The fight could not last long. It was muscle against science, and in the end muscle won. Percy began to tire and to grow short of breath. He had smoked too many cigarettes to be able to keep up such a whirlwind pace for many minutes. Though he landed five blows to his enemy's one, the latter's one did more damage than his five. For the first time in the contest Jabe used his head. Hitherto he had struck straight for the mark each time. Now he feinted with his right for his foe's body. Percy dropped his guard somewhat wearily. Before he realized what was happening, Jabe's left, sent in with tremendous force, hit him a smashing blow squarely on the nose, knocking him over backward. It was the beginning of the end. Percy tottered up, blood spurting from his nose, his head spinning. He saw Jabe preparing for another rush and knew it would be the last one. He stiffened himself to receive the knock-out. A tall, broad-shouldered figure broke through the circle. "What's the trouble here?" It was Spurling's voice. His glance took in the situation. "That'll be about all," he said. "Come away, Whittington!" A bullet-headed, shirt-sleeved man bristled up defiantly. It was Jabe's father. "Guess we'll let 'em fight it out," he observed. His boy was winning. "No," said Jim. "It's gone far enough." "Not looking for trouble, are you?" "No," remarked Jim, easily. "I don't want any trouble with you, and you don't want any with me." The shirt-sleeved man glanced appraisingly at his square shoulders and strongly knit figure. "Right you are, George!" he laughed. "I don't want any trouble with you. You must be a mind-reader. You call off your dog and I'll call off mine." He grasped Jabe by the collar and jerked him backward. Jim dropped a compelling hand on Percy's shoulder. "Come on, Whittington! You ought to have brains enough to know you've been licked. It's time we started for Tarpaulin Island." X REBELLION IN CAMP Conversation lagged on the _Barracouta_ as she jogged smoothly over the starlit sea toward Tarpaulin Island. By the dim light of two lanterns, Jim, Throppy, Budge, and Filippo were busy baiting the trawls with herring and coiling them into the tubs in the standing-room. Percy had withdrawn from his companions and lay across the heel of the bowsprit on the decked-over bow. He had stanched the flow of blood from his nose, but it still pained him, and he was otherwise bruised and badly shaken by the buffets from Jabe's knobby fists. Judged by Percy's feelings, Jabe must have been all knuckles. Percy had to acknowledge that only Spurling's opportune appearance had saved him from being pounded unmercifully. But his pride had been injured far more than his physical body. It seemed improbable that he would ever see Jabe again, but he determined that some time, somewhere, and somehow the freckled lad should pay dearly for the slight he had put upon the house of Whittington.