The self-styled sheriff came to the surface and was pulled aboard the launch. The ducking seemed to have taken the spirit out of him. He glared at the yacht, but all his eagerness to board her seemed gone. Parker Flynn sat up and swore, holding onto his aching jaw. He had not realized that there was a set of fighters on board the _White Wings_, although Wat Snell had warned him to that effect. Now he realized that the yacht could not easily be captured in the manner in which he had attempted to accomplish the feat. The meeting of Flynn and Snell came about in this way. Snell, on finding Frank and his friends were in Boston, had played the spy on the party. He followed them to the pier the morning they went aboard the _White Wings_, and he saw the encounter between Frank and Flynn. When Flynn left the pier, Snell followed and spoke to him. After that it did not take Wat long to work into the good graces of Flynn. Infuriated by his failure to obtain possession of the yacht, Flynn proceeded to get drunk and stay so. On the second day of his spree, he determined to pursue Merriwell and take the yacht by force, if it could not be obtained in any other manner. Then he hunted up Snell, and it was not hard to induce Wat to accompany him. Flynn knew the "poker gang" in Rockland, and he knew there were a few desperate fellows among those who made up the gang. He had "dropped his roll" in Rockland once when he struck the town with an idea in his head that he was "getting against a lot of jays," and on that occasion he became friendly with Peter McSwatt and Hunk Gardman. Gardman did not belong in Rockland, but he came in frequently from an adjoining town to play poker. He was a crook and a sneak, and he showed it in his face. McSwatt was not quite as "smooth" as Gardman; he could not "handle the cards" as well, but he could sit in a game with Gardman and play what his crooked pal dealt him, so that, after every game, there was usually an ill-gotten pot to be divided. If there was any trouble, McSwatt did the fighting. Flynn telephoned McSwatt and told him when he would be in Rockland, asking to be met at the boat by McSwatt and a good man who would stand by in a scrap. He ended by saying there was good money in it, and his offered inducements led McSwatt and Gardman to be on hand at the time set. Flynn was still under the influence of liquor. Had it been otherwise, he would not have fired at the _White Wings_ from the deck of the _City of Bangor_.