Chapter 7

"Camden catcher and third-baseman haven't shown up. They started out with a party in a power-boat before the steamer. Engine must have broken down. Here it is time to call the game, and the visiting team two men short! And the biggest crowd of the season here! Can you beat that for luck?"

The Camden pitcher separated himself from his companions and strolled toward the stand.

"Anybody here want to put on a mitt and stop a few fast ones?" he inquired.

"That means you, Jim!" said Lane. "Come on! Don't be too modest!"

Spurling climbed out over the front of the stand.

"I'll try to hold you for a little while," he volunteered.

Soon he was smoothly receiving the pitcher's curves and lobbing them back. The combination went like clockwork. In the mean time the rest of the Camden team had taken the field and were warming up. The missing members had not yet appeared.

"That'll do for a while," said the pitcher.

The two drew to one side.

"What team have you been catching on?" asked the Camden man, suddenly.

"Graffam Academy."

"I knew you must have traveled with a pretty speedy bunch. My name's Beverage."

"Mine's Spurling."

"Say, old man, I want you to do us a big favor. Catch this game for Camden, will you?"

"I've been out of practice for over a month," objected Jim.

"Never mind about that! I don't mean to flatter you, but we've got nothing in this league that can touch you. Come, now! As a personal favor to me!"

"All right. I'll do my best."

"Good for you! Now we've got to pick up a third-baseman!"

Jim hesitated.

"Our Academy shortstop is here," he said, slowly. "He can play a mighty good third at a pinch."

"If he's willing, we'll take him on your say-so, and snap at the chance."

Jim walked to the front of the stand.

"You're signed for third for this game, Budge! I'm going to catch."

"We've got a couple of spare suits," said Beverage. "Come on over to the hotel and change."

In fifteen minutes Lane and Spurling were back on the field in Camden uniforms and the game had begun.

The contest was a hot one. The teams were evenly matched, and the result hung in doubt up to the last inning. The crowd boiled with enthusiasm and the supporters of each team cheered themselves hoarse.

In the middle of the fifth inning, when the excitement was running highest, a slim, bareheaded figure with a tow pompadour sprouting above a fog-burnt face leaped suddenly up at the right end of the top row in the stand.

It was Percy. Exhilarated by the closeness of the game, he had forgotten his grudge against Spurling & Company. He flourished a roll of bills.

"Two to one on Camden!" he shouted in a high-keyed voice.

All heads turned his way. For a moment nobody spoke. Percy mistook the silence. He struck a theatric attitude.

"Three to one! Are you afraid to support your home team?"

A girl giggled. Two or three boys hooted. Then a short, dark, thick-set man in the second row whirled about and answered the challenger.

"No," he said, deliberately. "We're not afraid to support our nine. If we were, it wouldn't be playing here to-day. We expect it to do its best. If it wins, it wins. If it loses, it loses. And that's all there is to it. Whatever dollars we have to put into baseball will go to meet the regular expenses of the team. We haven't any money to fool away in betting; and we don't care for any more second-hand talk from a half-baked youngster like you! You get me?"

The crowd applauded uproariously. Pursued by the jeers and catcalls of the small fry, Percy sat down, his face, if possible, redder than before.

Spurling caught an errorless game. It was Lane's bat in the last half of the ninth that finally drove in the winning run for Camden. Five to four.

The crowd streamed noisily off the grounds. A knot of the younger element tried to heckle Percy, but he strode loftily by them, puffing his inevitable cigarette. Jim and Budge went to the hotel with the Camden team to change their suits.

Beverage was jubilant over the victory.

"It's a mean thing to say," he remarked; "but I'm glad that power-boat didn't get here. We owe the game to you two fellows. How much shall we pay you?"

"Nothing," answered Jim. "We're paid already. We've enjoyed winning as much as you have."

"Well, if you ever come to Camden, remember that you own the town."

The boys decided to stop over for the early-evening celebration. The Vinalhavens were good losers, and the excursion steamer was not to start back until nine o'clock, so the town promised to be lively enough for the next few hours.

Before it had grown very dark the streets began to blaze with fireworks. Percy's remarks of the afternoon still rankled in the minds of the junior portion of the residents, and, as he sauntered to and fro, he became the butt of many pointed jests. He ignored them all. Such trivialities were beneath the notice of a scion of the house of Whittington.

