Like most good-natured people, Andy Flures was not a man to be insulted in that way. With dangerous calm and precision he removed the plastered mud from his eyes, and then, never wavering, but without undue haste, stalked over to where Henryson stood. And before that individual was aware of what was happening to him, Andy grabbed him in an iron grip, turned him upside down as though Henryson weighed no more than a doll, and then, with a tremendous lunge, planted him head-first into the slime, up to his shoulders.
It seemed a full minute he stood thus, his feet threshing the air, before he sufficiently unbalanced to fall of his own weight.
When Henryson had finally regained his feet and could see and hear, the old whaling captain was standing in front of him. The others, including Andy, at his signal, were continuing over the designated course, but all could hear him as he bawled out at the Norwegian:
"Young man, take off them shoes."
Without a word Henryson began to do as he was bidden.
"Now lissen here," the old whaler continued, as Henryson handed him the snowshoes that had been the cause of his misfortune and such a nasty display of humor. "When I laid out this course it was my idea to see a little fun. I knew it would be soggy goin', but I thought I was dealin' with sportsmen, and I was—all except you. You're my idea of a no-account, that's what you are."
Before this tirade from a man nearly thrice his age Henryson stood abashed.
"And one thing more," the old seaman continued. "There was once a man named Shakespeare, that it might surprise you to know I ever heard of. Well, around here I'm what he called 'clothed with a little brief authority.' I'm the constabule. I'm not het up about it, but I want to tell ye this: you get the slightest bit gay around this harbor and I'll run ye into the calaboose so quick ye won't know what happened to ye. And ye won't be out in time to make eny flight to Europe, either; though if ye ever git there I hope ye stay."
Henryson, a lone and ostracized man, stalked across the field just as Big Jack Carew, laughing and puffing, came in a winner, twenty yards ahead of the next nearest man.
Thereafter there were broad-jumps, high-jumps, pole-vault contests and many other tryouts in athletic skill, but it remained for Fred Bentner to show them something in the way of novelty in almost monkey-like agility.