Kitabı oku: «The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove: or, The Missing Chest of Gold», sayfa 7
CHAPTER XVII
A PLEASANT SURPRISE
The other boys roared, and for a moment Teddy was disconcerted. But he quickly recovered his balance.
“I suppose,” he retorted, frowning severely at the culprit, “that this low-brow means to intimate that I am a Spanish athlete. I should be deeply pained to know that any one who has been under the refining influence of Rally Hall should indulge in the practice of slang. What would our dear Doctor Rally say if he heard one of his pupils–”
But the question remained forever unanswered, for just then a piece of pork that Bill had picked up from the deck whizzed past the orator’s face, and, in the quick and undignified duck he made, Teddy lost the thread of his discourse.
“Suppose you two cut out the fooling and get down to business,” grinned Lester. “Fred and I are the only ones doing anything, and it’s time you loafers got busy. Bring out the grub and let’s have something to eat.”
“That’s always in order, like a motion to adjourn,” acquiesced Teddy. “Come along, Bill, and we’ll show these fellows how to cook.”
Teddy and Bill went down into the little cuddy, got out the tiny oil stove, and the odors of sizzling bacon and steaming coffee soon made Lester and Fred sniff the air hungrily.
“I didn’t know how hungry I was till just now,” said the latter.
“I didn’t either,” returned Lester. “I was so worked up over that tussle with the shark that I didn’t have time to think of anything else. But now I’m hungry enough to eat nails.”
“If that’s the way you refer to the meal we’re getting up, you can’t have any,” threatened Teddy. “We may not be hotel chefs, but we’ll not stand for having our eats compared to nails, will we, Bill?”
“Not by a jugful!” answered Bill, as he scrambled some eggs in the bacon grease.
“Take it all back,” laughed Lester.
Teddy cut some slices of bread and Bill opened a jar of marmalade, which they put with the other eatables on the tiny table leaves that they propped up on both sides of the centerboard.
“Come along now, you aristocrats,” called out Teddy, “and profit by the labor of us poor working men.”
The wind was steady, so that Lester could fasten his tiller while Fred hitched the sail rope round a cleat. Then they crowded into the little cabin and passed judgment on the dinner. That it was a favorable one was shown by the magical rapidity with which every crumb disappeared.
“No dyspeptics in this crowd,” laughed Fred, when the board had been swept clean.
“Not so that you could notice it,” returned Bill. “A doctor would starve to death if he had to depend on our patronage.”
“My belt is so tight that it hurts,” admitted Teddy, loosening it a few holes.
They lay around lazily for a few minutes, too happy and satisfied to move. Then Fred and Lester resumed their places, while the other two drew a bucket of water and washed the dishes and pans. This done, they slumped down comfortably in the stern, watching the body of the shark that lunged along clumsily in the wake of the Ariel.
“He has an open countenance, hasn’t he?” grinned Teddy, as they caught an occasional glimpse of the huge mouth on the under side of the head.
“And look at those teeth,” shivered Bill. “They say that an alligator’s jaw snaps shut with the power of fifteen hundred pounds. But I’ll bet that the alligator has nothing on the shark.”
“I guess you’re right,” agreed Teddy. “Those jaws would cut a man’s leg off as neatly as if it were done with a razor.”
“I shouldn’t like to have him practise on me,” said Bill.
“If that fellow ever had a toothache, it would be some ache,” put in Fred.
“I wouldn’t care to be the dentist that had the job of pulling one of them,” laughed Bill. “I’m afraid the patient would be a little peevish.”
“I’d get my assistant to pump a ton of chloroform in him first,” declared Fred. “And even then I’d want to get into a suit of armor before I operated on him.”
“No wonder the sailors hate the brutes,” mused Teddy, as he thought of the poor fellows who had been devoured by the monsters.
“No one of them knows but that he may be the next,” added Bill.
“The sailors get even whenever they have the chance,” chimed in Lester. “The minute they see any of the beasts near the ship, they trail a hook over the stern in the hope of catching him. Sailors are superstitious, and they believe that as long as a shark is in sight some one on board is doomed to die. So they try to kill the hoodoo, by putting the shark out of business.”
