And next day this was in the papers. Sedgwick smiled and ran down to see Ticehurst, whose ship was lying in the stream with a United States marshal in charge of her to see the men stayed on board and were not taken off by Healy's pirates, and a Multnomah county official to see that Ticehurst stayed more or less in sight.
'Now,' said Ticehurst, 'haven't I got him?'
'You can try,' said Sedgwick.
So Ticehurst filed a complaint in the United States Circuit Court in 'a damage suit' against Healy, laying his damages at ten thousand dollars.
'It will make him sick,' said Sedgwick. And it did.
Healy fairly howled, and by way of immediate revenge sent one of his ruffians to catch the reporter who had caught him.
'Sock it to him good, Joe,' said Healy; 'don't leave him a feather to fly with. Stamp on his right hand and kick his ribs in. I'll teach him to come down here with a pencil and a note-book and lay traps for inoffending citizens, so I will.'
And Joe went off to 'do up' the reporter. As it happened (and it was unlucky for Joe) the reporter was a man of his hands, and not at all an unsuspecting person. It was Joe who went to the hospital, and not the man with the pencil and the note-book. Nevertheless, as he understood how things shaped themselves in Oregon and in Pacific ports generally, this particular reporter thought it healthy to go elsewhere. What Joe had failed in Jack might do, and Healy had a very long memory, as many injured men could tell.
'What I like about Oregon is its climate and its general uncertainty,' said Ticehurst. 'It makes me feel young again. Of course, I shan't push this libel suit, Sedgwick.'
'If you do, you'll be like Vanderdecken when it's finished,' said Sedgwick. 'To try to beat to the westward of the Cape Horn of Law here will make an ancient Flying Dutchman of you. I'd try to get to sea.'