"Good! Soak it to 'em, Uncle Ralph," cried Victor Collins. "They certainly need it."
"You may have started out honestly enough," went on the captain, relentlessly, "but your idea now seems to be to have your own way at any cost."
The group was silent and sullen.
Then the heavy broadside of the captain seemed to waft them away like the blasts of a hurricane. That part of the field knew them no more.
"He's the noisiest old chap I ever saw," cried Aleck Parks, after a distance of two hundred feet separated them from the skipper. "I'd like to give him a piece of my mind."
"Why didn't you?" asked Benny Wilkins. "Maybe your intellect suffered a complete lapse."
"You're like a two-edged sword, Benny," growled Aleck. "You've got something mean to say to everybody. Fellows, the only thing I ask is this: if you see me getting anywhere near 'Checkered-Cap' to-day grab me at the front, back and sides. I'm afraid I might accidentally let fly, and pulverize him."
"By Jingo! There's Brown talking to the old salt water pirate, now," put in Benny. "Another fifty feet for me. I wonder if we'd better run? His voice gives me the staggers."
"I'm going back," announced Parks, firmly. "Roycroft and Lawrence are with Brown. Ha, ha! I think they'll protect us from violence."
Captain Bunderley's arm, directed straight toward them, however, caused Benny Wilkins' motion of fifty feet to be immediately seconded.