“Sometimes a splash and the scattering of little fish when a big one got after them startled me for a minute, but I got over minding it much, when a big, big splash came and there was a long struggle in the river near me.  Perhaps I wouldn’t have minded it so much, but Baby got crazy again and I couldn’t soothe him.  Next minute I didn’t blame him, for I was ’most crazy myself.  Out from all the ruction in the water, there came, swimming slowly toward us, a great leopard shark.  I knew him from the spots which covered his body, for he was so near that I could have counted them.  He was certainly over ten feet long and looked as if he had plenty of room in his stomach for both the baby and me.  I remembered that Mr. Streeter had told me that no shark in this country had ever attacked a human being, so I braced up a little and pulled that splashing manatee baby out toward the shark, and I splashed some myself and acted as if I wanted to eat that Tiger of the Sea.  Would you believe it?  He was scared silly and, though I was in a blue funk myself, I laughed so that you might have heard me if you had been listening.  For behind that shark was a wake such as a big motor boat would have made.  After the shark had gone, I had another worrying fit.  You had been gone a long time, and the thought kept coming to me that you might have met that shark.  Neddy boy, next time you go off alone on a long swim, I’m going with you.  Now what shall we do with the baby?  The tide will turn before long and I s’pose we could get him to camp.  He’d go along all right, but it would be a mile swim, though we could take turns at it.”

“I’d rather swim all the way,” said Ned, “than to climb into this canoe once, from the river.  But what’s the use?  There’s no grass at the camp and the water is too deep for an infant like Baby.  Why not tie him here for to-night?  Then to-morrow we will take him down to that big bay and make a nursery for him in a shallow little cove that I saw there.  It’s full of nice manatee grass and we can put stakes across the mouth, or pasture Baby at the end of a rope.  But what are we going to do with him, after that?”

“Don’t borrow trouble, Ned.  That question will come up later.  The next thing for us to do is to tie this little beast.  So trot out that harpoon line.”

Dick untied the harpoon line, which was kept lashed to a thwart in the canoe, and, after getting overboard, carefully fastened the painter of the canoe to a mangrove root.  The boys made a harness for the little manatee of one end of the line, by making one loop around the body of the baby, just behind his flippers, another around his tail and then connecting the two.  The other end of the harpoon line was then fastened to a mangrove tree on the bank and the baby was turned loose.  Dick steadied the canoe while Ned climbed aboard, but when Ned tried to steady it for Dick to get in it, there was a capsize.  Dick apologized for his clumsiness and Ned complained that he hated to get wet.  The next attempt was successful and the boys were soon eating venison and drinking coffee at their camp.  They were tired and talkative when they lay down for the night, and both went to sleep in the middle of a sentence.