ng covers, opened and
closed it several times, and finally spoke:

"Thar's the answer to yer question, Norton," he said. "And that's
only one of about a dozen hist'ries I've got on my old shelf.
When times is dull or I'm waitin' fer a party who've gone into
the Everglades, or when the _Arrow_ is lyin' off shore in a dead
calm, then I start in at the first page of the book that happens
ter be on the end of the shelf, and I live over the old days of
the privateers, when it meant somethin' to sail the seas."

"Who is your _biggest_ hero?" asked Mark as the captain paused.

The old man smiled humorously before he answered.

"Wal', my biggest hero," he said, "is the littlest hero on record
as a sea-fighter, I guess. Like Napoleon Bonaparte, his bigness was
not in his body but in his mind. And that's Paul Jones of the
_Bonhomme Richard_."

As the captain pronounced the name of his hero, he struck his worn
book a resounding slap, and his jaws clicked in emphasis of his
statement.

"Can't you tell us something about him?" asked Chester, fascinated
by the old captain's earnestness.

"That's the ticket---I mean, please do," endorsed Billy heartily.

"No, I can't do that," was the deliberate reply, as the captain rose
to relieve Dave at the tiller, "but you can all borry the book and
read the historian's account of the battle between the _Serapis_
and the _Bonhomme Richard_. I git so excited when I read that,
I hey ter go put my head in a pail o' water to cool it off! Fact!
You know that's whar the cap'n of the _Serapis_ calls out: 'Hev
ye struck?' And John Paul Jones shouts back: 'Struck! I am just
beginnin' ter fight!'"

As Captain Vinton straightened his rounded shoulders and delivered
this emphatic quotation, he shook his fist at an imaginary enemy
and then brought it down hard on the railing. Then he grinned
sheepishly.

"You see how 'tis," he said, laughing at himself as he moved away.
"Guess I'll hev ter stop talkin' or go fer that pail o' water!"

The boys, left to themselves, discussed the theme that the captain's
words had suggested, and were rather ashamed to see how vague their
knowledge of the famous battle was. So, at Alec's suggestion,
Norton agreed to read the account of the fight as given in the
captain's book; and grouped about Hugh's hammock, the boys listened
eagerly.

"That makes our experiences on picket duty seem tame in comparison,"
said Alec, commenting on the story when Norton had