cried Sam. "He is beating somebody most shamefully."

"It's little Harry Moss," returned Tom, leaping to the front. "The big
bully! Why can't he take a fellow of his own size?"

He rushed around the corner of the boathouse and there beheld a scene
that aroused his warmest indignation. Harry Moss was crowded into a
corner and over him stood Lew Flapp, beating him with a heavy boat
chain.

Flapp had just raised the chain for another blow when Tom ran in and
caught his arm.

"Stop!" he cried. "You let Harry Moss alone!"

Startled at the interruption Lew Flapp turned. When he saw both Tom and
Sam his face fell.

"What do you want here?" he asked sulkily.

"I want you to leave Harry Moss alone," answered Tom.

"Oh, Rover, please make him stop," pleaded Harry. "He's trying to kill
me!"

"No, I ain't," retorted Flapp. "I'm only giving him a whipping that he
deserves."

"It's an outrage to strike anybody with that chain," said Sam.

"You needn't put your oar in, Sam Rover!"

"But he just will, and so will I," said Tom. "Give me that chain," and
he tried to pull it from Lew Flapp's hand.

"Let go!" screamed Lew Flapp, and began a struggle to keep the chain in
his possession. He struck at Tom, hitting him in the shoulder. Then Tom
got mad, doubled up his fist, and Lew Flapp received a blow in the left
eye that made him see stars.

"Oh!" he howled and dropped the chain. "Tom Rover, I'll get even for
that, mind that!"

"What do you mean by attacking Harry Moss in such a disgraceful
fashion?"

"Because he's a sneak, and you know it."

"I know nothing of the kind."

"Didn't he go and blab on me to Captain Putnam?"

"About what?"

Lew Flapp paused and eyed Tom and Sam curiously.

"I reckon you know well enough," he remarked slowly.

"But I don't know anything. Do you, Sam?"

"Not a thing. So far as I know Harry is all right."

"Is he?" sneered Flapp. "Well, I don't think so."

"What was the trouble about, Harry?" asked Tom, turning to the small
boy.

"Don't you say a word!" shouted Lew Flapp, in alarm. "If Tom and Sam
Rover don't know already they needn't know at all, so there."

"Evidently you don't want Harry to talk," said Sam suggestively.

"He's a sneak, I tell you."

"And you are a big, long-legged bully," retorted Tom. "For two pins I'd
give you a good drubbing."

"Humph! Do you think you can lick me?" blustered Flapp, who felt
certain he could best Tom at fisticuffs.

"I don't think