step, and a shrewd use of cover, suggestive of his former calling.

"And now what meaneth this, ye young fools!" sternly demanded Standish.
"Are ye aping the sins of your betters and claiming the rights of the
duello? Rights say I! Nay, 't is forbidden to any man in this colony,
and ye know it well, ha?"

"Yea, Captain, we knew 't was forbidden, but we had a quarrel"--

"And why if ye must fight did ye take to deadly weapons? Have ye not a
pair of fists apiece, or if that could not content ye, are there not
single-sticks enow in these woods? I've a mind to take my ramrod in hand
and show ye the virtue of a good stick, but I promise you that if not I,
some other shall give you a lesson you'll not forget. Come, march!"

"I'm shrewdly slashed in the leg, Captain," expostulated Dotey; "and
fear me I cannot walk."

"Ay? Sit down, then, and let me see. Thou 'st a sore wound in thy
leather breeches, but--ay, there's a scratch beneath, but naught to
hinder your moving. Here, I'll plaster it up in a twinkling."

And from the pocket of his doublet the old soldier produced a case
containing some of the most essential requisites of surgery, and with a
deftness and delicacy of touch, surprising to one who had not seen him
beside a sick-bed, he soon had the wound safe and comfortable.

"There, man, thou 'rt fit to walk from here to Cape Cod. Many a mile
have I marched with a worse wound than that, and no better than a rag or
at best my belt bound round it. Now you sirrah! Hast a scratch, too?"

For reply Lister silently held out a hand whence the blood dripped
freely from a cut across the palm.

"Tried to grasp 't other fool's dagger in thy naked hand, eh?" coolly
remarked the Captain as he cut a strip of plaster to fit the wound. "Now
the next time take my counsel and catch it in the leathern sleeve of thy
jerkin. Better wound a dead calf than a live one."

"Next time, sayst he!" commented Dotey in a mock aside to his companion.
"So we were not so far astray this time."

"Next time thou meetest a dagger, I should have said," retorted the
Captain with his grimmest smile. "I never said ye were not to fight, for
I trow ye'll have chance enough at that before I'm done with ye; but
when a handful of men are set as we are to garrison a little post on the
frontier of a savage country, for one to fall afoul of another and to
risk two lives out of a dozen for some senseless feud of their own is to
my mind little short of treason t