moment of the snap and the turning over,
Captain Duncan's unstrung nerves had exploded, causing him to jump as he
tensed his whole body.

"Why, sir," the steward went on with growing confidence, "I bet I can
make him friends with you, too, by this time to-morrow . . . "

"By this time five minutes he'll be overboard," the captain answered.
"Bo's'n! Over with him!"

The boatswain advanced a tentative step, while murmurs of protest arose
from the passengers.

"Look at my cat, and look at me," Captain Duncan defended his action.

The boatswain made another step, and Dag Daughtry glared a threat at him.

"Go on!" the Captain commanded.

"Hold on!" spoke up the Shortlands planter. "Give the dog a square deal.
I saw the whole thing. He wasn't looking for trouble. First the cat
jumped him. She had to jump twice before he turned loose. She'd have
scratched his eyes out. Then the two dogs jumped him. He hadn't
bothered them. Then you jumped him. He hadn't bothered you. And then
came that sailor with the mop. And now you want the bo's'n to jump him
and throw him overboard. Give him a square deal. He's only been
defending himself. What do you expect any dog that is a dog to do?--lie
down and be walked over by every strange dog and cat that comes along?
Play the game, Skipper. You gave him some mighty hard kicks. He only
defended himself."

"He's some defender," Captain Duncan grinned, with a hint of the return
of his ordinary geniality, at the same time tenderly pressing his
bleeding shoulder and looking woefully down at his tattered duck
trousers. "All right, Steward. If you can make him friends with me in
five minutes, he stays on board. But you'll have to make it up to me
with a new pair of trousers."

"And gladly, sir, thank you, sir," Daughtry cried. "And I'll make it up
with a new cat as well, sir--Come on, Killeny Boy. This big fella
marster he all right, you bet."

And Michael listened. Not with the smouldering, smothering, choking
hysteria that still worked in the fox-terriers did he listen, nor with
quivering of muscles and jumps of over-wrought nerves, but coolly,
composedly, as if no battle royal had just taken place and no rips of
teeth and kicks of feet still burned and ached his body.

He could not help bristling, however, when first he sniffed a trousers'
leg into which his teeth had so recently torn.

"Put your hand down on him, sir," Daughtry begged.

And Captain Duncan, hi