"I don't care about fighting a boy smaller than I am," he stammered, fumbling at the strings of his slicker. "I don't want to hurt him."

Haley bawled in derision. "Oh, you don't, eh?" he cried. "Well, you look out he don't hurt you. Do you see that piece of rope?" He dangled an end of rigging in his hand. "Well, the first one of you that tries to quit, gets a taste of that."

Henry Burns had not expected to be drawn into a fight with Artie Jenkins, but he had no fear of him. He had observed the youth's cheeks pale as he returned his blow. He knew he was cowardly. He thought of Jack Harvey, tricked into the slavery of dredging at Artie Jenkins's hands. He threw off his oil-skins and waited for the word. He looked Haley squarely in the eyes and remarked, calmly, "If you see me quitting, just lay it on good and hard."

"You bet I will!" bl.u.s.tered Haley; but he knew, full well, there would be no need.

Artie Jenkins was cornered and desperate. He dared not wait till his courage should cool, but made a rush at Henry Burns the moment he had divested himself of the heavy oil-skins. They struggled for a moment, exchanging blows at short range. They were both hurt and stinging when they broke away, to regain breath. The difference was, however, that Henry Burns was smiling in the most aggravating way at his antagonist.

The blows meant little to him. He was avenging Jack Harvey-and he had a most extraordinary control of his temper. Artie Jenkins was smarting and furious.

"Get to work there," bawled Haley, swinging the rope.

They were at it again in earnest. But the advantage even now was with Henry Burns. He was wiry and athletic; a strong runner, and a baseball player; and he had boxed with George Warren and Tom Harris by the hour, in the barn they used as a canoe club in Benton. Artie Jenkins's training had consisted largely of loafing about the docks, smoking cigarettes.

Seeing that his adversary was no longer strong enough to rush him, Henry Burns tried tactics to tire him out. He darted in, delivering a quick blow, and stepping back out of reach of the other's arm. He warded off the other's wild blows, and left him panting and bewildered. Worse than all, he continued to smile at him, provokingly.

In an unfortunate moment, Artie Jenkins rushed in, clinched and tried to throw his smaller adversary. It was the worst thing he could have attempted. A moment more, and he lay, flat on his back, half stunned.

Henry Burns waited for him to arise; but Artie Jenkins lay still. He had had enough.

"Get up there; you're quitting!" cried Haley, standing over him and brandishing the rope's end. But Artie Jenkins only half sat up and whined. "I can't go on," he whimpered; "I'm hurt."

Haley swung the rope and brought it down across Artie Jenkins's shoulders. The youth howled for mercy.

"Get up and fight, or you'll get more of it!" cried Haley.

Artie Jenkins suddenly scrambled to his feet. But he did not face Henry Burns, who was waiting. Beaten and thoroughly humbled, Artie Jenkins sought relief in flight. Dodging the uplifted arm of Haley, he darted for the forecastle, tumbled down the companion and dived into a bunk.

Hamilton Haley, undecided for a moment whether to follow or not, finally turned and walked aft. There was a hard smile of satisfaction on his face.

The next day was as wild as the preceding had been calm and placid. The wind came up from the east with a rush, in the early morning, and the bay was tossing and white-capped as the crew of the dredger came on deck.

There would be no work that day, they thought. But they were disappointed. Haley ordered sail made, and the bug-eye, with reefs in, bore up under the lee of Hooper island.

It was cruel work at the dredges that day. The men toiled by turns till exhausted, when Haley allowed them a reluctant refuge, to thaw out, by the cabin fire. Then he drove them to work again. The storm brought mingled sleet and snow. It caught in the folds of the sails and came down upon their heads in little torrents with the slatting of the canvas.

Sleet and snow drove hard in their faces. But the work went on.

Artie Jenkins shivered at the winders, even as the perspiration was wrung from him with the unusual exertion. He suffered so that Henry Burns and the crew pitied him; but Haley and the mate showed no mercy. They had seen men suffer before-men that they had paid ten dollars apiece to Artie Jenkins for. He gave out by afternoon, however, and the mate had fairly to drag him below. He moaned that he was sick, but they did not believe him.

That night he ran out of the forecastle on deck, delirious, and wakened Haley out of sleep. Haley saw that he was really ill, and gave him something to take, from a chest of patent stuff he had aboard. Artie Jenkins fell in a heap on the cabin floor, and Haley let him lie there the rest of the night.

The next morning, Haley and the mate, standing over Artie Jenkins, looked troubled. The sufferer lay moaning and feverish. Jim Adams bent over and examined him.

