"Scootsy Mulligan! Crickety! he's come to make trouble," shouted back Tod, climbing the ladder in a hurry—it was used as a means of descent into the shallow hold when not needed outside. "Where are they? Oh, yes! I see 'em—lot of 'em, ain't they? Saturday, and they ain't no school. Say, Arch, what are we goin' to do?" The terminal vowels softening his henchman's name were omitted in grave situations; so was the pirate lingo.
"Do!" retorted Archie, his eyes snapping. "Why, we'll fight 'em; that's what we are pirates for. Fight 'em to the death. Hurray! They're not coming aboard—no sir-ee! You go down, Toddy [the same free use of terminals], and get two of the biggest bean-poles and I'll run up the death flag. We've got stones and shells enough. Hurry—big ones, mind you!"
The attacking party, their leader ahead, had now reached the low sand heap marking the grave of the former wreck, but a dozen yards away—the sand had entombed it the year before.
"You fellers think yer durned smart, don't ye?" yelled Mr. William Mulligan, surnamed "Scootsy" from his pronounced fleetness of foot. "We're goin' to run ye out o' that Tub. 'Tain't yourn, it's ourn—ain't it, fellers?"
A shout went up in answer from the group on the hillock.
"You can come as friends, but not as enemies," cried Archie grandiloquently. "The man who sets foot on this ship without permission dies like a dog. We sail under the blood-red flag!" and Archie struck an attitude and pointed to the fragment of mother Fogarty's own nailed to a lath and hanging limp over the rail.
"Hi! hi! hi!" yelled the gang in reply. "Oh, ain't he a beauty! Look at de cotton waddin' on his head!" (Archie's cropped curls.) "Say, sissy, does yer mother know ye're out? Throw that ladder down; we're comin' up there—don't make no diff'rence whether we got yer permish or not—and we'll knock the stuffin' out o' ye if ye put up any job on us. H'ist out that ladder!"
"Death and no quarter!" shouted back Archie, opening the big blade of Captain Holt's pocket knife and grasping it firmly in his wee hand. "We'll defend this ship with the last drop of our blood!"
"Ye will, will ye!" retorted Scootsy. "Come on, fellers—go for 'em! I'll show 'em," and he dodged under the sloop's bow and sprang for the overhanging chains.
Tod had now clambered up from the hold. Under his arm were two stout hickory saplings. One he gave to Archie, the other he kept himself.