CHAPTER XXI.
VICTORY COMES TO NICK.
"Whoop! here I go, fellers!" shouted Nick, as, scrambling awkwardly tohis feet, he hurried along the beach toward the spot where he had lefthis shark line.
Of course the rest hastened to follow after him. They found the fat boybending down and feeling of the taut rope.
"Gee whittaker! but I've caught the biggest ever, I do believe!" Nickwas crying. "Just feel that line, would you? Acts like it had hold of ahouse, with the tide running out. Say, it'll take me all night to getthat monster ashore; but I'll do it; you hear me warble, Jimmy, I'll doit!"
"Good for you, Nick!" laughed Jack.
"We'll back you up to win out, if you only keep everlastingly at it,"remarked Herb.
"And don't be afther forgettin' the rules of the game, all of ye,"warned Jimmy. "Nobody must put a finger on the loine to hilp Nick. Iwant to see him have fair play, so I do. And, by the same token, ifhe bates me by three hundred pounds, I'll be the firrst gossoon tocongratulate him on his success. You know that, boys."
"Sure we do, Jimmy," spoke up George.
"It wouldn't be like you not to do the same," declared Josh.
"You know what you've just got to do, Nick," remarked Jack.
"Guess I do," chuckled the owner of the outfit, as he looked eagerly outover the darkening water to that point toward which the taut line seemedto extend; but if he entertained a faint hope that the prisoner wouldleap into view while trying to get rid of the steel barb, he mistook thenature of the shark, which bores deep, and tries to do by main strengthwhat a tarpon, a trout, a salmon or a black bass attempts by that upwardfling, and shake of the head.
"He's going it pretty furious right now," Josh observed.
"Yes, and the harder he pulls the better," Nick said. "That'll help totire the old chap out, and make it easier for poor me to get him ashore,foot by foot, by making use of my snubbing post here. But let's go backand finish our supper, boys. If the hook holds, and the rope is as goodas I think, he'll be here tugging away an hour from now, just as much ashe is now."
"That's where your head's level, Nick," commented Jack.
And so the whole party wended their way back to where the camp-fireblazed on the shore. Here the pleasant task of finishing their meal wasonce more resumed. Some of them thought Nick was really devouring evenmore than usual, though that might be hard to believe.
"He wants to get his strength up to top-notch!" laughed Herb.
"Well," observed Nick, calmly, as he reached deliberately over, and tookthe last helping of Boston baked beans from the tin kettle in which theyhad been heated for the meal; "I hate to see things go to waste; andthere are some fellers around who don't seem to know what's good."
"I've noticed," Josh remarked, drily, "that you don't mind how much goesto _your_ waist, all right."
Nick only groaned at the pun, and went on cleaning out his platter, asthough he believed in always laying in a healthy supply of food, sincenobody could tell when another chance might come around.
Afterwards they lay about the camp and told stories, joked and even sangschool songs. Nick seemed in no great hurry to take up the task thatawaited him. He knew from former experiences just what it meant. Butthat the subject was on his mind all the while was made manifest fromwhat he said.
"Jack, I want to ask you a question!" he began.
"Well, fire away, then," suggested the other, with a nod of invitation.
"If, now, this fellow at the end of my line turns out to be so heavythat I just can't budge him, when I get the chump at the edge of thewater, would it be breaking the rules if I borrowed that block andtackle to help yank him out, so you can all see him, and estimate hisweight?"
"How about that, fellows?" asked Jack, looking around with a wink towardthe other chums.
"Why, of course he can make use of any means, so long as no other personlends a hand to assist him," George gave as his opinion.
"That's what!" Josh added.
"If he goes and gets the falls and fixes the whole blooming businesshimself, of course he's got the right to do it," declared Herb.
"And I do be saying that it's a clever schame, that does Nick credit,"was the verdict of Jimmy.
"That settles it, then, Nick," Jack decided. "It's unanimous, you hear;and if you want, you can go and get the block and tackle arranged rightnow."
"Oh! do you think, then, I'll surely need it, Jack?" asked the fat boy,trembling with joyous anticipations; for from the tenor of Jack's wordshe expected that they all believed he had caught the biggest of sharks,one that would make that little porpoise of Jimmy's look like a baby.
