“I suppose you think you have got the best of me,” growled Baxter.

“It looks like it, doesn’t it?” returned Sam briefly.

“The game isn’t ended yet.”

“No, but it will be when you land in prison, Baxter.”

“I’ll get square.”

“You have promised to get square times without number—­and you have failed every time.”

“I won’t fail the next time.”

“Yes, you will.  Wrong never yet triumphed over right.”

“Oh, don’t preach, Sam Rover.”

“I am not preaching, I am simply trying to show you how foolish it is to do wrong.  Why don’t you turn over a new leaf?”

“Oh, such talk makes me sick!” growled the bully, and turned away.

A little while later Captain Blossom appeared and hunted up Dan Baxter, who sat in his state-room, packing up his few belongings.

“Well, have you decided on your course, young man?” demanded the master of the Golden Wave.

“Do you mean to lock me up if I refuse to become a sailor?” asked Dan Baxter,

“I do, and I won’t argue with you, either.  Is it yes or no?”

“I don’t want to be locked up in some dark hole on your ship.”

“Then you are willing to become a sailor?”

“I—­er—­I suppose so.”

“Very well, you can remove your things to the forecastle.  Jack Lesher, the first mate, will give you your bunk.”

This was “adding insult to injury,” as it is termed, so far as Baxter was concerned, for it will be remembered that it was Jack Lesher who had obtained the passage on the Golden Wave for the bully.

But Dan Baxter was given no chance to demur.  Taking his traps he went on deck, where Jack Lesher met him, grinning in sickly fashion.

“So you are going to make a change, eh?” said the mate.

“You needn’t laugh at me, if I am,” growled Baxter.

“I shan’t laugh, my boy.  It’s hard luck,” said Lesher.  “Come along.”

He led the way to the forecastle and gave Baxter a bunk next to that occupied by old Jerry.  Then he brought out an old suit of sailor’s clothing and tossed it over.

“You’ve run in hard luck, boy,” he said in a low voice, after he had made certain that nobody else was within hearing.  “I am sorry for you.”

“Really?” queried Dan Baxter, giving the mate a sharp look.

“Yes, I am, and if I can do anything to make it easy for you, count on me,” went on Jack Lesher.

“Thank you.”

“I suppose taking that money and the other things was more of boy’s sport than anything, eh?”

“That’s the truth.  I wanted to get square with those Rover boys.  They are my bitter enemies.  I didn’t want the money.”

Just then old Jerry came in and the conversation came to an end.  But Baxter felt that he had a friend on board and this eased him a little.  He did not know that the reason Jack Lesher liked him was because the first mate was a criminal himself and had once served a term in a Michigan jail for knocking down a passenger on a boat and robbing him of his pocketbook.  As the old saying goes, “Birds of a feather flock together.”