Without hesitation Craddock assisted the man to his feet. Snodburry, giving Peter a vindictive look, muttering something uncomplimentary about boys in general and Scouts in particular, hobbled away. "Dashed if I would have helped the old blighter up," exclaimed one of the shopkeepers. "He thinks he's the only fellow in Ravensholm who owns a dog. Your animal was passing along as quietly as a lamb when----" "I thought, perhaps, that Rex tripped him up accidently," interrupted Peter. "Not a bit of it," was the rejoinder. "He treats every dog the same either lashes out with his stick or hacks at it. Only this time he must have tried to kick with both feet at once and he 'bumped, bumped, bumped just a little bit,' as the song goes. But there, I'd best not say too much; Old Snodburry's a good customer of mine, but you'll find out quite enough what he's like if you stay here." "I have already, thanks," replied Peter. "He's rather interesting." The same afternoon Carline went out in the dinghy, pulling up-stream for nearly a mile above the bridge and drifting down with the strong ebb tide. Just as he was abreast of Mr. Snodburry's grounds, his attention was attracted by a man running along the shore just below high water mark and waving his hands above his head. In front of the man were five or six ducks, quacking with fright. Driving the birds into an unfenced meadow the man was joined by another, and the pair herded the ducks into Mr. Snodburry's garden. Carline ran the dinghy alongside the _Thetis_, made fast and went below, thinking no more about the apparently trivial incident of the ducks. Two days passed uneventfully, except that Mr. Snodburry paid periodical visits to the river front to gaze banefully at the _Thetis_ and to regret that the prevailing wind rendered "gas attack" impossible. Then one afternoon Farmer Thorley passed along the bank. "I'm a bit put out," he replied to the Sea Scouts' salutation. "Yesterday I missed five of my ducks, and this morning I gets a message from that Snodburry fellow saying that they've been trespassing and that he's locked them up. I went to see him and he says, 'Farmer, you'll have to pay me a sovereign for damage before you get those ducks back.' 'A sovereign,' says I. 'That's a bit thick, isn't it? What damage could they do to the extent of a pound?' But I offers him a shilling a head, which he wouldn't take, and tells me to think it over and let him know. And geese and ducks from the farm have been free to run the river ever since I was a lad, an' in my father's time afore me." "Supposing some of your sheep were grazing in that field, Mr. Thorley," said Carline, "and I drove one on to this gangway and then on board the _Thetis_. Then, if I shut the hatch and sent to you to say that you could have your sheep if you paid me a pound, what would you do?" The farmer looked curiously at the Sea Scout. "Why," he replied, "I'd have the law on you for sheep-stealing."