And the captain, looking at Dan’s flashing blue eyes and bristling red hair, somehow did believe it. He shook his fist in Dan’s face.
“I’ll get you yet, my boy!” he growled. “And when I do——”
Turning, he stumbled aft and disappeared into the deck house.
“He’s after a pistol!” warned Bob. “Everyone get to cover!”
Spencer tumbled helter-skelter down the steps, followed by Tom and Bob. But Dan held his ground, although his face paled.
On the _Scout_ everybody seemed for a moment paralyzed. Then the tugboat captain turned and ran clumsily toward the deck-house door, and the sailor who had been holding the two boats together with a boat hook fixed around the after cleat of the launch dropped the haft and disappeared quickly around the other side of the cabin. Probably he thought he was too near the scene of action. Captain Sander must have known where to look for a weapon, for before the tugboat captain had reached the door he was back again with a formidable revolver in his hand and his face convulsed with passion.
“Stop that!” cried the captain of the tug. “You can’t shoot folks on my boat! You haven’t hired me for a warship!” And hurrying to the other, he seized the arm that held the revolver.
“You give me my pistol and I will,” panted the other. There was a struggle, in which one sought to wrest away the weapon and the other to keep possession of it and throw off his adversary. Bob, viewing the conflict from the cabin doorway, called to Dan.
“Come down here, Dan!” he commanded. “Don’t be a fool! He’ll shoot you, sure!”
But Dan held his ground, revolver in hand.
Then several things happened simultaneously. Tom pushed Bob aside, hurled himself across the cockpit, locked his arms around Dan’s legs and brought him crashing to the deck; Captain Sauder broke away from his opponent, raised his revolver and fired; and the _Vagabond_ churned the water under her stern and darted away at full speed.
[Illustration: “Captain Sauder ... raised his revolver and fired.”]
The captain’s aim had been hurried and the bullet sped singing through the air several feet above the launch, and before he could pull the trigger the second time the captain and mate of the tug had borne him back against the side of the deck house and wrested the revolver from his hand. The _Vagabond_, with no one at the wheel, charged across the tug’s bow and headed for the west. On the floor of the cockpit Dan was fighting and struggling to regain both his feet and the revolver which he had dropped under the suddenness of the attack, and which now lay beyond his reach.