Part 35 (1/2)
”Dun shoot hiested Aleck
”You shall not touch me!” said the former teacher with a shi+ver
”Chester--Rand--will you not aidbrute?”
”Don't you call dick a brute,” put in Sam
”If there is any brute here it is you, and everyone in our party will back up what I say”
”Mr Crabtree, I have nothing to say in this matter,” said dick Chester ”It would seem that your attack on Rover was a most atrocious one, and out here you will have to take what punishment comes”
”But you will help me, won't you, Rand?” pleaded the former teacher, nervously
”No, I shall stand by Chester,” answered Rand
”And will you, too, seeto the other Yale students ”I, the head of your expedition into equatorial Africa!”
”Mr Crabtree, we ,” said one of the students, a heavyset young man named Sanders ”We hired you to do certain work for us, and we paid you well for that work
Since we left Aood many instances which I need not recall just now you have not done as you agreed You are not the learned scientist you represented yourself to be--instead, if we are to believe our newlysha so, we intend to dispense with your services froive you your share of our outfit, and then you can go your way and ill go ours We absolutely want nothingspeech on Sanders' part was delivered amid a deathlike silence As the student went on, Josiah Crabtree bit his lip until the blood came Once his baneful eyes fairly flashed fire at Sanders and then at dick Rover, but then they fell to the ground
”And so you--ahe breath ”Very well But I de to me”
”You shall have every cent”
”And a complete outfit, so that I canto you--no o without that thrashi+ng!” cried dick, and catching up a long whip he had had Cujo cut for hiht down the lash with stinging effect across the for a livid mark that Crabtree was doomed to wear to the day of his death ”There you are! And there is another for the way you treated Stanhope, and another for what you did to Dora, and one for Tom, and another for Sam, and another--”
”Oh! oh! let up! The boy will killto run away ”Don't--I will be cut to pieces! Don't! don't!”
And as the lash came down over his head, neck, and shoulders, he danced madly around in pain At last he broke for cover and disappeared, not to show hi, when he called Chester to hi to hieance on the Rovers and all of the others
”He will remember you for that, dick,” said Sam, when the affair was over ”He will be your enemy for life”
”Let him be--I am not afraid of him,” responded the elder brother
CHAPTER XXVII
THE JOURNEY TO THE MOUNTAIN
By noon of the day following the Rover expedition was on its way to the old The students from Yale ith them
”It's like a romance, this search after your father,” said Chester to dick ”I hope you find him You can rest assured that our party will do all we can for you Speci is far ular hunt for big game some day,” said Tom He had already mentioned Mortimer Blaze to the Yale students