off
mine."

He grasped Jabe by the collar and jerked him backward. Jim dropped a
compelling hand on Percy's shoulder.

"Come on, Whittington! You ought to have brains enough to know you've
been licked. It's time we started for Tarpaulin Island."

X

REBELLION IN CAMP

Conversation lagged on the _Barracouta_ as she jogged smoothly over the
starlit sea toward Tarpaulin Island. By the dim light of two lanterns,
Jim, Throppy, Budge, and Filippo were busy baiting the trawls with
herring and coiling them into the tubs in the standing-room. Percy had
withdrawn from his companions and lay across the heel of the bowsprit on
the decked-over bow.

He had stanched the flow of blood from his nose, but it still pained
him, and he was otherwise bruised and badly shaken by the buffets from
Jabe's knobby fists. Judged by Percy's feelings, Jabe must have been all
knuckles. Percy had to acknowledge that only Spurling's opportune
appearance had saved him from being pounded unmercifully. But his pride
had been injured far more than his physical body. It seemed improbable
that he would ever see Jabe again, but he determined that some time,
somewhere, and somehow the freckled lad should pay dearly for the slight
he had put upon the house of Whittington.

It was a few minutes past eleven when the sloop's engine stopped and she
glided up to her mooring in Sprowl's Cove. Five sleepy boys tumbled into
the dory and paddled ashore. The Fourth was over and the routine of
workaday life would begin again for them early the next morning.

Nemo dashed back and forth on the beach, barking a furious welcome and
springing upon his masters indiscriminately. Unwittingly he leaped at
Percy and in playful mood closed his teeth over the lad's right thumb,
sprained and aching from the fight.

"Get out, you cur!" exclaimed Whittington.

He launched an aimless, vindictive kick in the general direction of the
gamboling beast. As often happens with random blows, it went too true.
Nemo ki-yied up the beach on three legs.

"What are you about, Whittington?" burst out Lane, angrily. Among the
entire five he was the fondest of the dog.

Percy was ashamed and sorry that he had hurt the animal, but Lane's
eruption of temper smothered his repentant feelings.

"He bit my thumb," he muttered, sullenly.

"You know well enough he was just in sport. Don't you kick him again!
You hear me!"

Percy mumbled an indistinct reply. As soon as the cabin was