Caleb reluctantly let his friend go, and Enoch kept on his way toward home. He was thinking over the incidents that had happened during the fight and which he wanted to tell for his mother's satisfaction, when he came opposite the house in which James Howard lived. He kept on without giving a thought to James except to wonder how he would feel to know that the schooner, in which he had so much confidence, had been beaten by an unarmed sloop, when he saw the boy at the gate waiting for him. His face was very pale, but it gave place to a flush of anger when he noticed the smile with which Enoch greeted him. He backed away from the gate as our hero approached, and this showed that he did not mean to let himself get within reach of a provincial's arm.
"You think you are smart, don't you?" was the way in which he opened the conversation.
"Well--yes; almost anybody would think himself smart under the circumstances," said Enoch. "We whipped them in a fair fight."
"I do not believe it," returned James hotly.
"I do not ask you to take my word for it, but the wharf is not but a little way off, and you can go down and see for yourself," said Enoch.
"We heard the firing, and we came to the conclusion that your sloop had got sunk out of sight," said James. "But I see that the schooner brought her back with her."
Enoch made no reply. He wanted to see how much James knew about the fight.
"How many of the men were killed and wounded on your side?" continued James, after a moment's pause.
"I tell you the regulars fought, did they not? How many of them were hit on their side?"
"Do you mean to say that you killed as many of them as they did of you?" asked James, who was plainly astonished to hear it.
"That is what I mean to say. We boarded their vessel and pulled down her flag----"
"I tell you I don't believe any such stuff," shouted James, who was more surprised the longer the story went on. "You will never get your hands on that flag."
"Go down and see. That is all you have got to do."
"I will wager that Captain Moore laid some of you fellows out. Was that he standing on the rail waving his hat to us?"
"No, it could not have been Captain Moore. He is dead."
"What!" James almost stammered. "Did one of you men dare to draw a weapon on him?"
