"We didn't fool you! We dropped the doll in the water by accident, and we sung out there was a doll overboard and we asked a man on shore to help us get it. If you people thought it was a live baby, that isn't our fault!"
"That don't go down!" and another man stepped forward and shook his fist at the children. "Ye know right well ye fooled us a-purpose."
"We did not!" and Dotty, her temper now aroused, stamped her foot at him. "We told the man it was a doll, but if he couldn't hear us, we couldn't help that."
"Now, now, little lady, ye know better." The big brawny fisherman came nearer to Dotty and scowled at her. "I seen you jumping around there and play-actin' like you was wild with grief! Don't deny it, now! Ye know well enough I say true!"
He glowered at Dotty, and as he came nearer to her his big fierce eyes frightened her and she quickly stepped behind Tod.
"Don't you speak to the lady like that!" the boy cried. "If you've anything to say, say it to me. I called to the man for help to get that doll out of the water. It belongs to a little friend of ours and we want to take it to her."
"Well, ye'll never take it!" and the fierce-eyed man picked up the wet and dripping doll, and with a mighty sweep of his long arm, he flung it far out to sea. The deed was merely an impulse of his angry wrath at having been fooled by the children, and he faced them with a defiant air.
"You had no right to do that!" cried Tod; "go right out in your boat and get it."
"Ha! ha!" laughed the man with a loud, boisterous chuckle. "Go out and get it, is it? Not much I'll not go out and get it! And, what's more, I'll report you two to the life-saving station people, and I'll have you arrested for false pretences."
Tod was pretty sure that this was all a bluff, but the other men gathered about and promised the same thing. So threatening were they, that Dotty was thoroughly scared, and Tod, though not really afraid of arrest, began to think that these men could make things very unpleasant for them. He knew by hearsay of the rough manners and ugly tempers of this particular lot of fishermen. He had heard stories of their dislike for the summer guests, who sometimes visited them out of curiosity and looked upon them patronisingly.