"He's bad-downright bad, boss," he said, looking up at Haley. The other scowled, but with some anxiety in his face. "He'll come around all right, won't he?" he asked. "Specs he may," replied the mate; "but I've seen 'em like that, feverish, before, and it's a bad sign down here."

"Hang him!" exclaimed Haley. "What'll we do with him?"

"Well," replied Jim Adams, "if he was mine, I'd let him go, seeing as he didn't cost any money. Tom's going across to t'other sh.o.r.e to-day. Why not let him have him and leave him? We don't want to land him down here."

Haley grumbled, but acquiesced.

"Take him out," he said. "He's no good, anyway. I've got square. That's what I wanted."

Jim Adams lifted Artie Jenkins bodily and carried him out of the cabin.

A bug-eye that ran across from the eastern sh.o.r.e that afternoon carried the unfortunate Artie Jenkins as a pa.s.senger. He lay asleep in the cabin.

Toward dusk the bug-eye reached the other sh.o.r.e, and anch.o.r.ed near land.

A skiff left the side, with Artie Jenkins in the bottom of it. It landed, and two men carried the youth up to an old deserted shanty by the sh.o.r.e of a small creek in St. Mary County, some five or six miles above Otter Point. They left him there, alone, threw some mouldy blankets over him, and departed.

Artie Jenkins's dredging experience was over.

CHAPTER XVIII THE BATTLE OF NANTIc.o.kE RIVER

The morning after Artie Jenkins was shipped away across the Chesapeake, Haley's bug-eye lay in Hooper strait, discharging her cargo of oysters into another craft alongside. Four other craft waited near by; and, when the Brandt had finished, they, likewise, unloaded the oysters they had, aboard the carrying vessel.

"What's Haley unloading now for?" asked Wallace Brooks of the sailor, Jeff, as they were swinging a basket of the oysters outboard. "He's got only half a cargo, anyway."

"How do I know?" was the somewhat gruff reply. "Reckon we'll see when the time comes. There's something up, though, like as not," he added; "I heard Haley ask Jim Adams how he thought the Brandt sailed best-with a quarter of a cargo in her, or a little more. That's just so much more ballast, you know. So I guess that when Haley wants to sail his best, he expects someone to follow; and if someone follows, I reckon he'll want to get away as slick as he can. Do you see?"

Wallace Brooks nodded.

"Going to dredge some more at night, eh?" he said.

"Well, you know as much as I do about it," replied the sailor. "All I wish is, that I was bullet-proof," and he shrugged his shoulders.

The surmise of the seaman was perhaps correct; for, as soon as the last bug-eye had cast loose from the carrying vessel, the four swung in together, drifted along, and the four captains gathered in Haley's cabin.

There were, besides Haley, Tom Noyes, Captain Bill and another whom Haley addressed as Captain Shute. The latter bore in one hand a chart which he spread out on the cabin table before them. It was a large sheet, covering a wide area of that part of the bay, much worn, and marked by many lines where cross-bearings had been taken and partly erased.

"There's Nantic.o.ke," he said, laying a thick, stubby finger on the chart.

"It's buoyed out for some ten miles, and there's good water clear to Vienna; that's twenty odd miles up."

"Stow the chart, Shute," said Haley, impatiently. "I tell you Jim Adams knows the river better than any figuring can cover it. He ran it for three years, canoeing and tonging in the fog"-Haley winked significantly.

"He'll put us up there. The question is, will you go?"

"I've said as how I would go, once, and I sticks by my word," answered Captain Bill forcibly. "The others will go, too. I'd follow Jim Adams's wake and be sure of good water, anywhere."

"And we stick it out, steamer or no steamer," said Haley, looking at the others, earnestly. The captains nodded. Haley leered, as though gratified at the decision. "There's no police tub can hurt us, if we stick together and fight," he exclaimed; "and like as not we'll get clear without it."

There was some further conference, following which the three visiting captains returned to their vessels and the lines that held them together were cast off.

The day pa.s.sed easily for the crews. There was but little dredging, though Haley and the others would not have them wholly idle. They worked in desultory fashion along the foot of Hooper island throughout the day, and toward evening sailed in slowly through the strait.

There had been no definite orders given to anybody aboard the Brandt, yet it was known to all that there was something on foot for the night. The let-up in the work of the day indicated that; furthermore, there was an air of mystery, of something impending, throughout the craft, that was felt and understood.

With the coming of night there rose up a mist from the surface of the water that dimmed the vision, though the stars showed clear in the sky. A thin fog gave an indefiniteness to the sh.o.r.e lines and made distant lights here and there twinkle vaguely.