“It’s a kind of a legal sandwich,” said Townsend, sitting back against the tree with his knees drawn up and talking with a calmness and seriousness which aroused the wrath of old Trimmer.  “It’s a kind of an interesting situation.  We have as much right on the scow as the land has, as I see it——­”

“Sure, you learn that in the third grade!” shouted Pee-wee.  “That’s logic.”

“Really, the best thing to do,” drawled Townsend, “would be to remove the land, which would let us down onto the scow and that would let you out of the difficulty.  We’d be answerable to the owner of the scow.”

“It belonged to the big dredge,” Pee-wee said excitedly.  “I knew all the men on that dredge; I used to hang out on that dredge; those men were all friends of mine.  We wouldn’t be trespassing except your land is in the way.”

“If you want us to shovel the land out of here we’ll do it,” suggested Roly Poly.

“Then the tree’ll fall over,” said Brownie.

“Gee whiz,” shouted Pee-wee, “it’ll serve the tree right because all the time fellers are being accused of trespassing in apple trees and now you can see for yourself that apple trees are just as bad.  They trespass on scows.”

“We could have this tree fined ten dollars,” said Billy, “if we wanted to report it to the dredging company in New York.”

“Or it would have to go to jail for thirty days,” yelled Pee-wee.

“I don’t see what we’re going to do, Mr. Trimmer,” said Townsend.

“I know what we’re going to do,” said Pee-wee; “we’re going to do a lot of things.  We’re natives of this island.”

“We don’t recognize this land,” said Townsend; “we consider it beneath us.”

“Sure it’s beneath us!” shouted Pee-wee.

“It simply happens to trespass on the scow first,” said Townsend.  “I think we’ll stand on our rights.”

“Well, yer ain’t goin’ ter stand on my property, yer ain’t!” old Trimmer bellowed, his wrath rising.  Townsend’s calmness seemed to goad him to a perfect frenzy.

“Well, then,” said Townsend, “the only thing for us to do is to shovel out a space and camp on that.  Then our feet will be on the scow——­”

“We’ll be on friendly territory,” shouted Pee-wee.  “Your land can camp here with us if it wants to.”

“Or you can take it away, just as you please,” said Townsend.  “Only we warn you not to take any liberties with this scow.  We’re personally acquainted with Mr. Steam of the Steam Dredging Company and we’re going to charter this scow, now that we’re on it.  We can get another desert island to put on it if necessary.”

“Do you see this traffic sign?” Pee-wee yelled at the top of his voice.  He stood like some conquering hero, holding the martial stop sign with one hand.  “The bottom of this bar is planted on the scow.  Do you hear the noise it makes when I bump it up and down?  It goes right through this land.  We take possession of this scow in the name of the new Alligator Patrol or maybe it’ll be the Turtles, we don’t know yet.  We plant our banner on the—­the——­”