“I guess we’ve had about enough of this, so let’s go ashore,” he suggested.
Nick awaited them, eager to ascertain the amount of their captures. He whiffed on discovering only one fish aboard the dinky.
“Huh! could eat that all by myself, and then not half try,” he remarked.
“All right, then; if you do the needful to it, you’re welcome, Nick,” laughed the one who had captured the sea trout.
Of course, Nick became suddenly suspicious.
“You wouldn’t play any trick on me, now, I hope, Jack, and get me to eat a fish that wasn’t fit for the human stomach?” he questioned, uneasily.
“That’s what they call a sea trout down here; but up North it’s the weakfish, and said to be as toothsome as almost anything that swims,” Jack remarked.
“Oh! all right, then I accept your kind offer. I’ll get busy right now, and have him ready for the morning. Wish you had got one apiece, I hate to seem greedy, you know, fellows,” he went on to say, as if thinking he ought to excuse himself.
When the morning came Nick was astir before anybody else, for he had a duty on his mind. He bothered Josh so much that finally the cook made him start a blaze of his own, over which he could prepare his breakfast; and Nick managed pretty well, considering that he had never made a study of the art of cookery.
They started off at a booming pace. The run down Indian River that day would always remain a pleasant memory with the young cruisers. Fort Pierce was reached on schedule time, after passing through the Narrows, and securing a mess of oysters from a boat engaged in dredging there.