He measured his adversaries pretty accurately, and in ordinary circumstances he would have fought Sam, when that young man talked to him as he did in the beginning of this story.

There was that in Sam's bearing, however, which made Jake afraid to resist the imperious will that asserted itself more in the quiet tone than in the threatening words.

He was Sam's full equal physically, but he had quailed before him, and he could scarcely determine why.

It annoyed him sorely as he remembered the loud cheering of the boys.

He chafed under the consciousness of defeat, and dreaded, the hints he was sure to receive whenever he should bully any of his companions, that he had a score still unsettled with Sam Hardwicke.