“It’s a great thing to feel a good deck beneath your feet, when a shark heaves in sight,” remarked Bill. “Even in a boat no bigger than the Ariel, we’re reasonably safe. But think of what it must be like to be on an open raft on the ocean with a crowd of these hungry pirates swimming all around you.”
“And flinging themselves half way across the raft sometimes, trying to upset it,” added Teddy.
“It must be something fearful,” agreed Lester. “But there are some people who are not afraid to meet the shark on its own ground–if one can call water ground.”
“It must take a lot of nerve,” declared Teddy. “I don’t want to take their job away from them.”
“Of course it takes a lot of nerve,” was the answer. “It takes a heap of skill too. No one could do it, if he couldn’t swim just about as well as the shark himself.
“Dad has told me of what he has seen with his own eyes. A native of some of the South Sea Islands, when he learns from a fisherman that a shark is cruising around, will take his knife between his teeth, slip into the water and swim out to meet him.
“As the shark is looking for him too and can smell him, it isn’t long before they come together. The native knows when the shark is coming by the fin that shows above the surface, and when the shark gets close the native dives under.
“Of course you know that the shark has to turn over on his back in order to bite. The second it takes to do this has saved the life of many a poor fellow, and it is that that gives the diver his chance.
“The instant the shark turns over, the native plunges his knife into its stomach. He knows just where to aim, and that one stroke usually does the business. If not, he tries it again until the shark is killed. But everything has to be timed to a second. The least little slip, and it’s all up with the native.”
“I should think there’d sometimes be a chance of meeting a school of sharks instead of a single one,” commented Bill. “What would the native do in that case?”
“That does happen sometimes, but it doesn’t worry the South Sea Islander much,” explained Lester. “He can usually keep the sharks off by shouting and splashing. Then, too, if he kills one of them the others are attracted by the blood of their comrade, and they tear him to pieces, while the native swims back home.”
“Nice lot of cannibals those sharks are, to prey upon each other,” said Teddy.
“Just like a pack of wolves,” agreed Lester. “Let one of them be wounded, and the others tear him into bits. These wolves of the sea do the same thing.
“Dad says that sometimes the native won’t even take a knife, but will just carry with him a stick of hard wood, sharpened at both ends. When the shark turns over to nab him, the native thrusts the stick crosswise between the open jaws. They close down on it, the points sink in so far that the shark can’t shut its mouth, and the water flows in and chokes it to death.”
“Seems funny to choke a fish to death with water,” laughed Fred.
“Think of thrusting your arm into jaws like that,” said Bill. “If the stick didn’t go straight up and down–?”
“There’d be a one-armed native,” Lester grimly completed the sentence. “But here’s a boat coming up this way, and we’ve been so busy chinning that we hadn’t noticed it. What do you make her out to be, Bill?”
“She hasn’t any sail,” pronounced Bill after a brief scrutiny. “Here, hand me those glasses.”
“It’s a motor boat,” he announced a moment later, “and she’s coming straight for us.”
“A motor boat!” exclaimed Teddy. “Do you think it can be Ross?”
“It’s more than likely,” answered Lester. “But he’ll be near enough in a few minutes for us to make sure.”
The boat drew rapidly nearer.
“That’s who it is,” cried Teddy jubilantly. “It’s Ross and the Sleuth. Now we can compare notes about the chest of gold!”
CHAPTER XVIII
TOWING THE PRIZE
The boys forgot all about the shark for the time, and their thoughts went with redoubled intensity toward the object of their search, the missing treasure.
“I wonder if he’ll be in a more talkative humor now than he was when we saw him last?” mused Fred.
“I hope so,” said Teddy. “He’s had time to think us over and size us up, and he may decide to make a clean breast of all he knows.”
“Assuming that he really does know more than he has told us,” remarked Bill, the skeptic. “We fellows may have drawn wrong conclusions from the start he gave and that exception of his.”
“Well, at any rate, we know a great deal more than we did when we saw him last,” declared Teddy. “We know for a certainty many things that he only guessed, especially that partial confession of Dick’s as to the way Mr. Montgomery met his death.”
“I wish we had had time to hear from Uncle Aaron,” said Fred. “He may be able to give us some pointers, though I don’t suppose he knows much outside of the fact that he loaned Mr. Montgomery money and didn’t get it back.”
