Sam Barton was troubled also; but his feelings were very different from Bob's. He was angry with the fisher-boy because he had refused to give him one of the twenty-dollar gold pieces for his skiff, and, having promised to "get even" with him, he was thinking how he should go to work to put his threat into execution. By the time he reached home, he had decided upon a course of action, and when he had run the bow of his yawl upon the beach, and the fisher-boy had passed on out of hearing, he intimated to his companions that he had something very important to say to them. As soon as their boats had been secured, the ferry-boys gathered about their leader and waited for him to speak. They were a rough-looking set of fellows—ragged and dirty, barefooted and sunburned—and if Bob could have seen them at that moment, it might have induced the belief that Sam was really in earnest when he threatened to be revenged upon him.
"That ar Bobby Jennings has played me a mean trick," said the bully, "an' I jest aint a-goin' to stand it: he's goin' to give back them gold pieces as soon as he sees that man ag'in, when he knows all the while that I want to sell him my skiff. Now, aint that a mean trick, boys?"
"In course!" answered all the boys at once; but it is difficult to see how they reached this conclusion, unless it was because they were afraid of Sam.
"So do I call it a mean trick," continued the latter, shaking his fists in the air, and growing angrier every moment. "I say that ar Bobby Jennings is the meanest feller on this ere beach. He's so stuck up that he won't go round with us of nights, an' we aint a-goin' to let no feller stay here who thinks himself better than we be. We're goin' to run him away from here, now; we'll make Fishertown too hot to hold him."
"How will we do it?" asked one of the boys.
"Easy enough. In the first place, I want all you fellers to watch him, an' take every passenger, away from him that you can. Don't let him take a man across the harbor from this time on. In the next place, that ole scow of his'n is the only thing he's got to make a livin' with, an' some dark night we'll slip up to his shantee, run her out into the bay, an' sink her."
"Then he'll get another, somewhere."
"That's jest what I want him to do. Can't you see through a ladder? He can't live without a boat, no more'n he could live without his head, and when he finds that his ole scow is gone, mebbe he'll buy my skiff. If he does, we'll let him alone. Remember, now: watch him close, an' take all his passengers."
Sam, having nothing further to say just then, dismissed his companions, who walked off threatening vengeance against the fisher-boy.