“What pricks?” cried Dick, seizing the fish and throwing it down again sharply. “Oh, I say, it’s like a knife.”
“Shall I take it off, sir?” said Will.
“No, I’m not going to be beaten!” cried Dick, whose hand was bleeding. “I didn’t know what you meant. Why, it’s a big stickleback!”
He took hold of the prize more cautiously, disengaged the hook, and then laid the fish before his father—a fine salmon bass of eight or nine pounds.
“Bravo, my boy!” said Mr Temple; “but is your hand much cut?”
“Oh, no! it’s nothing,” said Dick, hastily twisting his handkerchief round his hurt. “I say, isn’t it a beauty? But what is the use of that fin?”
“Means of defence, I suppose,” said his father, raising the keen perch-like back fin of the fish.—“But there, we are close inshore now. Run her in, my men.”
The next minute the boat was grating upon the rocks. Will leaped out and held it steady, for the waves rocked it about a good deal; and the party landed close to the adit, the boat being moored with a grapnel; and then they all walked up to the hole in the foot of the rock, through which Josh and Will had made their escape after their adventure in the mine-shaft a short time before.