Josh chuckled.
“I do feel something now, all right, Buster,” he remarked. “Watch me yank him alongside in a hurry. You never could handle such a monster with one of your arms next to useless.”
So Josh worked away, possibly putting on more or less, as though he were having the time of his life in trying to drag the captive alongside. Every little while he pretended to lose a foot or so of line, whereupon Buster would call out anxiously and beg him to keep a tight hold on the glorious prize.
“Talk to me about having fish for supper,” the dripping sportsman cried as he watched for the first glimpse of his catch; “why, we could feed a whole village on such a dandy as this. And caught on a bare hook, too! Ain’t I the lucky one for keeps? What d’ye know about that?”
“There he comes, Buster!” cried Josh, pantingly; “get ready now to help me pull him up over the stern, all of you. My stars! but how he does fight.”
In another moment Josh drew alongside a small but broad-nosed log, which in floating with the current of the river had suddenly been snagged by the bare hook. The impact, with the boat running as it was, had been severe enough to drag the fisherman into the water, for the stout line held, and he had foolishly wrapped one end of the same around his left wrist.
Jack and George shouted with mirth, and Josh excelled them both. Buster looked down at the now tamed “fish,” felt ruefully of his lame arm, and then grinned.
“You bit, all right, fellows!” he blandly told them; nor would he offer any further explanation, so that to the end of the chapter none of them really knew whether Buster had been playing a trick on them or not by pretending to fight the object at the end of his line and showing such tremendous solicitude while Josh was pulling in the same.
“What am I going to do about drying off?” asked Buster a little later, after he had succeeded in reeling in all his line without getting it very much tangled—the log he allowed to float off on the current, having no use for it, though Josh did ask him if he had never heard of “planked fish.”
“You’re draining right along,” George told him; “and as the weather is so nice and warm there’s no danger of your taking cold, I guess.”