Boyd succeeded in keeping his footing and eventually fought his way to a backing of crated machinery, where he stooped and ripped a cleat loose; then, laying about him with this weapon, he cleared a space. It was already difficult to distinguish friend from foe, but he saw Alton Clyde go down a short distance away and made a rush to rescue him. His pine slat splintered against a head, he dodged a missile, then struck with the fragment in his hand, and, snatching Clyde by the arm, dragged him out from under foot. Battered and bruised, the two won back to Emerson's first position, and watched the tide surge past. At the first alarm the fishermen had armed themselves with bale-hooks and bludgeons, and for a time worked havoc among their assailants; but as the fight became more general they were forced apart and drawn into the crowd, whereupon the combatants split up into groups, milling about like frightened cattle. Men broke out from these struggling clusters to nurse their injuries or beat a retreat, only to be overrun and swallowed up again in a new commotion. Emerson saw the big, barefooted fisherman in the red underclothes, armed with a sledge-hammer, go through the ranks of his enemies like a tornado, only to be struck by some missile hurled from a distance. With a shout of rage the fellow turned and flung his own weapon at his assailant, felling him like an ox, then he in turn was blotted out by a surge of rioters. But there was little time for observation, as the scene was changing with kaleidoscopic rapidity and there was the ever-present necessity of self-protection. Seeing Clyde's helpless condition, Emerson shouted: "Come on! I'll help you aboard the ship." He found a hardwood club beneath his feet--one of those cudgels that are used in pounding rope-slings and hawsers--and with it cleared a pathway for Clyde and himself. But while still at a distance from the ship's gangway, he suddenly spied the man in the gray suit, who had climbed upon one of the freight-piles, whence he was scanning the crowd. The man likewise recognized Emerson, and pointed him out, crying something unintelligible in the tumult, then leaped down from his vantage-point. The next instant Boyd saw him approaching, followed by several others. He endeavored to hustle Clyde to the big doors ahead of the oncomers, but being intercepted, backed against the shed wall barely in time to beat off the foremost.