the shark a little behind the head and went clear through his body. It must have struck a vital point for the monster gave one convulsive leap and fell back in its death flurry, lashing the water into yeast. Then it turned part way over and remained motionless, the leverage of the shaft preventing it from turning wholly on its back.
A yell of triumph went up from the delighted boys.
“Glory, hallelujah!” shouted Teddy.
“That was a dandy throw, old scout!” cried Bill, clapping Lester on the back.
“This is our lucky day,” yelled Fred in great exultation.
Lester flushed with pleasure. He had vindicated his throwing ability, and had proved himself a worthy son of his sea-going forebears.
“Father will be tickled to death when he hears of it,” he remarked, trying to speak coolly, as though harpooning a shark was a daily occurrence with him. “He hates the brutes with all his soul. He was nearly nipped by one while in the water off the Bahamas, and his mates just hauled him on board in time.”
“Well, now that we’ve got him, what are we going to do with him?” asked practical Bill.
130“Could we pull him on board, do you think?” inquired Teddy.
“Not in a hundred years,” replied Lester. “If we had a pulley big enough and rope strong enough, we might hoist him up, but in no other way. I guess the best way to do is to crowd on sail and tow him in to Milton.”
“How much further do we have to go?” asked Fred.
“Oh, it’s a matter of ten or twelve miles yet,” was the answer. “If we were free, we could make it in a little over an hour the way this wind is holding up. But the shark will be a big drag against us, and it will take us at least twice as long. The harpoon sticking out at that angle helps to keep us back.”
“What do we care how long it takes us to get there!” gloated Teddy. “We have all the time there is and I don’t care whether it takes us two hours or ten. We’ll have something to show the natives when we do get there.”
“Oh, they’ve seen plenty of sharks,” said Lester. “But I don’t think they’ve often clapped eyes on one as big as this.”
“After we reach Milton, how are we going to get the shark ashore?” persisted Bill.
“Oh, that will be no trick at all,” was the answer. “The beach shelves out gradually there and I can take theArielpretty close in. Then you fellows131can tumble overboard and wade in, dragging the shark with you. We couldn’t lift him, but it will be easy enough to drag him up on the sand.”
“I’m anxious to get close to him so that I can study him,” said Fred.
“You might have been nearer to one than you liked the day you went over after Ross,” laughed Bill.
“Yes,” admitted Fred, “he’d have had the laugh on me then. But they laugh best who laugh last.”
“And we’re laughing last, all right,” declared Lester.
“Thanks to your good arm and the old harpoon,” added Bill.
“We have with us to-day, gentlemen,” said Teddy, assuming the air and tone of a professional introducer, “two renowned throwers. Indeed, I may say three.
“This gentleman at the tiller, Mr. Lester Lee, throws the harpoon. This other at the sheet, Mr. Frederic Rushton, throws the baseball. This idler at my right, Mr. William Garwood, throws the lasso. I admit, gentlemen, with deep regret, that of all this illustrious company I am the only one who doesn’t throw something.”
“Oh yes you do,” put in Bill quickly.
“What?”
“You throw the bull,” said Bill.
The other boys roared, and for a moment Teddy was disconcerted. But he quickly recovered his balance.
“I suppose,” he retorted, frowning severely at the culprit, “that this low-brow means to intimate that I am a Spanish athlete. I should be deeply pained to know that any one who has been under the refining influence of Rally Hall should indulge in the practice of slang. What would our dear Doctor Rally say if he heard one of his pupils––”
But the question remained forever unanswered, for just then a piece of pork that Bill had picked up from the deck whizzed past the orator’s face, and, in the quick and undignified duck he made, Teddy lost the thread of his discourse.
“Suppose you two cut out the fooling and get down to business,” grinned Lester. “Fred and I are the only ones doing anything, and it’s time you loafers got busy. Bring out the grub and let’s have something to eat.”
“That’s always in order, like a motion to adjourn,”133acquiesced Teddy. “Come along, Bill, and we’ll show these fellows how to cook.”
Teddy and Bill went down into the little cuddy, got out the tiny oil stove, and the odors of sizzling bacon and steaming coffee soon made Lester and Fred sniff the air hungrily.
“I didn’t know how hungry I was till just now,” said the latter.
“I didn’t either,” returned Lester. “I was so worked up over that tussle with the shark that I didn’t have time to think of anything else. But now I’m hungry enough to eat nails.”
“If that’s the way you refer to the meal we’re getting up, you can’t have any,” threatened Teddy. “We may not be hotel chefs, but we’ll not stand for having our eats compared to nails, will we, Bill?”
