“Will it beat Jimmy’s porpoise?” asked Nick, proudly.
“Half again as heavy!” declared Jack; “for I reckon it must weigh all of four hundred pounds.”
[CHAPTER XXII.]
WHERE AMBITION LED.
True to his word, the generous Irish lad was the very first to grasp Nick’s blistered hand and congratulate him on his wonderful success.
“That’s what comes of stick-at-it-tiveness,” declared Herb, ponderously, as he, too, gripped the fingers of the successful shark fisherman.
Nick was allowed to get the rifle, and wind up the career of the savage sea monster. In the morning they estimated his weight, just as they had done with others in the past. Everybody was satisfied to agree with that first guess which Jack made, and call it four hundred. And they declared that Nick was a wonder, in that with only the assistance of the falls, he had dragged such a monster up on the beach.
The voyage was resumed that day, and for the better part of a week they were put to it dodging storms, making outside runs when the fair weather allowed of their braving the open gulf, and extricating themselves from various unpleasant predicaments, when they managed to lose themselves in what had promised to be a convenient cut-off, but which proved a trap in the shape of shallow water, with many chances of the boats sticking in the mud.
After Pensacola would come Mobile; and then the next place they expected to reach would be their destination, New Orleans.