It was his air of haughty superiority that got him into trouble. Tempted beyond endurance by his cool, insolent swagger, a small boy on the other side of the street discharged a Roman candle at him point-blank. One of the fiery balls struck his right side and dropped into the open pocket of his coat, starting a lively blaze. The garment got a smart scorching, and Percy's fingers were burnt and his feelings badly ruffled before he succeeded in extinguishing the conflagration.

Singling out the offender among a group of boys dancing delightedly up and down, Percy made a sudden rush and pounced upon him like a hawk on a chicken. Holding him by the collar, he cuffed his ears soundly. The criminal wriggled and twisted, loudly and tearfully protesting his innocence.

A stocky, freckled lad of about eighteen, with a close-cut head of brown hair, came out of a neighboring house on the run. His snub nose and projecting jaw suggested a human bulldog. He thrust his face close up to Percy's.

"What're you maulin' my brother for?" he demanded, truculently.

Percy dropped his victim, having finished chastising him. The latter rubbed his eyes and howled louder than ever.

"I asked you why you were maulin' my brother," reiterated the newcomer in a still more belligerent tone.

"Because he burned this hole in my coat," replied Percy, exhibiting the damaged garment.

"I didn't do it!" howled the boy.

"You hear that?" exclaimed the freckled lad, angrily. "He says he didn't and I say he didn't."

"Well, I say he did!"

"Do you mean to tell me I lie?"

Percy became suddenly aware that a ring was forming round him. He cast a hasty glance about the lowering faces and recognized some of his would-be hecklers of the afternoon. No Tarpaulin Islanders were there. He was a stranger in a strange land. But the Whittington in him was up, and he did not blench. He faced his questioner.

"If you say he didn't burn that hole--yes!"

An indignant chorus rose from the group.

"Did you hear that, Jabe? He called you a liar. I wouldn't stand that. Make him eat those words! It's the fresh guy who made the cheap talk at the ball-game. Soak him! Do him up!"

Spurred on by these exhortations, Jabe dropped his head between his shoulders and came at his enemy with the rush of a mad bull.

Percy was a good boxer. He had taken lessons from several first-class sparring-masters, and would have been no mean antagonist for anybody of his age and weight. But Jabe was a year older and fully twenty-five pounds heavier. Evidently, too, he had the abounding health and strength that come from life in the open. The odds against the city boy were heavy, but he stood up gamely.

Jabe rushed in upon him and struck with all his might. Percy side-stepped, and the blow went harmlessly by, while his assailant's rush carried him to the other side of the ring. Whirling about with a cry of rage, he came back, swinging his arms like a windmill.

"Now, Jabe! Now, Jabe!" rose the cry.

Again Percy leaped aside, and his right arm shot out. The blow caught his foe fairly under the left ear, and he went sprawling; but he was down only for a moment. Springing to his feet, he hurled himself into the fray with redoubled fury. Again he was knocked down, and again he renewed the battle, with more strength than before.

The fight could not last long. It was muscle against science, and in the end muscle won. Percy began to tire and to grow short of breath. He had smoked too many cigarettes to be able to keep up such a whirlwind pace for many minutes. Though he landed five blows to his enemy's one, the latter's one did more damage than his five.

For the first time in the contest Jabe used his head. Hitherto he had struck straight for the mark each time. Now he feinted with his right for his foe's body. Percy dropped his guard somewhat wearily. Before he realized what was happening, Jabe's left, sent in with tremendous force, hit him a smashing blow squarely on the nose, knocking him over backward.

It was the beginning of the end. Percy tottered up, blood spurting from his nose, his head spinning. He saw Jabe preparing for another rush and knew it would be the last one. He stiffened himself to receive the knock-out.

A tall, broad-shouldered figure broke through the circle.

"What's the trouble here?"

It was Spurling's voice. His glance took in the situation.

"That'll be about all," he said. "Come away, Whittington!"

A bullet-headed, shirt-sleeved man bristled up defiantly. It was Jabe's father.

"Guess we'll let 'em fight it out," he observed.

His boy was winning.

"No," said Jim. "It's gone far enough."

"Not looking for trouble, are you?"

"No," remarked Jim, easily. "I don't want any trouble with you, and you don't want any with me."

