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!"