“But not time to stop him!” replied Don. “Anyhow, we don’t want any blood in the water as near to us as that. I guess our best bet is to serve these sharks a breakfast, but keep them as far away as possible. Like this!”
Snapping up his Colt, Don Winslow fired at a circling fin, about forty yards distant. There followed the brief flurry of a wounded shark. Then, without warning, the ocean round about was lashed to a froth. Great bodies whirled and plunged in a circle of bloodstained water. From all sides, the sharp, triangular fins of the other sharks came streaking toward the center of disturbance.
“And that,” gritted Don Winslow, “is the way they’d be bearing down on us, if I’d shot that first would-be man-eater, instead of scaring him! How’d you like to be in the middle of that ring-around-the-rosie, Red?”
“G-golly, no!” shivered the junior officer. “I’ve heard that sharks were cannibals; but I never thought they were such fast feeders. Look, Don! They’ve finished that one already. Eaten him alive!”
“In which case we’d better give them some more breakfast bacon,” agreed the young commander. “Go ahead and shoot, sailor! It’s your turn.”
“Uh-uh, Don! It’s your turn all the time,” the redhead responded. “As a marksman, I’ll never be in your class, and we’ve got to save our bullets. That way, we might keep those sea tigers busy eating themselves until the plane shows up.”
Carefully Don picked his next target and fired. This time his bullet merely clipped through the shark’s back fin, but the wound was enough for its blood maddened fellows. A second savage feast churned the water’s surface, fifty yards away.
One by one Don’s precious cartridges were expended, until only half a dozen were left. The dawn light had grown stronger now, and Red, glancing toward the distant Gatoon, detected movement aboard her.
“They’ve spotted us aboard ship!” he cried. “They’re lowering a boat!”
Don Winslow’s revolver cracked again.