"Well, I'd rather eat that than those other nasty things."
"Oh, that isn't what we want him for," said Harry, rubbing his finger against the edge of his spear-point. "He's probably not fit to eat."
"Then why all this trouble?" asked Desiree.
"Dear lady, we expect to ride him home," said Harry, rising to his feet.
Then he explained our purpose, and you may believe that Desiree was the most excited of the lot as we ripped down the body of the fish from tail to snout and began to peel off the tough skin.
"If you succeed you may choose the new hangings for my boudoir," she said, with an attempt at lightness not altogether successful.
"As for me," I declared, "I shall eat fish every day of my life out of pure gratitude."
"You'll do it out of pure necessity," Harry put in, "if you don't get busy."
It took us three hours of whacking and slashing and tearing to pull the fish to pieces, but we worked with a purpose and a will. When we had finished, this is what we had to show: A long strip of bone, four inches thick and twelve feet long, and tough as hickory, from either side of which the smaller bones projected at right angles. They were about an inch in thickness and two inches apart. The lower end of the backbone, near the tail, we had broken off.
We examined it and lifted it and bent it half double.