“I want to get some souvenirs from him before we cast him away altogether,” said Fred.
“You might get enough teeth to make a necklace and go strutting around like a cannibal king,” grinned Bill. “I hear that those ornaments make 143 a great hit with the dudes of the South Sea Islands.”
“They’d go well with that bunch of rattles we brought back from the ranch this summer,” laughed Teddy.
“Not if mother sees them first,” said Fred. “She was half scared to death when we brought home those rattles, and we had all we could do to get her to let us keep them. Even as it is, they have to be kept out of sight, and to bring home some shark’s teeth would be the finishing touch.”
“I’m going to cut a strip of the hide to make a belt,” declared Bill. “They say they last forever.”
“A hat band for mine,” voted Lester.
“A watch case will hit me hardest,” said Fred.
“There’ll be plenty to go round, I guess,” laughed Ross. “From the size of that fellow, you could cut out enough hide to make all the belts and other gewgaws that could be used if you lived to be as old as Methuselah.”
“Come along now, fellows,” called out Lester. “We’ll have plenty of time for a gab-fest when we get to Milton. We want to be getting on.”
“How about taking off some of your passengers, Lester?” volunteered Ross. “That carcass makes a big weight for you to pull, and I can just as well take two of you aboard as not.”