The shirt-sleeved man glanced appraisingly at his square shoulders and strongly knit figure.

"Right you are, George!" he laughed. "I don't want any trouble with you. You must be a mind-reader. You call off your dog and I'll call off mine."

He grasped Jabe by the collar and jerked him backward. Jim dropped a compelling hand on Percy's shoulder.

"Come on, Whittington! You ought to have brains enough to know you've been licked. It's time we started for Tarpaulin Island."

X

REBELLION IN CAMP

Conversation lagged on the _Barracouta_ as she jogged smoothly over the starlit sea toward Tarpaulin Island. By the dim light of two lanterns, Jim, Throppy, Budge, and Filippo were busy baiting the trawls with herring and coiling them into the tubs in the standing-room. Percy had withdrawn from his companions and lay across the heel of the bowsprit on the decked-over bow.

He had stanched the flow of blood from his nose, but it still pained him, and he was otherwise bruised and badly shaken by the buffets from Jabe's knobby fists. Judged by Percy's feelings, Jabe must have been all knuckles. Percy had to acknowledge that only Spurling's opportune appearance had saved him from being pounded unmercifully. But his pride had been injured far more than his physical body. It seemed improbable that he would ever see Jabe again, but he determined that some time, somewhere, and somehow the freckled lad should pay dearly for the slight he had put upon the house of Whittington.

It was a few minutes past eleven when the sloop's engine stopped and she glided up to her mooring in Sprowl's Cove. Five sleepy boys tumbled into the dory and paddled ashore. The Fourth was over and the routine of workaday life would begin again for them early the next morning.

Nemo dashed back and forth on the beach, barking a furious welcome and springing upon his masters indiscriminately. Unwittingly he leaped at Percy and in playful mood closed his teeth over the lad's right thumb, sprained and aching from the fight.

"Get out, you cur!" exclaimed Whittington.

He launched an aimless, vindictive kick in the general direction of the gamboling beast. As often happens with random blows, it went too true. Nemo ki-yied up the beach on three legs.

"What are you about, Whittington?" burst out Lane, angrily. Among the entire five he was the fondest of the dog.

Percy was ashamed and sorry that he had hurt the animal, but Lane's eruption of temper smothered his repentant feelings.

"He bit my thumb," he muttered, sullenly.

"You know well enough he was just in sport. Don't you kick him again! You hear me!"

Percy mumbled an indistinct reply. As soon as the cabin was unlocked he turned into his bunk, without a word to anybody. For him the Fourth had been anything but a holiday.

Before going to sleep, Spurling outlined their work for the morrow.

"Throppy, you and I'll try our luck on Martingale Bank. It's only a half-mile northwest of the island, and sometimes you can get a big catch there. I've been saving it for a time like this. Budge, you and Percy ought to get at least a couple of hundred pounds out of those lobster-traps. They'll have been down two days and should yield some good-sized ones. Set the clock at four, Filippo! We'll be lazy for once."

Percy's sleep was broken. He dreamed of being chased along the main street of Vinalhaven by a crowd of small boys shooting at him with Roman candles. He dodged into an open doorway, only to be driven out by a giant with Jabe's face and a half-dozen pairs of arms the fists of which were studded with a double allowance of knuckles. He was fast being pounded to a pulp when the alarm-clock went off. He woke in a cold sweat.

Lying with closed eyes, he pretended to be asleep while Jim and Throppy finished a hasty breakfast. Soon the exhaust of the _Barracouta_ proclaimed that they were on their way to Martingale Bank. Percy dozed, but remained conscious of Filippo's culinary operations.

At five Lane turned out, according to schedule. He shook Percy vigorously.

"Wake up, Whittington! Breakfast!"

"Don't care for mine yet."

"Aren't you going out with me to haul those traps?"

"No!" retorted Percy, sourly.

"Suit yourself!" was Lane's brief response.

Percy knew that Budge would rather go without him. He heard him give a whistle as he examined Nemo's leg; the animal cringed and whimpered.

"Poor fellow! Too bad!" sympathized Lane.

The remark was evidently intended for Percy's ears. At least the lad took it so. He felt sorry if Nemo was really hurt. Lane went out, and Percy turned over for another nap. When he next woke it was almost seven and the cabin was empty. He got up and dressed leisurely.

