[Gutenberg 51319] • Woodcraft Boys at Sunset Island

SAY! What’s that over there—there near the Cove? Look! There it is again—sticking its fin out of the water,” cried Billy Remington excitedly, as, toggle-iron in hand, he stood in the bow of the large rowboat manned by three other boys.

“Gee! S’pose it’s a shark?” exclaimed Paul Alvord, who, with Dudley West, was visiting Sunset Island, the Maine resort of the Remingtons’.

“Oo-oh! What if it is? Let’s row over and maybe we can have a try to harpoon it!” added Dudley, eagerly.

The “white-ash breeze” soon brought them near the spot where the fin had last been seen and Fred Remington, the oldest of the four boys, rested upon his oars while scanning the face of the water.

“Look—quick! There it is again!” shouted Billy.

“Let’s try and drive it in nearer shore if we can,” came from Fred, who was as eager as the other three lads to become better acquainted with the strange object.

Then began a breathless chase. Four highly excited young fishermen yelling at each other, or pulling madly at the oars when Fred so ordered, and cracking muscles to back water when the need demanded—as was the case whenever the queer hulk of a fish threatened to swim too near the boys’ boat.

However, the creature was already in too shallow water for its bulk to swim and it struggled valiantly, if futilely, to make its escape from the Nemesis in the boat.

“What a whopper!” cried Dudley, while Billy carefully rose from his seat with the harpoon held in his hands.

“Now! Now, give it to him!” called Fred.