"I wouldn't be surprised if you did," Jack replied, with a reassuringnod.
Accordingly, after he had cleaned off his pannikin, and not a secondsooner, Nick hunted up the rope and blocks with which they had hauledthe _Comfort_ out on skids at the time of her accident.
By a skillful use of such an apparatus, one man's strength is made equalto that of several; and the boys had learned this fact through actualexperience.
"Let us know when you expect to get busy," called out Herb, as Nick wentoff with the falls.
"Yes, because we want to enjoy it all, you know, Nick," sang out George.
Perhaps half an hour passed, with the fat boy busily engaged getting hisapparatus ready. Then they heard him give a call.
"Hi! hello, there! fellers; suppose somebody starts a fire agoing forme here; that's allowable, ain't it, Jack?" he demanded.
"Why, of course, since it hasn't anything to do with getting the sharkashore," the one addressed responded, as all of them jumped up.
"I'm ready to begin yanking him in now; but it's so pesky gloomy I ain'table to see just right," Nick continued. "It'd be a shame now if I lostthis dandy chap just because I didn't see how to work him."
Some of the boys gathered dead leaf stalks from under a nearby palmetto,and in next to no time they had a fine, ruddy blaze crackling close bythe spot where Nick was standing, his shirt sleeves rolled up, and anair of grim determination about his whole person.
The first thing he did was to make sure the rope went twice around thesnubbing post, so that he might always have a hitch. Then he fastenedthe end of the rope belonging to the falls to the strained fish line, adozen feet beyond the snubbing post.
His operations were watched with considerable interest by his mates, whorealized that quite a transformation was rapidly taking place in thecharacter of the once placid and indolent fat boy.
"Here goes, then!" exclaimed Nick, as he threw his full weight on therope that went through the several blocks.
They could hear him grunting at a great rate, which indicated what aneffort it was to get the shark started shoreward against his will.
"Bully! he's beginning to make it!" whooped George, greatly excited.
"Hurrah for Nick!" shouted Josh.
"Walk away with it, me bhoy!" cried Jimmy, as though quite forgettingthat success for Nick meant defeat for him.
The stout fisherman was indeed doing just what Jimmy advised, andwalking away with things. When he had gone as far as he could, hemanaged to whip the rope around some object. Then, returning to the nowslack fishing line, above the spot where he had fastened the falls, hedrew it taut around the snubbing post.
"He gained at least ten feet that time," declared Jack.
"But, oh! my! ain't the old terror mad, though?" exclaimed George. "Justsee how he pulls, would you, boys?"
"Give him another turn, Nick," advised Jack.
Unfastening the falls, Nick took the second hitch, and as before thiswas some distance below the snubbing post.
Again he bent his stout back, and, aided by the tackle, he succeeded inbringing the struggling sea monster closer in to the shore.
Everything was working smoothly, and by the time he had repeated hiseffort a good many times they could see from the terrific splashing thatthe prisoner was already in shoal water.
"Do you think I'm going to get h
im?" gasped poor, winded Nick, as hewiped his streaming forehead, and tried to get ready for the hardest tugof all; for, with a dead weight on the sand to haul, he could no longercount on the buoyancy of the water.
"Well, I should smile, yes," declared George. "At him again, Ginger;never say die! Set 'em up in the other alley! This is a great treat tous, Nick, I tell you!"
But Nick was already busy. With the rope over his shoulder, and his toesdigging in the sand, he tugged away like a good fellow, gaining inch byinch. This time he succeeded in dragging the shark all the way out ofthe water, so that it lay exposed to their view.
"Hurroo! he done it!" shouted Jimmy, with an utter disregard for therules of grammar, that would have horrified his teachers, had any ofthem heard him; but Jimmy had one set of rules to mark his vacationmanners, and another covering his connection with the seats of learning;and when he wished could talk just as correctly as the next one.
They gathered around, full of wonder at the size and ferocity of themonster, that even then lay there on the sand, snapping savagely ateverything.
"Will it beat Jimmy's porpoise?" asked Nick, proudly.
"Half again as heavy!" declared Jack; "for I reckon it must weigh all offour hundred pounds."