less severe if you turn about and return at once."

A jeering laugh answered him.

"Then I shall have to take you back, and somebody is liable to get hurt
in that operation, I am thinking."

The boy gave his dinghy a sudden quick turn, and with one powerful
stroke sent it dashing up to within half a boat length of the other
craft.

As he neared it he caught the swing of a body in the first dinghy. Dan
ducked, flattening himself in his own frail craft just in time to avoid
a vicious swing of the other's boat hook. The gunwales of his boat
saved him from the blow.

Quick as a flash Davis grabbed the boat hook. He gave a violent, sharp
pull and the boat hook was in his possession.

"So that's your game, is it? I'll show you that two can play that sort
of game. You look out, or you'll get the pole over your own heads."

He drove his boat right alongside the other. At that moment Blackie
straightened up with an angry exclamation. At the same time he grabbed
an oar from the hands of his companion, making a vicious swing at Dan,
who, by this time, was half standing in his own boat.

But Dan had been on the watch for just such villainy. He parried the
blow with the captured boat hook.

[Illustration: Dan Parried the Blow With the Captured Boat Hook.]

"Smack, smack, smack!" boat hook and oar came together again and again.
The battle waged so furiously that for the moment the lad forgot all
about the other man in the boat. White was stealthily rising to his
feet, watching the Battleship Boy with keen, menacing eyes.

All at once he swung his oar. Dan heard it as it cut the air, but at
that instant he was powerless to dodge the blow, being busy parrying
one from Black.

White's oar caught Dan on the head. The Battleship Boy wavered for a
brief instant, seeking vainly to catch his balance; then he toppled
over backwards into the sea.

Fortunately for him, the blow had been a glancing one.

"Row, row!" cried Black. His companion fell to the oars. The men, as
they well knew, were now in a desperate situation.

Dan twisted his body about in the water, his fingers closing over the
gunwale of his own boat. The blow had dazed him, though he still had
plenty of fight left in him.

He clambered back into his own boat with no little effort, for his
clothes were soaked and weighed him down, this being the second wetting
he had had within a very short time.

The other dinghy now had a slight start of him,