the grass between them.

Several of the others, being too little, were not allowed to join in the
game, and contented themselves with general scrimmaging and skylarking,
while Edward Quintal, Catherine McCoy, and Hannah Adams, the most recent
additions to the community, rolled about in meaningless felicity.

"Hold on hard," shouted Dan McCoy, whose flushed face and blue eyes
beamed and flashed under a mass of curling yellow hair, and who was the
foremost boy of the French band.

"I'm holdin' on," cried Matt Quintal, who was intellectually rather
obtuse.

"Tight," cried Dan.

"Tight," repeated Matt.

"There, don't let go--oh! hup!"

The grasp of Dan suddenly relaxed when Matt and his Englishmen were
straining their utmost. Of course they went back on the top of each
other in a wild jumble, while Dan, having put a foot well back, was
prepared, and stood comparatively firm.

"You did that a-purpose," cried Matt, springing up and glaring.

"I know you did it a-purpose," retorted Dan.

"But--but I said that--that _you_ did it a-purpose," stammered Matt.

"Well, an' didn't I say that you said that I said _you_ did it
a-purpose?"

A yell of delight followed this reply, in which, however, Matt did not
join.

Like his father, Matt Quintal was short in the temper--at least, short
for a Pitcairn boy. He suddenly gave Dan McCoy a dab on the nose with
his fist. Now, as every one must know, a dab on the nose is painful;
moreover, it sometimes produces blood. Dan McCoy, who also inherited a
shortish temper from his father, feeling the pain, and seeing the blood,
suddenly flushed to the temples, and administered to Matt a sounding
slap on the side of the head, which sent him tumbling on the grass. But
Matt was not conquered, though overturned. Jumping up, he made a rush
at Dan, who stood on the defensive. The other children, being more
gentle in their natures, stood by, and anticipated with feelings of awe
the threatened encounter; but Thursday October Christian, who had
listened with eager ears, ever since his intelligence dawned, to the
conversations of the mutineers, here stepped between the combatants.

"Come, come," said he, authoritatively, in virtue of his greater age and
superior size, "let's have fair play. If you must fight, do it
ship-shape, an', accordin' to the articles of war. We must form a ring
first, you know, an' get a bottle an' a sponge and--"

An appalling yell at this point nearly froze