Again Jerry’s feelings were outraged.  He could understand flank attack.  Often he and Michael had played at that, although it had only been playing.  But to retreat without fighting from a fight once started was alien to Jerry’s ways and nature.  With righteous wrath he charged into the hole after his enemy.  But this was where the wild-dog fought to best advantage—­in a corner.  When Jerry sprang up in the confined space he bumped his head on the box above, and the next moment felt the snarling impact of the other’s teeth against his own teeth and jaw.

There was no getting at the wild-dog, no chance to rush against him whole heartedly, with generous full weight in the attack.  All Jerry could do was to crawl and squirm and belly forward, and always he was met by a snarling mouthful of teeth.  Even so, he would have got the wild-dog in the end, had not Borckman, in passing, reached in and dragged Jerry out by a hind-leg.  Again came Captain Van Horn’s call, and Jerry, obedient, trotted on aft.

A meal was being served on deck in the shade of the spanker, and Jerry, sitting between the two men received his share.  Already he had made the generalization that of the two, the captain was the superior god, giving many orders that the mate obeyed.  The mate, on the other hand, gave orders to the blacks, but never did he give orders to the captain.  Furthermore, Jerry was developing a liking for the captain, so he snuggled close to him.  When he put his nose into the captain’s plate, he was gently reprimanded.  But once, when he merely sniffed at the mate’s steaming tea-cup, her received a snub on the nose from the mate’s grimy forefinger.  Also, the mate did not offer him food.

Captain Van Horn gave him, first of all, a pannikin of oatmeal mush, generously flooded with condensed cream and sweetened with a heaping spoonful of sugar.  After that, on occasion, he gave him morsels of buttered bread and slivers of fried fish from which he first carefully picked the tiny bones.

His beloved Mister Haggin had never fed him from the table at meal time, and Jerry was beside himself with the joy of this delightful experience.  And, being young, he allowed his eagerness to take possession of him, so that soon he was unduly urging the captain for more pieces of fish and of bread and butter.  Once, he even barked his demand.  This put the idea into the captain’s head, who began immediately to teach him to “speak.”

At the end of five minutes he had learned to speak softly, and to speak only once—­a low, mellow, bell-like bark of a single syllable.  Also, in this first five minutes, he had learned to “sit down,” as distinctly different from “lie down”; and that he must sit down whenever he spoke, and that he must speak without jumping or moving from the sitting position, and then must wait until the piece of food was passed to him.