partial and indefinite aims. Considering
that they did not know whom they were fighting, nor why, they were doing
so well that Tom wondered what force could withstand them if they should
become united in a compelling cause and concerted in their attack.

At the inner end of the passage, having beaten, choked, and gouged the
thief into an inert and senseless mass, the bullwhacker turned his
overflowing energies against his new and too enthusiastic friend, and
they rolled into the stateroom, out again, and toward the heaving pile
at the upper end of the hall. Striking it in a careless, haphazard but
solid manner, just as it was beginning to disintegrate into its bruised
and angry units, the fighting pair acted upon it like a galvanic current
on a reflex center; and forthwith the scramble became scrambled anew.

Finally, by the aid of capstan-bars, boat hooks, axe handles, and
cordwood, the boat's officers and crew managed to pry the mass apart and
drag out one belligerent at a time. They lined them up just as Captain
Newell galloped down the passage-way, dressed in a pair of trousers,
reversed; one rubber boot and one red sock and a night shirt partly
thrust inside the waistband of the trousers; but he was carefully and
precisely hatted with a high-crowned beaver. He looked as if he were
coming from a wake and going to a masquerade. Notwithstanding the very
recent and exciting events he received a great amount of attention.

"What-in-hell's-th'-matter?" he angrily demanded, glaring around him, a
pistol upraised in one hand, the other gripping a seasoned piece of ash.
"Answer-me-I-say-what-in-hell's-th'-matter-down-here?"

"There was a fight," carefully explained the weary officer.

"Hell's-bells-I-thought-it-was-a-prayer-meetin'!" yelped the captain.
"Who-was-fightin'?"

"_They_ was," answered the officer, waving both hands in all directions.

"What-about?"

The officer looked blank and scratched his head, carefully avoiding the
twin knobs rising over one ear. "Damned if _I_ know, sir!"

"Were _you_ fightin', Flynn?" demanded the captain aggressively and with
raging suspicion. "Come, up with it, were you?"

"No, sir; I was a-stoppin' it."

"My G-d! Then don't you never dare start one!" snapped the captain,
staring around. "You look like the British at N'Orleans," he told the
line-up. "What was it all about? Hell's bells! It _must_ 'a' had a
beginning!"

"Yessir," replied the officer. "It sorta begun all at on