“I’m banking a good deal more on Mark Taylor than I am on what your uncle may know,” said Lester, “although of course we may get nothing from either.”
“What do you think we’d better do in regard to Ross?” asked Teddy. “Tell him right off what we know, or wait for him to tell us everything first?”
“I think that instead of trying to wait or to swap, we’d better be perfectly frank,” advised Fred. “If he’s a bit suspicious now, he’ll grow more so if he thinks we’re trying any kind of a game. Confidence breeds confidence, and we’ll set him the example.”
“I guess that will be the better way,” acquiesced Lester. “After all, he’s got so much more at stake than we have in this matter that we shouldn’t blame him for being a little cautious.”
By this time it was evident that Ross had recognized them, for he was standing up, waving at them vigorously.
“Seems to be glad to see us,” remarked Teddy, as the boys waved back. “I take that as a good sign.”
“Hello Ross,” they yelled over the water when he got within earshot.
“Hello, yourselves,” the boy in the motor boat shouted eagerly in reply. “What good wind blew you up to meet me?”
“What good engine drove you down to meet us?” Teddy flung back at him with a grin.
“I was on my way down to pay you a little visit at the Shoals,” replied Ross. “I didn’t think I’d be able to get over there so soon. But when I got back to Oakland I found a letter from my mother saying she had been delayed in starting, and wouldn’t be here for three or four days yet. So I thought I’d scoot over and make hay while the sun shone.”
“That’ll be bully,” said Lester warmly. “Dad will be glad to see you, and I hope you’ll be able to stay with us at the Shoals until you have to meet your mother.”
“I’d like nothing better and it’s good of you to ask me,” responded Ross. “But where are you fellows bound for now?”
“We’re going up to Milton on an errand that will interest you, when we get time to tell you about it. Come right along with us.”
“Sure thing. I’ll just round to under your stern and we’ll travel up alongside.”
He started his engine going, and then for the first time he noticed the huge bulk that was trailing along in the wake of the Ariel.
He gave a startled shout, while the boys viewed his astonishment with expressive grins.
“A shark!” he exclaimed.
“That’s what it is,” said Fred. “And for all we know it may be the same fellow that might have bitten us in two the other day. What do you think of him?”
“He’s a monster!” ejaculated Ross, who seemed unable to believe his eyes. “Do you really mean that you fellows hooked and killed him?”
“Here’s the fellow that gave him the finishing touch with his little harpoon,” affirmed Teddy, indicating Lester.
Ross circled about the body, viewing it from every side.
“He must have been a terror when he was alive!” he exclaimed with a shiver. “Even now, I’d feel a little nervous if I fell in alongside of him.”
“He’s good and dead all right,” declared Bill. “Teddy and I have been watching him for the last half hour, and he hasn’t made a movement. That harpoon knew its business.”
“What are you going to do with him?” asked Ross.
“Oh, we’ll tow him up to Milton and land him on the beach,” replied Lester. “We’ll have a better chance to look him over then.”
“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 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.”
“That’s a good idea,” agreed Lester. “Take Bill and Teddy. They’re no earthly good here anyway. Fred and I are doing all the work.”
“I like that,” replied Teddy in mock indignation. “Who was it that got up a dinner that was good enough, I notice, for you fellows to stow away in a hurry.”
“It wasn’t because it was so good that we bolted it,” chaffed Fred. “It was a disagreeable duty and we wanted to get it over with as soon as we could.”
“Come along, Ted,” said Bill with dignity, “and don’t bandy words with those common sailors.”
“It was only that I wanted to lift them up to our own level,” rejoined Teddy. “But I guess you’re right, Bill. They can’t appreciate the value of our companionship, and we’ll leave them to herd together. They’ve had their chance, and there’s no use our wasting time trying to make them into human beings.”
Ross brought the Sleuth alongside and the two boys leaped aboard.
“I’ll take the shark too, if you want me to,” proposed Ross. “I guess my engine could stand the strain.”
“No, thank you,” replied Lester. “You’ve got two sharks on board now, and I guess that’ll be all you can manage.”
