out, Sandy!" yelled Scootsy to his leader, who was now sneaking
up to Archie with the movement of an Indian in ambush;--"he's drawed a
knife."

Sandy stopped and straightened himself within three feet of Archie. His
hand still smarted from the blow Archie had given it. The "spad" had
not stopped a second in that attack, and he might not in this; the next
thing he knew the knife might be between his ribs.

"Drawed a knife, hev ye!" he snarled. "Drawed a knife, jes' like a spad
that ye are! Ye oughter put yer hair in curl-papers!"

Archie looked at the harmless knife in his hand.

"I can fight you with my fists if you are bigger than me," he cried,
tossing the knife down the open hatchway into the sand below. "Hold my
coat, Tod," and he began stripping off his little jacket.

"I ain't fightin' no spads," sneered Sandy. He didn't want to fight
this one. "Yer can't skeer nobody. You'll draw a pistol next. Yer
better go home to yer mammy, if ye kin find her."

"He ain't got no mammy," snarled Scootsy. "He's a pick-up--me father
says so."

Archie sprang forward to avenge the insult, but before he could reach
Scootsy's side a yell arose from the bow of the hulk.

"Yi! yi! Run, fellers! Here comes old man Fogarty! he's right on top o'
ye! Not that side--this way. Yi! yi!"

The invaders turned and ran the length of the deck, scrambled over the
side and dropped one after the other to the sand below just as the
Fogarty head appeared at the bow. It was but a step and a spring for
him, and with a lurch he gained the deck of the wreck.

"By jiminy, boys, mother thought ye was all killed! Has them rats been
botherin' ye? Ye oughter broke the heads of 'em. Where did they get
that plank? Come 'shore, did it? Here, Tod, catch hold of it; I jes'
wanted a piece o' floorin' like that. Why, ye're all het up, Archie!
Come, son, come to dinner; ye'll git cooled off, and mother's got a
mess o' clams for ye. Never mind 'bout the ladder; I'll lift it down."

On the way over to the cabin, Fogarty and Tod carrying the plank and
Archie walking beside them, the fisherman gleaned from the boys the
details of the fight. Archie had recovered the captain's knife and it
was now in his hand.

"Called ye a 'pick-up' did he, the rat, and said ye didn't have no
mother. He's a liar! If ye ain't got a mother, and a good one, I don't
know who has. That's the way with them town-crabs, allus cussin'
somebody better'n themselves."

When Fogarty had