They were eating supper, as the night closed in. Nick had seated himself in a comfortable position, where he might occasionally raise his eyes, and by a turn of the head look off in the direction where his trap was laid.
During the earlier part of the meal he had paid strict attention to business, and glanced that way about once a minute faithfully. But as the spirit of feasting took a firmer clutch upon his soul, the fat boy began to forget.
Not so Jimmy. He had taken up his quarters so that he might observe the goings on at the snubbing post without even turning his head. And as he munched away at what he had on his tin platter, the Irish lad kept a close watch for the flaunting of the tell-tale signal.
Jack saw this, and he knew that all he had to do in order to keep fully posted as to the way things were working, was to watch Jimmy, whose freckled face would serve as a thermometer.
And after a while, when it was almost pitch-dark around the camp on the edge of the water, he discovered that Jimmy was staring at the snubbing post as though fascinated. His lips were working, too, though apparently he was having a hard time trying to speak, and tell his rival that the trap was working.
But Jimmy was clean-cut and generous, even to one with whom he had entered into a contest for supremacy; and presently he burst forth.
“Would ye be afther getting a move on, Nick?” he exclaimed. “There’s the flag a flutterin’ on the top of the post like a signal man wigwaggin’ in the Boy Scouts troop! And by the powers, it’s gone now, pulled clane out of the socket. Be off with ye; for, by the same token, ye’ve cotched the granddaddy of all the sharrks, I do belave!”