Behind him came Walter, rather pale, but determined to do his best as a Boy Scout to fight off any wild beasts that might be attacking the camp.  As he dashed behind the tent, however, Hiram was impelled to give a loud laugh.  The contestants—­for he had rightly judged they were in high dispute—­were two small black pigs which had looted a bag of oatmeal from under the flap of the store tent and were busily engaged in fighting over their spoils.

“Get out, you brutes!  Scat!” shouted the boy, bringing down a long-handled spoon he carried over the backs of the disputants.

The spoon, being almost red-hot, the clamor of the porkers redoubled, and with indignant squeals and grumblings they dashed off into the dense growth of scrub oak and pine that covered the island in its interior.  At the same moment the captain, who had been taking a snooze under some small bushes, awoke with a start.

“Eh—­eh—­eh!  What’s all that?” he exclaimed, hearing the yells.  “Why, it’s that plagued Betsy and Jane, my two young sows,” he cried the next moment.  “Consarn and keelhaul the critters, they’re breakin’ out all the time.  I reckon they’re headed fer home now,” he added, when Hiram related how he had scared them.

“I’m glad that they were nothing but pigs, captain,” said Hiram, going back with flushed cheeks to his cookery.  “I was afraid for a minute they were I hardly know what.  We’ll have to fix that store tent more snugly in future.”

“And I’ll have ter take a double reef in my pig Pen,” chuckled the captain.

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.