NICK BAGS HIS GAME.
"Whoop! I got him!"
That was certainly Nick shouting in an exultant strain; and as Jack
glanced in the direction of the lean-to he saw the fat boy hunching his
pudgy figure out, gun in hand--for the moon had not yet set in the west.
Then Jack caught the sound of something struggling in the brush close
by. Not knowing what it might prove to be, he was in no hurry to jump
over that way.
"What did you shoot at, Nick?" he demanded, as the excited boy
scrambled awkwardly to his feet, and appeared anxious to renew the
engagement; at the same time Jack made sure to lay hold on the other's
gun, lest he open fire recklessly.
"I d--d--don't know for sure," stammered Nick; "but it looked awfully
like a tiger."
"What?" exclaimed Jack, astonished. "Why, don't you know there isn't
such an animal in North America?"
"Might have been a striped skunk, Jack?" suggested Josh, who had poked
his head out from the cabin of the _Comfort_.
"Or a zebra escaped from a menagerie," Herb remarked.
"All right, have all the fun you want, fellows," said Nick, doggedly;
"but all the same, whatever it was, I got it."
"That's just what he did, boys, I reckon," Jack declared; "because you
can hear it kicking its last over yonder in the bushes. Here, where's
that lantern of ours, Jimmy? I let you have it, remember? Light up,
and show me the way in there."
Jimmy quickly applied a match to the wick, and as the light flared up,
he swung the lantern in his hand.
"Who's afraid?" he said, boldly, as he started toward the spot where
silence now reigned. "Come along after me, Jack, darlint; and please
remimber that if the beast springs at me, I depind on you to knock
spots out of him. Keep back, the rest of ye, now, till we solve the
puzzle."
Jack kept his gun in readiness, for there could be no telling what lay
beyond that fringe of bushes.
"I do be seein' somethin' there on the ground, Jack. Looky yonder,
honey, an' sure ye can't miss the same, by the token," Jimmy presently
said, in a low, strained voice, as he pointed a trembling finger ahead.
"Yes, I see something," Jack admitted. "Go on, Jimmy, take a few more
steps. No matter what a ferocious monster it may prove to be, I rather
guess Nick nailed it with that charge of shot at close range."
They kept on advancing, and the nearer they drew the bolder Jimmy
seemed to grow, until presently both boys stood over the victim of
Nick's fire.
Then they broke out into a shout that made the weird echoes leap out of
the depths of Dismal Swamp.
"Tare and ounds!" burst forth Jimmy, "if 'tisn't a shoat afther all he
killed."
"Say rather a full grown razorback pig," laughed Jack, as he noted the
sharp snout of the rooter, and its slab sides.
Jimmy immediately bent down and gripped the beast by one of its hind
legs.
"'Tis a roast of frish pork we'll be afther havin' the morrow," he
declared. "They do be sayin' that these same Virginia pigs have the
flavor of the bist Irish pork; an' I've always wanted to try the same.
Think of Nick being the one to give us this trate. And if we iver run
up against the owner, it's Nick must stand the cost. A tiger, did he
say? He must have been saing double stripes the time."
When they backed into the camp, and the defunct pig was shown, a chorus
of yells arose from the balance of the crowd. Even Nick joined in the
whooping.
"Laugh all you want to, fellows," he remarked, as he assumed a proud
attitude, leaning on his gun as though posing for his picture, with
that wild boar at his feet, as the spoils of the hunt. "I thought it
was a wild beast about to attack the camp; and as the only one awake at
the time, I believed it my solemn duty to give him both barrels, which
I did. And what's more, you see that I got him. Now, what do you say
about my marksmanship, Josh Purdue?"
"Not a word," returned that worthy, throwing up both hands. "Why, you
peppered the poor beast from bow to stern. Won't we have a fine time
picking the shot out of our teeth, if we try to eat him? But Jack, do
they ever make use of such awful thin-looking hogs as this?"
"Of course, they do," replied the other, quickly. "All razorbacks are
thin. They live in the woods and swamps, feeding on mast, which means
acorns and nuts and sweet roots. That's what gives their flesh the
sweet taste it has, a sort of gamey flavor, they say, though I never
really ate part of a genuine razorback."
"But you will now, I hope," remarked Nick. "This is my treat, and I
hereby cordially invite you, one and all, to partake with me when our
chef has a chance to cook one of these fresh hams."
"He just wants us to be in it as deep as he is, so if the owner shows
up we'll stand by him," chuckled Josh.
