CHAPTER XV.
THE CHUMS IN PERIL Even the epicurean Tubby Hopkins voted dinner that day a great success, and Hiram, with becoming modesty, took his congratulations blushingly.
In mid-afternoon, after seeing that the camp was in good working order, the scout masters started for the home shore in Captain Hudgins's boat, which was also to bring back some additional supplies for the next day.
After dinner Rob had assigned Merritt and Tubby to form a "fishing squad," to range seaward in the Flying Fish and "halt and detain" all the bluefish they could apprehend.

The others were given the afternoon to range the island and practice up their woodcraft and landmark work, while Rob busied himself in his tent, which was equipped with a small folding camp table, in filling out his pink blank reports which were to be forwarded to Commodore Wingate and dispatched by him to the headquarters of the Boy Scouts in New York.
Merritt and Tubby were both ardent fishermen, and in response to Hiram's pleadings, they allowed him to accompany them on their expedition.

The fish were running well, and the boys cast and pulled in some time without particularly noticing how far out to sea they had gone.
Suddenly the stout youth, who was fishing with an unusually heavy line and hook, felt a hard tug on his apparatus, so powerful a tweak, in fact, that it almost pulled him overboard.

He tried to haul in, but the resistance on the other end of his line was so great that he was compelled to twist it about a cleat in order to avoid either letting go or being dragged into the sea.
"What in the name of Sam Hill have you hooked ?" gasped Merritt, as the Flying Fish began to move through the water faster than even her engine could propel her.
"I've not the least idea," remarked Tubby placidly, "but I rather think it must be a whale." "Whale nothing!" exclaimed Merritt scornfully and with superior wisdom.
"Whales sound, don't they ?" "Well, there's not been a sound out of this one so far," truthfully observed Hiram.
"What kind of a sound do they make, corporal ?" "Oh, you chump," responded Merritt good-naturedly, "you've lived by the sea all your life, and you don't know how a whale sounds.

Sound means when a whale blows, spouts, sends up a big fountain of water." "Oh, I see," responded Hiram, much enlightened.