Looking out of the window, he saw Filippo digging clams on the flats across the cove. That meant chowder for dinner, a dish he particularly detested. He made a wry mouth and turned to the larder, but could discover nothing but some cold fish and fried potatoes. The fire had gone out, and he determined to await Filippo's return before breakfasting.

Deliberately scratching a match, he lighted a cigarette, thereby breaking the rule against smoking in the cabin. Then he stretched himself out on his bunk and began reading _The Three Musketeers_. Filippo returned before he had finished his chapter. The Italian's eyes grew round at the tobacco smoke.

"You know Misser Jim say no smoking!"

"Mister Jim isn't here now. You mind your own business and I'll mind mine. Get me some breakfast, will you?"

"Fire gone out while you sleep and everything grow cold. You bring some wood and I build another."

To Percy's still overstrained nerves Filippo's way of putting the matter suggested a condition on which the meal depended rather than a request.

"Bring it yourself!" he growled. "I'm no servant! I don't shag kindling for any Dago!"

At this insult Filippo's olive cheeks became quite pale. Into his eyes flashed a look Whittington had never seen there before. For an instant he almost feared that the young foreigner was about to seize a knife and spring upon him. Then the look passed and Filippo's color came back.

"All right!" he laughed. "No wood, no breakfast!"

Stepping out to the fish-house, he began shelling the clams he had just dug. Percy vacillated between pride and hunger. Hunger won.

"I didn't mean that, Filippo," he repented. "I beg your pardon. I'll get the wood."

He did, and Filippo heated up the fish and potatoes. Percy tried to engage him in conversation, but was able to extract only monosyllables in return. Evidently his hasty words still rankled in the Italian's breast.

Breakfast over, Percy took his book and started for the beacon. It was a beautiful July morning. The sea rippled blue and sparkling to the horizon. Budge was hauling his traps on the ledges around the base of Brimstone. A half-mile farther out Jim and Throppy were busy at their trawls. Conditions for fishing could not have been more ideal.

For a time Percy tried to read; but somehow Dumas's heroes failed to keep his interest. The sense of contrast between his own idleness and his mates' industry took all the pleasure out of his book. He tossed it aside and stood up. A motor-boat was rounding the eastern point. Percy recognized her as the _Calista_. Ordinarily he would have been glad to exchange chaff with Captain Higgins and Brad while they dipped the lobsters out of the car. This morning, however, he felt too much disgruntled to joke with anybody.

A hawk with a flapping fish clutched in its talons scaled in from the south and disappeared among the evergreens. Percy suspected that there was a nest somewhere in the scrub growth. The search for it promised just enough of novelty to keep him interested. Making a detour around the north shore, so as to keep out of sight of Captain Higgins, he began hunting for the nest in the tops of the low trees.

Two hours went by fruitlessly. It was hot and breathless in the close woods. Despite his dislike for clam chowder, Percy found himself growing hungry. At last he gave up the search in disgust, and started back for camp by the shortest route.

As he emerged into the cool breeze on the summit of the high southern shore he saw that the _Calista_ still lay at anchor in the cove. Lane was alongside her in the pea-pod, while Jim and Throppy were rounding Brimstone Point in the _Barracouta_, with the dory in tow. The keenness of Percy's appetite made him careless of whether he was seen or not. He took the trail leading along the edge of the pasture. Directly below him the bank broke off in an abrupt dirt slope seventy-five feet high, overhung by a brow of sagging turf.

Behind and above the cabin the slope was unusually steep. As Percy reached this point his eye was caught by a smoke-feather on the southern horizon. Steamers always interested him. Stopping, and shading his eyes with his hand, he gazed intently at the distant vessel. The _Barracouta_ was now just entering the cove; the thudding of her exhaust echoed loudly against the barrier of earth beneath his feet.

The rapid detonations, beating upon Percy's ear-drums, drowned until too late the quick pad-pad of hoofs from the opposite direction. Engrossed in watching the steamer, he had forgotten everything else. A nasal, threatening bleat, rising suddenly behind, roused him to a sense of danger. He whirled about.

Charging straight at him, head down, only a few feet distant, old Aries, the ram, spurned the turf with drumming hoofs.