"Well, we ought to stand back of him," asserted Jack; "because Nick
really rested under the belief that he was protecting the camp from the
prowling monster. Of course, we accept your kind invite, Nick; and
now, let's get back under the blankets as fast as we can, because it's
kind of cool out here."
All of them made haste to do so save Nick, who lingered for some time
to fairly gloat over his quarry. Seldom had the fat boy been enabled
to bring down any species of game worth mentioning, so that his
excitement was easily understood.
On the next morning Jack cut up the lean pig, having a fair knowledge
of the methods employed in such a case. Of course, none of them just
fancied living off some man's property, and if they could only find out
who the owner of the razorback was they would have only too gladly paid
whatever it was worth.
But whether they ever did find him out or not, it would be a wicked
shame to let all that sweet meat go to waste. And that very morning
they had some pretty nice chops from the pig's ribs, which gave them a
taste at any rate.
That morning they continued to move south through Currituck Sound.
There were some ducks in sight, and more arriving, but only an
occasional discharge of a gun came to their ears. Once Jack pointed to
a wedge-shaped line of geese standing out against the clear sky far
above, and heading still further south for some favorite feeding bar.
That night they camped on Roanoke Island, and the boys knew that they
had made gallant progress through a portion of North Carolina.
"Tomorrow we will, I expect, get through Albemarle Sound, which is
something like twenty-five miles in length," Jack remarked, as around a
cheery fire that night they talked of what lay just before them.
"And after that, what?" questioned Herb.
"There's a lighthouse at the head of the narrower Croaton Sound, and if
you look over there to the east right now you'll see the one on Body
Island at Oregon Inlet. We've got to cross there first of all, you
see."
"More inlets beyond that, are there?" asked George, trying to look
indifferent.
"Two more before we reach Hatteras in Pamlico Sound, and known as New
Inlet and Loggerhead. That last one is a hummer, too, I understand;
but it can't be any worse than some we've successfully negotiated,"
Jack answered.
"Particularly that Watchapreague one," chuckled Josh, "where the jolly
mermaids lie in wait to coax all handsome fellows overboard."
"Huh! that's right," remarked Nick; "and I noticed that you stayed
aboard all right, Josh."
"Nothing to bother about with any of them, if only the boats behave
half way decently," declared Jack. "If the engine of the _Wireless_
hadn't balked just when it did, George wouldn't have had any trouble."
"And I'd have been saved my bath," chuckled Nick.
"But what of me, kind sors?" broke in Jimmy, in his thickest brogue,
assumed, no doubt, for the occasion. "I'd have lost me chanct to win
immortal glory. Didn't I be afther fillin' that beast of a shark with
lead, so that his cronies they tore him into bits, an' devoured him in
a jiffy. Give the divvle his dues, boys."
"Yes," Jack hastened to say, "give Jimmy all that's coming to him,
fellows. He deserves it," at which there was a roar.
Starting again in the morning, the southward run was resumed. All were
now in a good humor. They seemed to be able to surmount any and all
difficulties as fast as they arose; and this disposition made them
light-hearted in the extreme.
One of the hams had been cooked in an oven on the preceding night, and
proved to be very tender eating after all.
Albemarle Sound was passed, and the one beyond it. Even the dreaded
Loggerhead Inlet proved to be a hollow mockery, in so far as giving
them any real trouble went, for they crossed it with the utmost ease.
With several hours of daylight still ahead, they entered upon the great
wide Pamlico Sound, which in places is all of twenty miles from shore
to shore. As it is extremely shallow in many places, this body of
water makes a treacherous sailing ground, and many a boat has met with
disaster while navigating it.
They had not been an hour afloat on Pamlico before Jack was sorry he
had started. Once more clouds had scurried above the horizon, and were
mounting with great fleetness. And this time he believed that the
storm would not prove a tempest in a teapot, as the last one had turned
out to be.
Vainly they looked about them for a haven of safety. There was
absolutely no point of land where the water was of sufficient depth to
allow of their finding a temporary harbor.
The clouds were climbing higher with a rapidity that told of the wind
that must soon sweep across that wide body of water with cruel violence.
"Whew! perhaps we ain't in for it now!" called George, as he drew up
closer to the others, to find out what Jack had to say; for strange as
it might seem, when peril confronted the boys of the Motor Boat Club,
they seemed to turn toward Jack with much the same confidence the
needle shows in pointing directly to the north.
"What can we do, Jack?" asked Nick, in more or less alarm, as they
plainly heard the distant growl of thunder; and in imagination the fat
boy could see himself in the cranky speed boat, as she caught the full
force of the wind, and turned turtle in the twenty-mile sound, amid the
crash of the storm.