The stoker leaped to his feet and went for the captain, now enraged beyond all control. But he had reckoned without his man. The skipper knocked the angry stoker down almost before the latter could raise his fists.
"Never mind, Captain; I can take care of him," urged Steve.
"Stand back! This is my circus. What was he going to hit you for?"
"I was to blame. I goaded him into it. I----"
"Wait a minute. He hasn't got enough yet. He's coming for me."
The captain suspended conversation long enough to give Smith a right and left swing on either side of the head that sent the fellow to the deck with all the fight knocked out of him, and which put him out of business for the next ten minutes.
"Now, what was it you were saying, my lad?"
"Nothing very much. You know Smith and myself had some trouble on the last cruise?"
"He never has gotten over being angry at me. He began saying disagreeable things to me, and I suppose I helped the matter along by tantalizing him. I was as much to blame as Smith was. But--but I'm sorry you didn't let me give him what he was spoiling for."
"He got it, that's all that is necessary," growled the master. "See here, Rush, he isn't the fellow who hit you last night, is he?" demanded the captain suddenly, shooting a quick, suspicious glance into the face of the Iron Boy.
"I didn't see who hit me," answered Steve, truthfully even if somewhat evasively.
"Put that man in irons and keep him on bread and water until he is ready to go to work and mind his own business. I've half a notion to turn him over to the authorities for mutiny," said the skipper reflectively.
"Don't you think he has had punishment enough, sir?" urged Steve.
"Yes, I suppose he has at that. Iron him, Major. It will do him good."
The stoker woke up just as the steel bracelets were being snapped on his wrists. Protesting and threatening, he was dragged to the lazaret, where he was destined to remain for the next twenty-four hours in solitary confinement, with nothing more substantial to live on than bread and water.
THE ugly stoker was liberated on the following day after having promised to behave himself in the future. But he held his head low when showing himself on deck, which was seldom. He never permitted his shifting eyes to meet those of Steve Rush, nor did Steve make any effort to address the man. The lad was confident, in his own mind, that Smith was the man who struck him that night by the after deck-house, but the drubbing that Captain Simms had given the fellow made Rush feel that they were now even.