“Not by a jugful!” answered Bill, as he scrambled some eggs in the bacon grease.
“Take it all back,” laughed Lester.
Teddy cut some slices of bread and Bill opened a jar of marmalade, which they put with the other eatables on the tiny table leaves that they propped up on both sides of the centerboard.
“Come along now, you aristocrats,” called out Teddy, “and profit by the labor of us poor working men.”
The wind was steady, so that Lester could fasten his tiller while Fred hitched the sail rope round a134cleat. Then they crowded into the little cabin and passed judgment on the dinner. That it was a favorable one was shown by the magical rapidity with which every crumb disappeared.
“No dyspeptics in this crowd,” laughed Fred, when the board had been swept clean.
“Not so that you could notice it,” returned Bill. “A doctor would starve to death if he had to depend on our patronage.”
“My belt is so tight that it hurts,” admitted Teddy, loosening it a few holes.
They lay around lazily for a few minutes, too happy and satisfied to move. Then Fred and Lester resumed their places, while the other two drew a bucket of water and washed the dishes and pans. This done, they slumped down comfortably in the stern, watching the body of the shark that lunged along clumsily in the wake of theAriel.
“He has an open countenance, hasn’t he?” grinned Teddy, as they caught an occasional glimpse of the huge mouth on the under side of the head.
“And look at those teeth,” shivered Bill. “They say that an alligator’s jaw snaps shut with the power of fifteen hundred pounds. But I’ll bet that the alligator has nothing on the shark.”
“I guess you’re right,” agreed Teddy. “Those jaws would cut a man’s leg off as neatly as if it were done with a razor.”
135“I shouldn’t like to have him practise on me,” said Bill.
“If that fellow ever had a toothache, it would be some ache,” put in Fred.
“I wouldn’t care to be the dentist that had the job of pulling one of them,” laughed Bill. “I’m afraid the patient would be a little peevish.”
“I’d get my assistant to pump a ton of chloroform in him first,” declared Fred. “And even then I’d want to get into a suit of armor before I operated on him.”
“No wonder the sailors hate the brutes,” mused Teddy, as he thought of the poor fellows who had been devoured by the monsters.
“No one of them knows but that he may be the next,” added Bill.
“The sailors get even whenever they have the chance,” chimed in Lester. “The minute they see any of the beasts near the ship, they trail a hook over the stern in the hope of catching him. Sailors are superstitious, and they believe that as long as a shark is in sight some one on board is doomed to die. So they try to kill the hoodoo, by putting the shark out of business.”
“It’s a great thing to feel a good deck beneath your feet, when a shark heaves in sight,” remarked Bill. “Even in a boat no bigger than theAriel, we’re reasonably safe. But think of what it must be like to be on an open raft on the ocean with a136crowd of these hungry pirates swimming all around you.”
“And flinging themselves half way across the raft sometimes, trying to upset it,” added Teddy.
“It must be something fearful,” agreed Lester. “But there are some people who are not afraid to meet the shark on its own ground–if one can call water ground.”
“It must take a lot of nerve,” declared Teddy. “I don’t want to take their job away from them.”
“Of course it takes a lot of nerve,” was the answer. “It takes a heap of skill too. No one could do it, if he couldn’t swim just about as well as the shark himself.
“Dad has told me of what he has seen with his own eyes. A native of some of the South Sea Islands, when he learns from a fisherman that a shark is cruising around, will take his knife between his teeth, slip into the water and swim out to meet him.
“As the shark is looking for him too and can smell him, it isn’t long before they come together. The native knows when the shark is coming by the fin that shows above the surface, and when the shark gets close the native dives under.
“Of course you know that the shark has to turn over on his back in order to bite. The second it takes to do this has saved the life of many a poor fellow, and it is that that gives the diver his chance.
137“The instant the shark turns over, the native plunges his knife into its stomach. He knows just where to aim, and that one stroke usually does the business. If not, he tries it again until the shark is killed. But everything has to be timed to a second. The least little slip, and it’s all up with the native.”
“I should think there’d sometimes be a chance of meeting a school of sharks instead of a single one,” commented Bill. “What would the native do in that case?”
“That does happen sometimes, but it doesn’t worry the South Sea Islander much,” explained Lester. “He can usually keep the sharks off by shouting and splashing. Then, too, if he kills one of them the others are attracted by the blood of their comrade, and they tear him to pieces, while the native swims back home.”
“Nice lot of cannibals those sharks are, to prey upon each other,” said Teddy.
