“Why didn’t you shoot him?” Alex called out to Clay. “You saw him first. He ought to be shot for what he did last night.”
Captain Joe now came out on the deck, yawning and stretching, and elevated his fore feet to the gunwale of the boat. Clay patted him on the head and pointed to the goods’ boxes behind which Max had disappeared.
“Do you think, Captain Joe,” he said to the dog, “that you could go and get a wharf rat this morning? I think there’s one behind that pile of boxes. You better go and see, anyway.”
Of course the dog did not understand all that was said to him—although the boys sometimes insisted that he did—but he did know what the pointing finger meant. He was over the gunwale in an instant, tearing up the side of the slip, barking and growling as he went.
“You’ll get that dog killed yet,” Alex called out to Clay. “That wharf rat of a Max is just like a snake. You don’t want to get near him unless you step squarely on his head.”
Both boys whistled return orders to the dog, but he would not come back. He seemed to remember that an old enemy was near at hand and turned the corner of the heap of boxes with a vicious snarl.
The next moment, Max appeared at the top of the heap, fending off the dog with a board he had ripped from a box.
“Call off your dog!” he shouted. “I want to get my canoe. You get out of it, kid, and leave it tied to the slip.”
“If you live long enough to see me give you this canoe,” Alex laughed, “you’ll be older than Noah before you die, and have whiskers forty feet long.”
“I’ll set the police on you!” threatened Max.