Chapter 18

TOWING THE PRIZE

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 Uncle Aaron," 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 boat shouted 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 the _Ariel_.

He gave a startled shout, while the boys viewed his astonishment with expressive grins.

"A shark!" he exclaimed.

"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 make a 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."

"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 the _Sleuth_ alongside 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 the _Ariel's_ load 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 the _Ariel_ might have plenty of sea 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 the _Ariel_ in 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.

"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."