“I knowed we should do it, Master Nic,” said Pete triumphantly. “There now, aren’t it zummat like one of our big pike at home? Now, that’s good to eat; and the next game’s tie up to the zhore where there’s some dry wood, and we’ll light a fire.”
“Yes,” said Nic as he bent over their prize. “I suppose it’s what they call the alligator-gar, Pete.”
“Dessay it is, zir; but I don’t care what they calls it—Ah, would you?” cried Pete, stamping his bare foot upon the great fish as it made a leap to escape. Nic too was on the alert, and he thrust the ragged head of the pole between the teeth-armed, gaping jaws, which closed upon it fiercely and held on.
But Pete’s knife was out next moment, and a well-directed cut put the savage creature beyond the power to do mischief.
“A twenty-pounder, Master Nic. Wish it were one o’ your zalmon. There, I’ll zoon clean him, while you run the boat in at a good place.”
“But how are we to get a fire, Pete?” said Nic anxiously, for an intense feeling of hunger now set in.
“I’ll zoon show you that, lad,” replied Pete; and he did. In a very short time after, by means of a little flint he carried in company with his pocket-knife, the back of the blade, and some dry touchwood from a rotting tree, he soon had a fire glowing, then blazing, for there was dead-wood enough to make campfires for an army.
Another quarter of an hour passed, and the big fish was hissing and spluttering on a wooden spit over the glowing embers; and at last they were able to fall to and eat of the whitest, juiciest flesh—as it seemed to them—that they had ever tasted.
“Bit o’ zalt’d be worth anything now, Master Nic, and I wouldn’t turn up my nose at a good thick bit o’ bread and butter, and a drop o’ zyder’d be better than river water; but, take it all together, I zay as zalmon’s nothing to this here, and we’ve got enough to last uz for a couple or three days to come.”
“Now for a few big leaves to wrap the rest in,” said Nic at last, after they had thoroughly satisfied their hunger.