“Yes, they certainly are,” her husband replied. “The fishermen must have caught one shark, and its mate came to help in the fight. Look, the fishing boat nearly went over that time!”
That really came near happening. One of the big fish, after it found that its mate had been killed, seemed to get desperate. It rushed at the fishermen’s boat and struck it with its head, sending it far over on one side.
Then the men from the steamer’s boat fired some bullets from a gun into the second shark and killed it so that it sank. The waters grew quiet and the boats were no longer in danger.
The mate and the sailors from the steamer stayed near the fishing boat a little while longer, the men talking among themselves, and then the sailors rowed back, and were hoisted upon deck in their craft.
“Tell us what happened!” cried Mr. Bobbsey.
“It was sharks,” answered the mate. "The fishermen came out here to lift their lobster pots, which had drifted a long way from shore. While they were doing this one of them baited a big hook with a piece of pork and threw it overboard, for he had seen some sharks about. A shark bit on the hook and then rammed the boat.
“Then another shark came along and both of them fought the fishermen, who might have been drowned if we had not helped them kill the sharks. But they are all right now—the fishermen, I mean—for the sharks are dead and on the bottom of the ocean by this time.”
“Were they big sharks?” asked Bert.
“Quite large,” the mate answered. “One was almost as long as the fishing boat, and they were both very ugly. It isn’t often that such big sharks come up this far north, but I suppose they were hungry and that made them bold.”
“I’m glad I wasn’t in that boat,” said Nan.