"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!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed 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 pa.s.sengers, Lester?" volunteered Ross. "That carca.s.s 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 gla.s.ses 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 sh.o.r.e, 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 sc.r.a.ping.
"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."