Behind lay the treeless pasture; in front the bank fell away steeply. Instant flight along the trail was Percy's only resort. He turned to run.

As he jammed his heel down hard to gain momentum for his start, the overhanging sod broke suddenly. His foot slumped, and before he could recover himself his foe was upon him.

Biff!

Struck from behind with the force of a battering-ram, Percy shot over the brink. As he fell he described a partial somersault, landing on hands and knees half-way down the slope. His momentum carried him heels over head, and he rolled and tumbled the rest of the way, bringing up in a heap at the bottom.

He scrambled to his feet, wild with rage. Peals of mirth from the cove reached his ears. His mates and Captain Higgins, as soon as they saw that he was not seriously hurt, had doubled up with laughter. Their outburst of merriment increased Percy's fury.

A triumphant bleat resounded above. Outlined clearly against a background of blue sky, legs well apart and hoofs braced stoutly, Aries stood on the brink, gazing proudly down upon his overthrown enemy. White with wrath, Percy groped for a stone and launched it viciously. It just grazed the ram's head. The laughter from the cove redoubled.

A new idea struck Percy. Darting into the cabin, he ran out with Uncle Tom's shot-gun.

"None of that, Whittington!" bellowed Spurling.

Heedless of the shouted command, Percy clapped the gun to his shoulder and pulled first one trigger and then the other. Click! Click! Both barrels were empty. He might have remembered that so careful a fellow as Jim would never leave a loaded gun standing about. But there were a half-dozen shells in a box on the shelf. Laying the gun down, he rushed back into the cabin.

Spurling realized what Percy was after. Springing into the dory, he sculled rapidly to the beach. He had almost reached the shore when Whittington dashed out of the door with the shells in his hands. He crammed two into the breech, while the ram gazed haughtily down upon him.

"Put that gun down!" shouted Jim as the dory grounded and he leaped out on the beach.

Up went the weapon to Percy's shoulder. His finger sought the trigger, but no report followed. The ram had vanished and the sky-line was unbroken.

Before the exasperated lad could decide on his next step Jim was at his side, clutching at stock and barrel with strong hands.

"Give it to me!"

There was a short scuffle, and the gun was wrenched from Percy's grasp.

"Let me alone, Spurling! I'll kill that brute before he's ten minutes older!"

"Oh no, you won't!" replied Jim, coolly.

Breaking open the weapon, he extracted the shells and dropped them into his pocket.

"How many of these did you bring out?"

"Never you mind!"

"Oh, well, I know how many I had. I can count 'em. They're too dangerous to be lying around loose where a hothead like you can get hold of 'em."

He took the gun into the cabin. In half a minute he was out again.

"Two missing! Hand 'em over, Whittington!"

"I won't!"

Three steps, marvelously quick for so deliberate a fellow, brought Spurling to the other's side. An iron grip compressed Percy's shoulder.

"Will you give 'em to me or shall I have to take 'em? Say quick!"

The strong, unwavering grasp brought Whittington to his senses. Thrusting his hand into his pocket, he brought out the shells. "Here they are!"

Jim bestowed them carefully inside his coat. His manner changed instantly.

"Now, Percy," said he, "pull yourself together! I don't wonder you were sore at the ram. What you got was enough to rile anybody; it would have set me hunting rocks myself. But you'll have to draw the line a long way this side of a gun. You can't blame the brute; it's his nature. And you can't blame us for laughing--we couldn't help it; you'd do the same in our place. The thing's over now. Forget it! Let's eat a good dinner, and all take hold on the fish this afternoon. We've made a whopping big catch, not much under three thousand pounds, I should say--enough, at any rate, to keep us all busy till dark. Let's bury the hatchet, handle and all, so deep that it'll never be dug up again! Shake on it!"

Whittington ignored Jim's outstretched hand. Trembling with humiliation and anger, he had all he could do to keep the tears from his eyes. Turning away without replying, he walked eastward along the beach to the ledges. He clambered over these until he gained a spot out of sight of the cove, then threw himself down to think. His hunger had disappeared; food would have choked him.

There he lay till the middle of the afternoon, smoking moodily. When he returned to camp at three he had decided on his course of action.

All the others were aboard the _Barracouta_, at work on the fish.

Spurling hailed Percy. "Want to lend a hand, Whittington?"

"No!" refused Percy, shortly.