imself that
he didn't exactly understand how far a seafaring man could be trifled
with.

Vienna gazed truculently on Smyrna for a time, but Smyrna, obeying
their foreman's adjurations, mellowed into amiable grins and went
on with their lunches.

"Where's that Spitz poodle with the blue ribbon?" inquired the Cap'n
of Hiram, having reference to the brisk little man and his side
whiskers. "It don't appear to me that you pounded it into his head
solid enough about our not standin' for Gid Ward."

In the stress of other difficulties Hiram had forgotten the dispute
that started the quarrel.

"Don't let's have any more argument, Hiram," pleaded his wife.

"She's right, Cap'n," said the foreman. "Standin' up for your rights
is good and proper business, but it's a darn slippery place we're
tryin' to stand on. Let the old pirate referee. We can outsquirt 'em.
He won't dast to cheat us. I'm goin' to appoint you to represent
Smyrna up there at the head of the stream. Keep your eye out for a
square deal."

"I don't know a thing about squirtin', and I won't get mixed in,"
protested the Cap'n. But the members of the Smyrna company crowded
around him with appeals.

"There's only this to know," urged Hiram. "The judges lay down sheets
of brown paper and measure to the farthest drop. All you've got to
do is keep your eye out and see that we get our rights. You'll only
be actin' as a citizen of our town--and as first selectman you can
insist on our rights. And you can do it in a gentlemanly way,
accordin' to the programme we've mapped out. Peace and
politeness--that's the motto for Smyrna."

And in the end Cap'n Sproul allowed himself to be persuaded.

But it was scarcely persuasion that did it.

It was this plaintive remark of the foreman: "Are you goin' to stand
by and see Gideon Ward do us, and then give you the laugh?"

Therefore the Cap'n buttoned his blue coat tightly and trudged up
to where the committee was busy with the sheets of brown paper,
weighting them with stones so that the July breeze could not flutter
them away.

Starks, Carthage, and Salem made but passable showing. They seemed
to feel that the crowd took but little interest in them. The listless
applause that had greeted them in the parade showed that.

Then, with a howl, half-sullen, half-ferocious, Vienna trundled old
Niagara to the reservoir, stuck her intake pipe deep in the water,
and manned her brake-beams. To the surprise of the onlookers her