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 a.s.sumed a proud att.i.tude, 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 marksmans.h.i.+p, 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," a.s.serted 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, a.s.sumed, 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 pa.s.sed, 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.