“Just like a pack of wolves,” agreed Lester. “Let one of them be wounded, and the others tear him into bits. These wolves of the sea do the same thing.
“Dad says that sometimes the native won’t even take a knife, but will just carry with him a stick of hard wood, sharpened at both ends. When the shark turns over to nab him, the native thrusts the stick crosswise between the open jaws. They close down on it, the points sink in so far that the138shark can’t shut its mouth, and the water flows in and chokes it to death.”
“Seems funny to choke a fish to death with water,” laughed Fred.
“Think of thrusting your arm into jaws like that,” said Bill. “If the stick didn’t go straight up and down––?”
“There’d be a one-armed native,” Lester grimly completed the sentence. “But here’s a boat coming up this way, and we’ve been so busy chinning that we hadn’t noticed it. What do you make her out to be, Bill?”
“She hasn’t any sail,” pronounced Bill after a brief scrutiny. “Here, hand me those glasses.”
“It’s a motor boat,” he announced a moment later, “and she’s coming straight for us.”
“A motor boat!” exclaimed Teddy. “Do you think it can be Ross?”
“It’s more than likely,” answered Lester. “But he’ll be near enough in a few minutes for us to make sure.”
The boat drew rapidly nearer.
“That’s who it is,” cried Teddy jubilantly. “It’s Ross and theSleuth. Now we can compare notes about the chest of gold!”
The boys forgot all about the shark for the time, and their thoughts went with redoubled intensity toward the object of their search, the missing treasure.
“I wonder if he’ll be in a more talkative humor now than he was when we saw him last?” mused Fred.
“I hope so,” said Teddy. “He’s had time to think us over and size us up, and he may decide to make a clean breast of all he knows.”
“Assuming that he really does know more than he has told us,” remarked Bill, the skeptic. “We fellows may have drawn wrong conclusions from the start he gave and that exception of his.”
“Well, at any rate, we know a great deal more than we did when we saw him last,” declared Teddy. “We know for a certainty many things that he only guessed, especially that partial confession of Dick’s as to the way Mr. Montgomery met his death.”
“I wish we had had time to hear from Uncle140Aaron,” said Fred. “He may be able to give us some pointers, though I don’t suppose he knows much outside of the fact that he loaned Mr. Montgomery money and didn’t get it back.”
“I’m banking a good deal more on Mark Taylor than I am on what your uncle may know,” said Lester, “although of course we may get nothing from either.”
“What do you think we’d better do in regard to Ross?” asked Teddy. “Tell him right off what we know, or wait for him to tell us everything first?”
“I think that instead of trying to wait or to swap, we’d better be perfectly frank,” advised Fred. “If he’s a bit suspicious now, he’ll grow more so if he thinks we’re trying any kind of a game. Confidence breeds confidence, and we’ll set him the example.”
“I guess that will be the better way,” acquiesced Lester. “After all, he’s got so much more at stake than we have in this matter that we shouldn’t blame him for being a little cautious.”
By this time it was evident that Ross had recognized them, for he was standing up, waving at them vigorously.
“Seems to be glad to see us,” remarked Teddy, as the boys waved back. “I take that as a good sign.”
“Hello Ross,” they yelled over the water when he got within earshot.
“Hello, yourselves,” the boy in the motor boat141shouted eagerly in reply. “What good wind blew you up to meet me?”
“What good engine drove you down to meet us?” Teddy flung back at him with a grin.
“I was on my way down to pay you a little visit at the Shoals,” replied Ross. “I didn’t think I’d be able to get over there so soon. But when I got back to Oakland I found a letter from my mother saying she had been delayed in starting, and wouldn’t be here for three or four days yet. So I thought I’d scoot over and make hay while the sun shone.”
“That’ll be bully,” said Lester warmly. “Dad will be glad to see you, and I hope you’ll be able to stay with us at the Shoals until you have to meet your mother.”
“I’d like nothing better and it’s good of you to ask me,” responded Ross. “But where are you fellows bound for now?”
“We’re going up to Milton on an errand that will interest you, when we get time to tell you about it. Come right along with us.”
“Sure thing. I’ll just round to under your stern and we’ll travel up alongside.”
He started his engine going, and then for the first time he noticed the huge bulk that was trailing along in the wake of theAriel.
He gave a startled shout, while the boys viewed his astonishment with expressive grins.
“A shark!” he exclaimed.
142“That’s what it is,” said Fred. “And for all we know it may be the same fellow that might have bitten us in two the other day. What do you think of him?”
