“Time those two fellows were showing up, don’t you think, Jack?” asked Josh, as the noon hour came around.

“Oh! I don’t know,” replied the other. “I noticed that Nick carried a bundle with him, and guessed it might be a little snack to keep off starvation, in case they were detained. Sometimes it’s hard to give up, when you are fishing, you know.”

“Snack!” echoed Josh, with a sniff of scorn. “Well, I wish you’d seen just what that elephant did roll up in that paper. Herb wasn’t looking, but I kept an eye on Buster. Snack! Say, take it from me, that he had as much as I would eat in a week of Sundays.”

“Well,” laughed Jack, “you’re prejudiced against poor Buster, you know, Josh. Just because you have a bird’s appetite, and he that of a hog, you pick on him. His greed is his only weak spot. His heart is as big as a bushel basket; and he’d go out of his way any time to do you a good turn.”

“Oh! I know it, all right, Jack,” returned the other. “You mustn’t take everything I say for what it stands. But listen, fellows. Talk of the angel, and you hear the rustle of its wings. Unless I miss my guess, that’s the tuneful voice of Buster right now. What in the dickens can he be shouting that way for?”

All of them were on their feet by now, and listening to the yells.

“They seem to be coming from around the island,” said Jack.

“I bet you it’s Jimmie having some fun with poor Pudding. He does like to hear him put up a howl,” chuckled Herb.

“Well, I don’t know about that, fellows. Just listen, and hear what he seems to be saying. Perhaps, after all, there may be something crooked about it. We seem to be up to our necks in all sorts of queer mysteries, you know.”

George was not smiling when he said this; indeed, all of them could now realize that there was something of appeal and alarm in connection with the lusty yells Buster was letting loose.

“Hey! stop it, you! What d’ye mean trying to drown me? Let up, I tell you! Can’t you give a feller a chance? Somebody head me off, won’t you? Help! help!”

“There he comes!” shouted Jack, pointing.

“Well, what under the sun is he doing?” cried Herb.

“Since when did Buster put a motor in his dinky?” asked George, feebly.

“And ain’t he just making the time, though?” ejaculated Josh. “Just look at the way the foam flies up before the blunt bow of the dinky!”

Jack looked again and then gave a shrill laugh.

“Motor!” he exclaimed. “The only motor Buster is dealing with now has got fins and scales, and is in the water. Don’t you see what he’s doing, boys? He got a whooping big muskalunge at the end of his line. In some way Buster has got the line twisted around his body. And there he sits in the dinky, bracing his feet against a knee of the boat, and holding on for dear life, while the fish runs away with him.”

Then the others burst into a loud laugh, seeing the comical side of it. To Buster it was not so funny, however. He had been straining so long now that he fancied he might be pulled over the side of the cranky little snub-nosed craft any time; and with that cord wrapped around his arms, drowned because of his inability to swim, despite the cork life preserver.

“Quit your laughing, and chase after us, fellows,” he bawled, as he shot past the mouth of the cove; and at the same time sending a mute look of appeal toward his mates.

“Why don’t you get out your knife and cut loose?” shouted George, making use of his hands in lieu of a megaphone.

“Can’t move—got my arms tied down at my sides. Ouch! it hurts, for the line is cutting into the bone of my wrists. Come and help me before it’s too late. You’ll be sorry if I get drowned. Then you’ll never learn the truth of how our secrets leaked. I’m the only one who is on the track. Hurry up, boys; I mean it!”

Jack saw that after all the situation was more desperate than might have appeared at first sight. It must be an enormous fish, the grandfather of all the muskies around the Thousand Islands, and powerful enough to drown poor Nick, if once it succeeded in upsetting the boat, or dragging him out of it.

Accordingly he immediately jumped over, and unfastened the cable that held his anchor.

“Hold that for me, will you, Herb?” he said, tossing one end of the rope over to the skipper of the Comfort.

Then without any further delay he started his engine with one energetic fling of the wheel.

Immediately the boat started, amid a rattling fusillade of sharp reports that told how responsive the well equipped motor was to the demands of its master.

Of course, once Jack fairly started after the little dinky that was being so vigorously towed by the captive fish, he had no difficulty in overtaking it.

