me fist! He smashed me fist! Oh! Oh!" whined Scootsy,
hopping about with the pain, sucking the injured hand and shaking its
mate at Archie, who was still brandishing the sapling and yelling
himself hoarse in his excitement.

The attacking party now drew off to the hillock for a council of war.
Only their heads could be seen--their bodies lay hidden in the long
grass of the dune.

Archie and Tod were now dancing about the deck in a delirium of
delight--calling out in true piratical terms, "We die, but we never
surrender!" Tod now and then falling into his native vernacular to the
effect that he'd "knock the liver and lights out o' the hull gang," an
expression the meaning of which was wholly lost on Archie, he never
having cleaned a fish in his life.

Here a boy in his shirt-sleeves straightened up in the yellow grass and
looked seaward. Then Sandy Plummer gave a yell and ran to the beach,
rolling up what was left of his trousers legs, stopping now and then to
untie first one shoe and then the other. Two of the gang followed on a
run. When the three reached the water's edge they danced about like
Crusoe's savages, waving their arms and shouting. Sandy by this time
had stripped off his clothes and had dashed into the water. A long
plank from some lumber schooner was drifting up the beach in the gentle
swell of the tide. Sandy ran abreast of it for a time, sprang into the
surf, threw himself upon it flat like a frog, and then began paddling
shoreward. The other two now rushed into the water, grasping the near
end of the derelict, the whole party pushing and paddling until it was
hauled clean of the brine and landed high on the sand.

A triumphant yell here came from the water's edge, and the balance of
the gang--there were seven in all--rushed to the help of the dauntless
three.

Archie heaped a pile of pebbles within reach of his hand and waited the
attack. What the savages were going to do with the plank neither he nor
Tod could divine. The derelict was now dragged over the sand to the
hulk, Tod and Archie pelting its rescuers with stones and shells as
they came within short range.

"Up with her, fellers!" shouted Sandy, who, since Scootsy's unmanly
tears, had risen to first place. "Run it under the bowsprit--up with
her--there she goes! Altogether!"

Archie took his stand, his long sapling in his hand, and waited. He
thought first he would unseat the end of the plank, but it was too far
below him and then again