“He’s a monster!” ejaculated Ross, who seemed unable to believe his eyes. “Do you really mean that you fellows hooked and killed him?”
“Here’s the fellow that gave him the finishing touch with his little harpoon,” affirmed Teddy, indicating Lester.
Ross circled about the body, viewing it from every side.
“He must have been a terror when he was alive!” he exclaimed with a shiver. “Even now, I’d feel a little nervous if I fell in alongside of him.”
“He’s good and dead all right,” declared Bill. “Teddy and I have been watching him for the last half hour, and he hasn’t made a movement. That harpoon knew its business.”
“What are you going to do with him?” asked Ross.
“Oh, we’ll tow him up to Milton and land him on the beach,” replied Lester. “We’ll have a better chance to look him over then.”
“I want to get some souvenirs from him before we cast him away altogether,” said Fred.
“You might get enough teeth to make a necklace and go strutting around like a cannibal king,” grinned Bill. “I hear that those ornaments make143a great hit with the dudes of the South Sea Islands.”
“They’d go well with that bunch of rattles we brought back from the ranch this summer,” laughed Teddy.
“Not if mother sees them first,” said Fred. “She was half scared to death when we brought home those rattles, and we had all we could do to get her to let us keep them. Even as it is, they have to be kept out of sight, and to bring home some shark’s teeth would be the finishing touch.”
“I’m going to cut a strip of the hide to make a belt,” declared Bill. “They say they last forever.”
“A hat band for mine,” voted Lester.
“A watch case will hit me hardest,” said Fred.
“There’ll be plenty to go round, I guess,” laughed Ross. “From the size of that fellow, you could cut out enough hide to make all the belts and other gewgaws that could be used if you lived to be as old as Methuselah.”
“Come along now, fellows,” called out Lester. “We’ll have plenty of time for a gab-fest when we get to Milton. We want to be getting on.”
“How about taking off some of your passengers, Lester?” volunteered Ross. “That carcass makes a big weight for you to pull, and I can just as well take two of you aboard as not.”
“That’s a good idea,” agreed Lester. “Take Bill and Teddy. They’re no earthly good here anyway. Fred and I are doing all the work.”
144“I like that,” replied Teddy in mock indignation. “Who was it that got up a dinner that was good enough, I notice, for you fellows to stow away in a hurry.”
“It wasn’t because it was so good that we bolted it,” chaffed Fred. “It was a disagreeable duty and we wanted to get it over with as soon as we could.”
“Come along, Ted,” said Bill with dignity, “and don’t bandy words with those common sailors.”
“It was only that I wanted to lift them up to our own level,” rejoined Teddy. “But I guess you’re right, Bill. They can’t appreciate the value of our companionship, and we’ll leave them to herd together. They’ve had their chance, and there’s no use our wasting time trying to make them into human beings.”
Ross brought theSleuthalongside and the two boys leaped aboard.
“I’ll take the shark too, if you want me to,” proposed Ross. “I guess my engine could stand the strain.”
“No, thank you,” replied Lester. “You’ve got two sharks on board now, and I guess that’ll be all you can manage.”
The boats fell apart and the lightening of theAriel’sload showed results at once as the little boat leaped through the water at a quickened pace. Ross dropped away to a distance of perhaps a hundred feet, in order that theArielmight have plenty of145sea room, and with their noses pointed toward Milton the two craft went on in company.
“How much further have we got to go?” asked Fred, as he let out the sheet in order to get every ounce of wind.
“Not more than eight miles, I reckon,” answered Lester.
He looked over the side to gauge the speed at which they were traveling.
“It’s a ten-knot breeze,” he conjectured, “and if we didn’t have that ugly customer in the rear to tow along, we’d make it in less than an hour. But even as it is, we’ll surely do it in an hour and a half.”
But the wind freshened and cut some time off their schedule, so that it was only a little over an hour when Lester gave a turn to the tiller that swung theArielin toward the coast.
“There’s Milton,” he said, pointing to a tiny village of small, straggling houses that came down close to the beach, “but we don’t go so far as that. Mark lives in a little hut about a mile this side of the town. Take the glasses and you can make it out. It stands all by itself and you can’t miss it.”
Fred pointed the binoculars in the direction that Lester indicated and plainly saw a shack near the edge of the water.
“Do you see any one about the cabin?” asked Lester.
146“No, I don’t,” replied his companion. “The door is open though, and he may be inside.”
“That doesn’t prove anything,” laughed Lester. “Mark hasn’t anything worth stealing, and I guess the door’s open all the time except in winter. But it won’t be long now before we find out.”