The boats fell apart and the lightening of the Ariel’s load showed results at once as the little boat leaped through the water at a quickened pace. Ross dropped away to a distance of perhaps a hundred feet, in order that the Ariel might have plenty of sea room, and with their noses pointed toward Milton the two craft went on in company.
“How much further have we got to go?” asked Fred, as he let out the sheet in order to get every ounce of wind.
“Not more than eight miles, I reckon,” answered Lester.
He looked over the side to gauge the speed at which they were traveling.
“It’s a ten-knot breeze,” he conjectured, “and if we didn’t have that ugly customer in the rear to tow along, we’d make it in less than an hour. But even as it is, we’ll surely do it in an hour and a half.”
But the wind freshened and cut some time off their schedule, so that it was only a little over an hour when Lester gave a turn to the tiller that swung the Ariel in toward the coast.
“There’s Milton,” he said, pointing to a tiny village of small, straggling houses that came down close to the beach, “but we don’t go so far as that. Mark lives in a little hut about a mile this side of the town. Take the glasses and you can make it out. It stands all by itself and you can’t miss it.”
Fred pointed the binoculars in the direction that Lester indicated and plainly saw a shack near the edge of the water.
“Do you see any one about the cabin?” asked Lester.
“No, I don’t,” replied his companion. “The door is open though, and he may be inside.”
“That doesn’t prove anything,” laughed Lester. “Mark hasn’t anything worth stealing, and I guess the door’s open all the time except in winter. But it won’t be long now before we find out.”
CHAPTER XIX
THE SPOILS OF WAR
Just where the cabin stood was a little bay formed by an inward bend of the coast, and in this the water was comparatively smooth.
Lester headed his boat into this and Ross, who took his sailing directions from the Ariel, followed his example.
A hundred yards from shore, Fred ran down the sail and the boat drifted in with its own momentum, while Lester took soundings cautiously to find the best place to cast anchor. The Ariel was of light draught, and, with the centerboard up, found three feet of water ample to prevent her scraping.
“Here we are,” Lester said at last, when the two boats had reached a suitable spot and he could see the sandy bottom through the clear water. “Heave over the anchor now, and you fellows stand ready to go overboard.”
The boys followed his directions, and a moment later all were in the water.
Lester had previously unfastened the line by which they had been towing the shark and thrown it over to Fred, who stood the nearest to the shore. The rest ranged themselves along the line at intervals and bent their backs to the strain.
For strain it proved to be. While the huge carcass was floating clear of the bottom it was comparatively easy to draw him along; but when the lower part began to scrape, it was a more difficult matter. They progressed only an inch at a time. By taking advantage of the rollers, however, as they came tumbling in, the boys finally got their booty to the edge of the water line. They could not drag it entirely clear of the water, but got it half way out, the head and upper part of the body remaining exposed, while the tail swished idly to and fro in the shallow water.
“Whew!” said Teddy, wiping his streaming forehead. “I wouldn’t like to work so hard as that every day in the week.”
“You won’t have to,” remarked Lester, comfortingly. “Lightning doesn’t strike twice in the same place, and the chances are that you’ll never catch a shark again in your life.”
“As long as a shark never catches me, I won’t kick,” said the philosophical Bill.
They threw themselves down on the beach, panting and perspiring. The day was very warm, and the excitement of the catch, together with their recent efforts, made the rest a needed and grateful one.
“Well,” said Lester, the first to get on his feet again, “while you weary Willies are loafing here, I’m going up to Mark’s cabin and see if he’s at home. The chances are that he isn’t, or he’d have been out to see what all this fuss was about. Still, he may be asleep. Anyway, whether he’s home or not, I want to scare up an axe or hatchet or something of the kind to dig out that harpoon.”
“What’s the matter with the hatchet we’ve got?” asked Teddy lazily.
“That’s rather small, and, besides, with that only one can work at a time. It’ll take some digging to get through that hide. Then, too, you fellows were talking of getting out the teeth and strips of the hide for mementoes, and you can’t do that with your pocket knives alone.”
“Go on then, you horny-handed son of toil, and luck be with you,” drawled Bill. “You’ll find us here when you get back.”
“I’m sure of that,” retorted Lester. “It would take an earthquake to make you fellows move.”
