racted by the blood of their comrade, and they tear him to pieces,
while the native swims back home."

"Nice lot of cannibals those sharks are, to prey upon each other," said
Teddy.

"Just like a pack of wolves," agreed Lester. "Let one of them be
wounded, and the others tear him into bits. These wolves of the sea do
the same thing.

"Dad says that sometimes the native won't even take a knife, but will
just carry with him a stick of hard wood, sharpened at both ends. When
the shark turns over to nab him, the native thrusts the stick crosswise
between the open jaws. They close down on it, the points sink in so far
that the shark can't shut its mouth, and the water flows in and chokes
it to death."

"Seems funny to choke a fish to death with water," laughed Fred.

"Think of thrusting your arm into jaws like that," said Bill. "If the
stick didn't go straight up and down----?"

"There'd be a one-armed native," Lester grimly completed the sentence.
"But here's a boat coming up this way, and we've been so busy chinning
that we hadn't noticed it. What do you make her out to be, Bill?"

"She hasn't any sail," pronounced Bill after a brief scrutiny. "Here,
hand me those glasses."

"It's a motor boat," he announced a moment later, "and she's coming
straight for us."

"A motor boat!" exclaimed Teddy. "Do you think it can be Ross?"

"It's more than likely," answered Lester. "But he'll be near enough in a
few minutes for us to make sure."

The boat drew rapidly nearer.

"That's who it is," cried Teddy jubilantly. "It's Ross and the
_Sleuth_. Now we can compare notes about the chest of gold!"

CHAPTER XVIII

TOWING THE PRIZE

The boys forgot all about the shark for the time, and their thoughts
went with redoubled intensity toward the object of their search, the
missing treasure.

"I wonder if he'll be in a more talkative humor now than he was when we
saw him last?" mused Fred.

"I hope so," said Teddy. "He's had time to think us over and size us up,
and he may decide to make a clean breast of all he knows."

"Assuming that he really does know more than he has told us," remarked
Bill, the skeptic. "We fellows may have drawn wrong conclusions from the
start he gave and that exception of his."

"Well, at any rate, we know a great deal more than we did when we saw
him last," declared Teddy. "We know for a certainty many things that he
only guessed, especially that partial confession of Dick's as to the wa