him and that boy Sammie of his will learn to
leave decent people alone after this."

"Why, what about Sammie?" the Royals asked.

"What! haven't ye heard?"

"No, not a word."

"Well, if that doesn't beat all! And Rod never told ye?"

"He said nothing to us about Sammie."

Captain Josh looked first at the clergyman and then at Mrs. Royal with
an expression of doubt in his eyes.

"And so ye say he didn't tell ye anything?" he finally blurted out,
while his stick came down with a bang upon the carpet. "If any one
else had said that I wouldn't believe him. To think of a boy doin'
what he did and not rushin' home all excited, and blattin' out his
yarn. But, then, I always knew there was extra stuff in that lad. I
have had my eyes on him ever since the mornin' I gave him a cow, ho,
ho!" and the captain leaned back and laughed heartily as the
recollection of the "cow incident" came back to him. "That was my
first present," he continued, "but it isn't my last, not by a long
jugful, no, sir-ree."

"But what did Rodney do, captain?" the parson enquired. "We are very
anxious to hear."

"Do! What did he do, eh? Why, he walked right over Sammie Dunker,
that's what he did. Oh, I heard all about it at the store that very
night. Sammie has been a regular chip of the old Dunker block ever
since he started fer school. He bullied all the little chaps, and had
them all scared to a shadder. But when he butted up aginst Rod it was
a different proposition, ho, ho! I'd like to have been there."

"Do you mean that Rodney was fighting Sammie Dunker?" the clergyman
asked, with a note of severity in his voice. "I am astonished."

"Oh, no, there was no fightin', parson. Sammie didn't fight; that's
not the Dunker way. But he hurt little Nancy Garvan, and when Rod told
him to stop, he slapped him in the face. Rod then walked into him and
gave him two black eyes, a bloody nose, and left him sprawlin' upon the
floor. That was all there was about it. Oh, no, there was no
fightin'."

"H'm, I see," Parson Dan quietly remarked, while a slight gleam of
pride shone in his eyes. He glanced toward his wife, but her head was
bent over some sewing she had picked up from the table.

"I've been watchin' that boy of yours fer some time," the captain
continued, "and he's the right stuff. I know more about him than ye
think. I'd 'a' given my cow to have seen him put that toad into Bella
Simpkins' lap, ho, ho, ho! That was the