"The hook's in his flapper! How do you suppose he ever got caught that way?"
"I don't know," replied Hal. "I guess he started to eat with his fingers."
"Or else he put his foot in his mouth, and got hooked that way," added Ned. "Did you say to lift him right out?"
"Supposing you do it," suggested Ned, eyeing the turtle, whose flappers, armed with long claws, were striking in all directions as their owner strove to get away.
"We ought to have a landing-net," he declared. "But put your hands under the edge of his shell, and throw him in. He won't hurt you."
"I'm not afraid of his biting me, but he scratches like fury. His claws are about a mile long!" observed Ned, dubiously preparing to follow Hal's advice.
The turtle, for the moment, was quiet, possibly waiting for his embarrassed captors to do something. Ned suddenly grabbed him by the shell, and before he realized what was taking place had heaved him over the gunwale, into the boat.
The shock released the hook, which fell from the flapper, and now a very angry turtle was at large in quarters altogether too restricted to suit himself and two bare-legged youths.
The turtle was about the size of a wash pan. He was of the common sharp-nose, fresh-water variety, of a drabbish-gray, with a smooth shell flexible like cartilage. His legs were tremendously powerful, and with his long, snaky neck far extended, his eyes sparkling, and his mouth wide open, hissing with all his might he made straight toward the stern and at Hal.
Narrowly escaping going overboard, Hal scrambled upon the combing, and ran along it until he had joined the laughing Ned, in the bows. Here, perched upon the decking which extended over this portion of the craft, they were out of harm's way--that is, the turtle's.
This individual, balked of a bite out of one of Hal's browned legs, endeavored to climb up the side of the boat, but tumbled back time and again.
"I wish he'd go," complained Ned. "We aren't after turtles, to-day."
"So do I," agreed Hal, ruefully wiggling a big toe, which he had stubbed in his rapid flight. "We don't need him."
"I got him in--you get him out," proposed Ned, shrewdly.
"Well, either he gets out, or we do," declared Hal. And he tried to assist the unwelcome captive by putting an oar-blade under him. Every time, however, the turtle slid off, and meanwhile grew madder and madder--if such a condition were possible.