Lester went up the beach until he reached the open door of the cabin and looked in. He found it deserted as he had expected. He went in and hunted about among its meagre belongings and came back to the boys, triumphant, bringing with him a hatchet, an axe and a large, keen-bladed knife that was used by Mark in cleaning his fish.
“Here they are!” he exclaimed, as he laid them down on the sand. “Mark wasn’t at home, so I made free with these things of his, as I knew he wouldn’t mind. There’s no further excuse for you hoboes now, and you want to get a wiggle on.”
“Take back them cruel woids,” groaned Teddy.
“Listen to the chant of the slave driver!” jibed Bill.
“There’s nothing left but to obey, shipmates,” said Fred with mock resignation. “Remember he’s the captain and we don’t want to be tried for mutiny.”
They distributed the implements among them and moved in a body toward the shark.
The first thing to do was to get out the harpoon, and this was no easy task, for the barb of the shank lay deeply imbedded among the tough fibres of its victim. The implement was freed at last, however, and Lester carefully washed it off in the water and then polished it with sand until it shone.
“Just see him gloat,” laughed Teddy. “You’d think he was a pilgrim who had just come across a precious relic.”
“Or a miner who had found a diamond,” added Ross.
“He’s earned the right to gloat,” maintained Fred. “If I’d driven home a harpoon with such a sure hand and steady aim as his, I’d be so proud that my hat wouldn’t fit me.”
“I’m thinking as much of dad as I am of myself,” grinned Lester. “He’ll be tickled to death when he hears that I’ve speared a shark with that old harpoon of his. He’s always thought a lot of it, but he’ll think still more of it now.”
“Well, now that the harpoon is out, let’s turn this fellow on his back. I want to have a good look at that mouth of his,” remarked Fred.
It was quite an undertaking, but by distributing themselves along the body, using their implements as levers and all heaving at a given signal, they finally succeeded.
It was a frightful mouth, armed with huge rows of sawlike teeth, and although they knew the brute was dead the boys could not repress a shudder as they looked at it.
“Talk about a buzz saw!” exclaimed Teddy. “It couldn’t cut you in two more neatly than this fellow could when he was swimming around.”
“If those teeth could talk, I imagine they’d have some stories to tell,” added Ross.
“And they wouldn’t be pretty stories either,” observed Bill.
“I wouldn’t want him to be the undertaker at my funeral,” said Fred, who could not help thinking that that dismal function might have been performed by this shark or some other the day he had gone overboard.
“Look at those wicked eyes,” said Lester. “They’re almost as fiendish now as they were when they looked up at us as he came swimming around the boat. I’ll wager we’ll see them more than once in our dreams.”
“As long as we don’t see them any other way it won’t matter much,” concluded Bill, the practical.
It was a full hour before the boys had cut the teeth from the bony sockets and had secured all the strips of hide they wanted to make up into souvenirs.
“We’ll leave the rest of the carcass here until the tide comes in and carries it away,” remarked Lester, when the work was finished. “It’ll float out to sea and the other fish will make short work of it.”
“That’ll be only justice,” said Teddy. “He’s feasted on them or their brothers by the ton in his time.”
“The gulls will help them out,” said Lester, as he pointed to a number of the great birds circling around. “They’re getting ready now to pick the bones, and are only waiting for us to get out of the way before they settle down to the job.”
“It’s getting pretty late, isn’t it?” inquired Bill. “I hardly think we’ll see Bartanet Shoals again to-night.”
“Not a chance in the world,” replied Lester, as he looked at the sky, already crimsoning in the west. “We’ll have to stay all night with Mark and make a break for home in the morning. But it doesn’t matter, and dad won’t be worrying about us this time, especially if the weather stays clear.”
“I’m afraid Mark will find it some job to put us up for the night,” observed Ross, as he noted the tiny dimensions of the little cabin on the beach.
“It isn’t exactly a summer hotel,” grinned Lester. “There’s only one room and that’s pretty well cluttered up with his nets and tackle and other junk.”
“We’ll probably have to sleep outside on the sand,” remarked Bill.
“All the more fun,” chimed in Teddy. “We’ve done it once and we can do it again. One thing sure, there won’t be any kick coming on the question of ventilation. The earth for a bed, the sky for a blanket–”
“And the sea for a lullaby,” finished Ross.
