There was a responsive chuckle from the half-dozen fellows lounging in the shade; then Haddon glanced questioningly at the tall, striking-looking chap whose handsome head lay pillowed on Billy McBride’s knee, while his well-knit body stretched out comfortably on the sand.
“There aren’t any—man-eating sharks as far north as this, are there, Cavvy?” he asked.
“Of course not. I should think you’d know better than that.” Jim Cavanaugh’s tone was positive and a little impatient. “They’re only found in the south. The sharks around here are nothing but big dogfish; I don’t believe Bull even saw one of those. He’s the most unmitigated— Well, Midget, what’s your trouble? Don’t you know any better than to come in without knocking?”
An exceedingly small boy with snapping blue eyes, a shock of sunburned hair and an amazing self-possession of manner, darted around the tent and paused in their midst, somewhat heated with his haste.
“Trouble?” he repeated, scowling. “There’s plenty of trouble, let me tell you. What do you know about their cutting us out of the Sound and making us swim in the kid’s place?”
“Wa—hat!” came in an incredulous chorus; and then: “Cut out the fancy touches, Midge. You’ll be as bad as Bull Taggart if you’re not careful.”
“Fancy touches!” snorted the infant with cold scorn. “That’s what you think, is it? Huh! Well, it’s up on the bulletin board in black and white. ‘Until further notice all swimming will be restricted to the north side of the point,’ and signed J. P. Wendell as big as life. That’s the kid’s place, ain’t it? And because why? It’s that nut Taggart shooting off a lot of bull about seeing a shark in the sound. He—makes—me—sick!”
If it was his purpose to stir up the group so comfortably taking their ease in the heat of early afternoon, Midge Willett was entirely successful. With one accord six boys sat up abruptly, their faces expressing varying degrees of surprise, incredulity and indignation. And for a space the air resounded with shrill question, heated comment and fragments of argument which satisfied even the small Willett’s inordinate fondness for attention.
“It’s true, all right,” he declared, spreading his feet apart and rocking back and forth on his heels. “The stuff’s all in the Snort; you must have seen it.”
“So we have, Shrimp,” admitted Cavanaugh. “We’ve also seen yarns of his before. You don’t mean to tell us that Mr. Wendell takes any stock in it?”