"I give up!" Mel snorted in disgust.
Tom grinned and bobbed to the surface. He waved his hand several times in a prearranged signal. Zimby at last spotted him and brought the Sea Hound to the scene.
Raising his mask, Tom called, "Let's have the net!"
Zimby lowered a nylon net and some pieces of fish to the two swimmers as they came alongside. With the food as bait they tried to lure the porpoise to the seacopter. But just as they thought they had it, the monster would scoot off.
"It's just laughing at us!" Mel fumed.
At last, after winning its confidence with several bits of fish, the boys succeeded in snaring the porpoise. Tom clambered onto the Sea Hound's deck and helped Zimby haul their catch aboard. "Quacking" reproachfully, it was lowered through the hatch and placed in the tank, which was then pumped full of salt water.
As soon as the Sea Hound arrived at Fearing, Tom phoned Chow Winkler at Enterprises and asked him to fly out to the base.
"Pardner, how'd you like to ride herd on this critter and gentle it down for me?" Tom asked, when he showed Chow the porpoise.
It had been transferred to a huge, glass-paneled tank which had been set up just outside Tom's Fearing Island laboratory during his flight to the Florida Keys.
"Reckon I kin try makin' friends with it," Chow declared.