“Now keep a firm hold on your seat, Buster,” he said. “I’m going to push in ahead of you, and see if I can fasten on to that line myself. The big thing can’t well pull both boats. After that I’ll free your arms. I want you to pull him in by yourself, if possible.”

“Not me!” cried Buster. “I’m done with the brute. Shoot him dead. Hit him with a club. He’s a villain, a desperate villain, because he wound me up like this, and then tried his level best to yank me over. Jack, bless you, I believe you’ve saved me from a watery grave. Have you got him now? Are you real certain he can’t jump into my little boat and take a chunk out of my leg? Oh, my! what a puller! I was sure going a mile a minute that time. Talk about Neptune and his sea horses, they can’t ever come up to a pesky muskalunge that feels the barb of the hook. I’m all tired out, Jack. You finish him, please.”

Jack saw that this was so; and having untangled the line from Nick’s body, he took the rod and proceeded to get in touch with the now sulking monster.

Nick clambered aboard the motor boat in a hurry, as though really afraid that the fish in its anger might leap into the shallow dinky to bite him.

“Glory! just look at him jump and kick, would you?” shouted Nick, as the baffled captive sprang from the water, shaking its massive head furiously in an effort to dislodge the hook, which, however, was too securely placed by this time in the hard bone of its mouth to be shaken out. “He’s trying to locate me, that’s what! Let me have that gun of yours, Jack. Next time he jumps I’m going to pot him sure.”

And he did.

As a rule Nick was a poor shot. Whether luck entered into it, or his fear that the big fish was meaning to climb in after him, stirred him to unusual exertions, Jack never knew; but as he leaped into the air, not twenty feet away, there was a tremendous bang close beside Jack, and he saw the muskalunge drop back into the water as though fairly riddled with shot.

Poor Nick also tumbled over backwards, and lay there grunting and rubbing his head; for he had in his excitement pulled both triggers at the same time, so that a double discharge had followed.

“D-d-did I g-get him, Jack?” gasped the fat boy.

“Deader than a door nail or Julius Caesar!” laughed the other, as he began to draw in the line hand over hand; for there was no longer any positive resistance from the object at the other end.

“Look out! Be careful, Jack,” warned poor Nick, in fresh alarm. “You don’t understand how treacherous one of these muskies can be. ’Twouldn’t surprise me if he was playing ’possum right now. Throw him in the dinky when he comes along. Let him bite a chunk out of that with his old teeth if he wants to. I wouldn’t touch him for anything now.”

“Oh! you’ll enjoy a steak from the same old hooker tonight, never fear. But he’s dead as a herring, Buster. And what a monster! None of the rest of us are in it with you after this. I bet he weighs all of thirty-five pounds!”

By degrees, when he really saw that the big fish was dead, Nick recovered his courage; and by the time they drew up in the cove he was swelling with importance over the wonderful degree of success that had attended his maiden effort at capturing a muskalunge.

True, Josh was mean enough to elevate his eyebrows when Nick spoke of it that way, and hint that he had imagined that the shoe was on the other foot, in that the fish had captured Nick; but the other gave him a withering look as he said scornfully:

“Now, what d’ye know about that, fellows? This simple guy actually believes I was in earnest when I let that fine and dandy fish at the end of my line tow me for half a mile. Why, silly, didn’t you take notice that I drove him like you might a horse? Didn’t we come in a bee line for this very cove? Give me a little credit, won’t you? Be fair and square. I know it’s an effort for you, but when you’re in the company of gentlemen you ought to brace up and try hard to act like one, Josh.”

Of course that took all the wind out of Josh’s sails; he could only sit there, mumbling to himself, shaking his head, and casting occasional looks toward Nick, as though inclined to give him the banner when it came to nerve.

Then came Jimmie, laboring furiously with his paddle, and excited because he did not know whatever could have become of his fisherman companion, whom last he saw flying off in a mysterious fashion, and yelling for help as though the ghost of the island had indeed laid hold of him; since Jimmie could not see what amazing power it was causing the dinky to rush through the water five times as fast as he could urge his own craft.