"Say, hold on, friend," said Zeke, reaching out his hand and laying a grip on the storekeeper's collar. "We don't want any men like you aboard here. That's the way ashore."
"Who made you master of this vessel?" answered the man, thrusting Zeke's arm aside. "The captain says the wounded men are on board this ship and I want to see who they are. Just keep your hands to yourself."
Zeke's whole appearance changed as if by magic. The good-natured smile gave place to a frown, and the hand which the storekeeper had thrown aside speedily caught its grip again, and this time it was there to stay. With the other hand he caught the man below the waist-band, and a moment afterward he gave a puff like a tired locomotive and the storekeeper was swung clear of the deck. Lifting his victim until he was at arm's length above his head he walked across the deck to the other side, and sent him headlong into the water. It was an exhibition of strength on Zeke's part that no one had ever seen before. He leaned over the rail until the man's face appeared at the surface and then shook his fist at him.
"Now don't you wish you had gone back my way?" said he. "Swim around the sloop and get somebody to help you out. You can't come aboard here."
"There," said Enoch. "Ledyard is a Tory sure enough. Zeke knew it all the time and took this way to wash some of his meanness out of him. I will have to go to his store to get some more powder," he added, holding up his horn so that he could see the inside of it. "I shot most of what I had away at the Britishers who manned this schooner. Come on, Caleb. I think we can get ashore now."
The boys made another attempt this time and were successful. Every one they saw on the wharf was a provincial and wanted to shake hands with them. Of course, too, everybody wanted to know what sort of treatment Caleb had met with at the hands of the Britishers, but the boys answered in as few words as possible and as soon as they were out of the crowd they broke into a run, headed for home.
"Come in and let mother thank you for rescuing me," said Caleb, as they stopped at his gate. "She can do it better than I can."
"I did not have more to do with your rescue than a dozen other men who were with me," replied Enoch. "Let me go home first and then I will come back."
Caleb reluctantly let his friend go, and Enoch kept on his way toward home. He was thinking over the incidents that had happened during the fight and which he wanted to tell for his mother's satisfaction, when he came opposite the house in which James Howard lived. He kept on without giving a thought to James except to wonder how he would feel to know that the schooner, in which he had so much confidence, had been beaten by an unarmed sloop, when he saw the boy at the gate waiting for him. His face was very pale, but it gave place to a flush of anger when he noticed the smile with which Enoch greeted him. He backed away from the gate as our hero approached, and this showed that he did not mean to let himself get within reach of a provincial's arm.
"You think you are smart, don't you?" was the way in which he opened the conversation.