"About me?" Norman's face took on new interest.

"Yes; Ferdy said something, and Keith took it up. He seems pretty fond
of you. I think he had it in for Ferdy, for Ferdy had been bedevilling
him about the place. You know old Wickersham owns it. Ferdy's strong
point is not taste. So I think Gordon was feeling a bit sore, and when
Ferdy lit into you, Keith slapped him."

Norman was all alert now.

"Well? Which licked?"

"Oh, that was all. Keith won at the end of the first round. He'd have
been fighting now if he had not licked him."

The rest of the talk was of General Keith and of the hardship of his
position.

"They are as poor as death," said Rhodes. He told of his surroundings.

When Norman got home, he went to his mother. Her eye lighted up as it
rested on the alert, vigorous figure and fresh, manly, eager face. She
knew he had something on his mind.

"Mother, I have a plan," he said. "You remember Gordon Keith, the boy
whose boat I sank over in England--'Keith the rebel'?"

Mrs. Wentworth remembered well. She remembered an older fight than that,
between a Keith and a Wentworth.