The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove Part 16

"Do you think we'll catch sight of one?"

The questions poured in upon him and Lester laughed, as he raised his hand in protest.

"One thing at a time," he answered. "Anybody'd think this was a political meeting where every one's trying to heckle the speaker at once.

"I've caught them before," he went on, replying to the first question that had been hurled at him. "Not often, of course, because they're not as common as other fish. But there are altogether too many on this part of the coast. They scare off the fish and break the nets of the fishermen. Then, too, they're dangerous if any one falls overboard, and no one can be comfortable when he knows those pirates are cruising around, ready to gobble him up."

"It isn't exactly a pleasant sensation," agreed Fred, with a little shiver as he thought of the time he had gone over the side for Ross.

"All the people along the coast hate them like poison," continued Lester, "and it is looked on as a public duty to put them out of business whenever they are come across."

"Just the way we feel out West about rattlesnakes," put in Bill.

"I suppose so," agreed Lester.

"Perhaps we'll run across the very fellow we saw in the storm,"

suggested Teddy.

"Perhaps," a.s.sented Bill, "although there won't be any strawberry mark by which we can identify him."

"If he doesn't turn up, his brother or his cousin will do just as well,"

laughed Fred.

"What kind of bait do you use?" asked Bill.

"I've got a few chunks of pork stored away in the locker," returned Lester. "If we catch sight of one swimming around, we'll throw over some small pieces. Their sense of smell is wonderful, and they'll get on the job right away. The shark will follow us for more, and just when he thinks he's found a regular meal, we'll heave over the big piece attached to the hook. He'll nab it in a hurry, and then his guileless and unsuspicious nature will receive a sudden shock."

"But how will you get him on board?" asked Bill.

"If he's a big fellow, we'll not," was the answer, "unless we can get him near enough to stun him with a hatchet. Even on board a big ship the men often have to attach the rope to a windla.s.s to draw the big fellows in while they're still full of fight. Even if he were stunned, I don't think that all of us pulling together could lift his dead weight on board the _Ariel_."

"Then what would we do with him?" asked Teddy.

"We'd have to tow him astern until we could run in somewhere and pull him ash.o.r.e," answered Lester. "That's what the fishermen round here usually do when they hook one. Once get him on the beach, and the rest is easy."

"Perhaps we'll have a shark steak for supper," said Teddy.

"Perhaps, but I wouldn't recommend it," said Lester, with a grimace.

"I've tasted it and I must admit that it's pretty rank. I wouldn't care to have it as a steady diet, unless I were starving and couldn't get anything else. The Chinese make soup of its fins though, and they say that it's dandy."

"You say you'd try to stun him with a hatchet," said Bill, the skeptic.

"But suppose you couldn't get him near enough for that?"

"Then we'd try something else," replied Lester. "Here, Teddy, take the tiller for a minute."

Teddy did as requested, and Lester, reaching down into the cabin, drew out and displayed to the astonished eyes of the boys a long harpoon.

CHAPTER XV

CAPTURING THE SHARK

"Where on earth did you get that harpoon?" asked Fred.

"It belongs to father," was Lester's answer. "He shipped on board a whaler once and made a three-year cruise. He was the head harpooner of the first mate's boat and many's the time this old harpoon has struck a ninety barrel whale. Dad has any number of yarns to spin about it, and some day I'll set him going and you'll hear them all."

"That'll be dandy!" exclaimed Teddy. "There's nothing stirs me up so much as a whaling story. I've often thought I'd like to make a voyage on a whaler when I am old enough."

"There's a good deal of romance and excitement about it," admitted Lester, "but it's very hard and dangerous work. A man takes his life in his hands when he ships for such a cruise."

"This certainly looks as though it meant business," commented Bill, as he examined curiously the broad, flat, triangular head. "The edge is like a razor, and nothing could pull this barb loose after it once entered."

The shank was about two feet long and served as a socket to the shaft which gave a total length to the harpoon of more than six feet.

"My, but it's heavy," said Fred, as he lifted it. "It must take some muscle to handle a thing like that."

"It takes a good deal of experience to master it," said Lester.

"Do you know how to throw it?" asked Teddy.

"Father has shown me how, and I've practised a good deal on and off just for fun," was the reply. "I might be able to hit a shark with it, if he wasn't very far off, and I might not. I'd have a chance though, and if I missed I could try again. This rope attached to it prevents its being lost, and I could draw it in again and make another attempt at it.

"Of course this is rather old fashioned these days," Lester went on.

"Now, in most of the whaling boats, they put the harpoon in a gun, just as you might thrust a ramrod down the muzzle of a rifle. The harpoon has an explosive sh.e.l.l attached to its head like the torpedo of a submarine.

The harpoon is shot from the gun, and after it leaves the muzzle, a rocket charge attached to it carries it still further. When it hits the whale, the bomb explodes and it's all over. Of course, it's safer and surer than the old way, but it's too much like business. It does away with the exciting, desperate struggle between man and whale."

"What stories this old weapon could tell, if it could only talk," mused Fred.

"Yes, and they'd be more exciting than anything you read in fiction,"

added Bill.

"We may have a chance to use it before the day is over," said Teddy hopefully, as he looked over the waves on every side.

"It's a bare possibility," a.s.sented Lester. "I thought it wouldn't do any harm to bring it along anyhow just on the chance.

"You fellows want to keep a keen lookout for anything that looks like a fin," he continued. "It would be too bad to let any guilty shark escape."

As Lester had charge of the tiller and Fred was looking after the sail, the work of watching devolved on Teddy and Bill. They took opposite sides of the craft, Teddy handling Mr. Lee's binoculars while Bill depended upon the remarkably keen eyes with which nature had gifted him.

An hour went by, during which the little boat made rapid progress. But nothing rewarded the vigil of the two, and Teddy began to grow disgusted.

"Nothing doing to-day, I guess," he grumbled. "Somebody's sent a wireless to the sharks telling them to keep out of sight."

"And after Lester has taken all that trouble in getting a warm welcome ready for them," mourned Fred.

"It's certainly very ungrateful on their part," grinned Bill.