And at last Colonel Ward knuckled. There was nothing else to do.
"I made a mistake," he said, in a moment of respite from the stream.
"You spit on the paper and measured in twenty extry feet jest as Cap'n Aaron Sproul said you did," insisted Hiram. "Say that, and say it loud, or we'll give old Hecly the wickin' and blow you out of that tree."
And after ineffectual oaths the Colonel said it—said it twice, and the second time much the louder.
"Then," bellowed the triumphant Hiram, "the record of old Hecly Number One still stands, and the championship banner travels back to Smyrna with us to-night, jest as it travelled down this mornin'."
"Hain't you goin' to squirt?" asked some one posted safely behind a distant tree.
"If you'd been payin' 'tention as you ought to be you'd have jest seen us squirtin'," replied the foreman of the Ancients with quiet satire. "And when we squirt, we squirt to win."
Cap'n Aaron Sproul turned away from a rapt and lengthy survey of Colonel Ward in the tree.
"Did you ever ride on an elephant, Cap'n Sproul?" inquired Hiram.
"Never tried it," said the seaman.