"I will fight both of you." And he settled himself for defence.
"Well, I will," cried his assailant.

"Drop the tiller, Ferdy, and sit tight.

I will fight fair." Then to Gordon again: "I have given you fair warning, and I will have that flag or sink you." Gordon's answer was to drop one oar as useless, seize the other, and steadying himself as well as he could, raise it aloft as a weapon.
"I will kill you if you try it," he said between clinched teeth.
However, the boy rowing the other boat was not to be frightened.

He gave a vigorous stroke of his oars that sent his boat straight into the side of Gordon's boat.
The shock of the two boats coming together pitched Gordon to his knees, and came near flinging him into the water; but he was up again in a second, and raising his oar, dealt a vicious blow with it, not at the boy in the boat, but at the flag in the bow of the boat.

The unsteadiness of his footing, however, caused him to miss his aim, and he only splintered his oar into fragments.
"Hit him with the oar, Norman," called the boy in the stern.