"If we could only get the full force of his weight, she"d come with a rush," Josh had declared, though the fat boy only noticed the slur with a smile and a nod.

"Are you all ready to pull?" asked Jack, who, being master of ceremonies, had the leading position on the line.

"Sure we are; get busy, Jack, darlint!" sang out Jimmy.

"Then altogether now, and away we go!--one, two, three! She moved that time, fellows, I tell you. Once more now, yo-heave-o! That was worth talking about, and she jumped six inches. Again, and put every ounce of muscle into it! Now, then, up with her! Another turn! That"s the way to do it, boys!" And Jack continued to encourage his mates to do their level best until they had dragged the _Comfort_ up the skids to a point where one could crawl underneath her exposed keel.

CHAPTER XVI.

A SCREECHER FROM THE NORTH.

All of them awaited the verdict with bated breath. Jack was down on his back under the boat, and carefully examining the fracture made by the snag.

"We can mend it, all right," he announced, as he finally snaked his way out.

A chorus of approval greeted the announcement.

"How long will it take us, do you think?" asked Herb, who looked relieved to know that, after all, his boat would not be lost.

"Oh! that depends. Perhaps by tonight it may be in apple-pie shape, good enough to hold out till we get to Tampa," Jack replied.

"Say, looks like we might have the whole bally armada in the hands of the ship joiners at the same time," chuckled Nick. "Because, you know, George and me want to get a new engine installed the worst kind, don"t we, George?"

The skipper of the _Wireless_ grunted in reply; Nick was evidently running things now with regard to that change in motive power, and did not mean to let his mate draw back from his word.

"But first of all, we"ve got to drag the boat up further," continued Jack. "You see, if I"ve got to work at that broken place for hours, I"m bound to have it more comfortable than now. Lying on my back would knock me out."

Accordingly they all took hold again, after the tackle had been shifted.

It was not so difficult a thing to do, with six st.u.r.dy fellows to pull a rope; and presently the _Comfort_ was elevated at a point that would allow one to kneel under her keel.

Jack made his preparations, and set to work. With the willing Herb to a.s.sist in any way necessary, the others of course were not needed.

Josh amused himself after his favorite manner, studying up some new dishes with which he figured surprising his chums some fine day. George could always find plenty to do pottering with his engine, and trying to cure its faults; for hope dies hard in the young and sanguine heart.

Jimmy and Nick took to fishing, because that employment seemed to engross their every waking thought. When Jimmy started out, the fat boy grew uneasy; and before long he, too, paddled away in one of the small tenders.

"Be sure and don"t go out of sight of the smoke from the fire," Jack had cautioned them both; and Josh agreed to make use of some pine wood he had picked up, in order to create a black smoke; for Florida pine is full of the resinous sap that burns fiercely, and makes a dense smudge.

Jimmy did not remain long in one place. He seemed very restless, as though he wanted to move about, in order to be on the lookout for a chance to make a grand haul. Nick followed from time to time, meaning to be an eyewitness to any remarkable event that took place.

"He"s hoping to get fast to one of them tarpon, that"s what," was the conviction of the fat youth, who had discovered that the king fish of the coast was in evidence in those warm waters. "I just wish he would right now," he went on, chuckling; "I"d give a whole heap to see Jimmy pulled around by one of them high skippers of tarpon. It"d curb that ambition of his, some, I guess now."

And, singular to say, Nick"s wish was fated to be realized. Jimmy"s mullet bait was gorged by a tarpon about the middle of the morning.

At the time the Irish boy chanced to be either half asleep or else thinking of something else. At any rate, the first thing he knew of the circ.u.mstance, and that he was fast to a streak of polished silver, was when the rod he was holding was almost jerked from his hands.

"Whoa, there, ye omadhaun!" shouted Jimmy, immediately bracing his feet so that he might not be pulled from the d.i.n.ky outright.

Then something sprang from the water not fifty feet away. It was a lordly tarpon, shaking its head, as if hoping to get rid of the barbed hook.

A shriek from Jimmy, echoed by one from Nick, drew the attention of all the others. Even Jack came crawling out from under the motor boat to watch the sport.

It was certainly a great time Jimmy had. That little d.i.n.ky was dragged around at a furious pace, now darting to the right, and presently whirled about to head toward the left, as some new whim seized upon the captive fish.

Pretty soon Jimmy seemed to be getting dizzy from the rapid evolutions.

"He"ll never tire that monster out!" cried Herb.

"And perhaps it might carry him out to sea, and lose him there!"

suggested the cautious Josh.

"Well, even if he tired the fish out, it wouldn"t weigh more than a hundred pounds; so I think he"d better cut loose," was Jack"s dictum.

Accordingly he made a megaphone out of his hands, and shouted:

"Better let him go free, Jimmy; he"ll upset you, and perhaps bite you after he gets you in the water!"

"Faith, what shall I be afther doing, then?" came back faintly.

"Cut loose! you"ve got a knife, haven"t you?" called George.

"But I"ll lose me line that way, and the hook in the bargain!"

remonstrated the reluctant Irish boy.

"Well, better that than your life, or my boat," George told him.

So poor Jimmy found himself compelled to creep forward, when the chance offered, and push the blade of the knife against the taut line. Of course it parted instantly; and he came near capsizing when the little d.i.n.ky sprang up again, freed from the drag of the big fish.

The tarpon went speeding away toward the gulf, leaping madly out of the water now and then, as though still trying to shake that jewelry from its jaw, or else making sport of disconsolate Jimmy, who sat there casting yearning looks after his escaped prize.

He always maintained that it was a two hundred-and-thirty-five-pound fish, though just why he hit upon that odd figure Nick alone could guess. The jewfish he remembered had been calculated to tip the scales at two hundred and thirty pounds. And it is always the largest fish that gets away.

Well, after that disappointment Jimmy might have been pardoned had he given up for the day; but that was not his way. He kept at it all the blessed afternoon. Several bites rewarded his diligence, but he did not succeed in getting fast to another of the silver kings.

And, greatly to his disappointment, the evening came on with the grinning Nick still holding high record in the contest.

Jack had been quite as successful as he had ventured to hope. George and Herb both declared that he had patched the fracture in the ribs and planks of the _Comfort_ in a truly shipshape manner; and that there could be no question about the repair holding, up to the time they expected reaching Tampa.

"Then we go on tomorrow, do we?" asked Nick, anxious to get Jimmy away from the tarpon temptation; for he feared the lucky Irish lad might sooner or later get hold of some monster, which would put his prize out of the running.

Jack said there was nothing to hinder; and with all of them, save perhaps Jimmy, feeling quite happy and contented, the night came on.

In the morning they were off again, and that day they saw the last of that weird region charted as the Ten Thousand Islands. None of them were sorry; indeed, the very monotony of those mangrove covered mud flats had begun to pall upon every member of the expedition.

When they began to see plumed palmetto trees along the sh.o.r.e, the sight brought forth cheers from several of the more joyous among the voyagers.