“Stop right there, Mister Skipper!” cried the fat boy, threateningly. “It’s rank treachery to betray your boatmate to the common enemy. But that is a dandy fish, Jack. Where did you catch him?”
“I think in the upper jaw,” replied Jack, solemnly, at which there was a shout.
“I see you did,” replied Nick, bending over, “for there’s a broken hook sticking out of his mouth right now. Ugh! look at the cruel teeth, would you? I’d hate to let him close his jaws on my finger. But if the gimp snell gave way, how under the sun did you ever get him aboard, Jack?”
“I’ll tell you,” came the calm reply. “It happened that I had to play this old pirate for nearly twenty minutes before I could tire him out. You’d have laughed to see how he towed my little punkin-seed of a boat around. But finally he seemed all but exhausted, and I kept reeling in until I had him right up close, where I could bend over and touch him with my hand.”
“Wow! you couldn’t hire me to do that now,” exclaimed Nick, shuddering as he gazed at that array of sharp, vicious looking teeth.
“I could see right then and there,” Jack continued, quietly, “that the gimp had been twisted until it was ready to break away. So I knew I didn’t dare try to lift him aboard by the line; and I had no gaff hook along. So I just let my hand slide over his back until I reached his opening and closing gills. Then I suddenly inserted several of my fingers, and gave a quick fling. He came aboard all right; but the line parted. So you see, Nick, it was a close shave for our supper, all right.”
Josh, having made sure the fierce-looking fish was actually dead, by pounding it on the head several times with a piece of wood, started to get it ready for the pan. It was really the first one of decent size that they had thus far hooked; though several meals had been made of small-mouth black bass, taken either by casting, or trolling with a spoon.
“It strikes me as rather queer,” remarked Jack, as he lay there resting, “while Jimmie was starting to get supper for the two aboard the Tramp, that so far we’ve neither seen nor heard a thing of Clarence and Joe.”
“And haven’t we had a great old week of it though?” George remarked. “Outside of one stormy day the weather has been just prime; and even my engine has given no trouble. I’m beginning to have hopes that it’s entirely cured of those tantrums that used to bother me so. Or perhaps the Jonah has shifted to your boat, Herb.”
“That ain’t fair,” called out Nick, from some unseen place, where he was wrestling with the cookery department, and slyly taking peeps in his notebook as to whether salt pork was used in frying fish, or butter. “Tell the gentleman, Herb, that I never brought you the least bit of bad luck. Why, we’ve been getting along here in a perfectly harmonious way, haven’t we?”