“Well, he’s going to bring me a monkey,” said Roger.
The scales came off easily enough, but flew in all directions. The arms of the two mates were covered with them. They even got scales in their hair. When one side of the fish was scraped they turned its slippery body over on the stones to scrape the other. Then the shark had to be cut open and cleaned, and that was even worse. It was done, and the mates washed the shark and their hands in the lake. Then they carried the great fish up to the camp and Mate Susan cut it into thick steaks, cutting it clean across from one side to the other and hacking through the backbone. She cut seven steaks, each about two inches thick. They put all that was left of the pike in the fire. Then with plenty of butter in the frying-pan, they fried the steaks, turning them over and over, spooning up the butter when it ran down into the side of the pan and pouring it over the sizzling chunks of fish, until the butter turned dark and the steaks were nicely browned.
There was still no sign of Captain Flint in the distance when the shark steaks were ready for eating. And it was growing dusk. The sun had disappeared in clouds long before it set.
“Captain Flint did say we weren’t to wait for him,” said Susan, “and, anyhow, they smell too good to wait.”
“Let’s get at them,” said Captain Nancy.
“I’m hungry,” said Roger.
“We may as well begin,” said John.
“We can keep his hot,” said Titty.
“Pass your plates, then,” said Susan, and the shark steak supper began.
It was found, by experiment, that fingers were a good deal better than forks. There are a lot of bones in freshwater sharks and, though this was