Part 17 (1/2)

”I tell you I came alone,” Hen insisted, with rising color, as he s.h.i.+fted under d.i.c.k's steady gaze. ”Fred and----”

”Fred--who?” cross-examined d.i.c.k.

”n.o.body,” Dutcher answered, his eyes on the floor.

d.i.c.k thought a moment before a great light dawned on him.

”So, Hen Dutcher, Fred Ripley and some of his crowd knew we were coming out here, and so they came along, too, and you with 'em, eh?”

”I tell you I wasn't with 'em,” protested Dutcher.

”You walked all the way?”

”Most of the way.”

”And how did Fred Ripley and his crowd come?”

”On a wagon, and----”

Here Hen Dutcher paused suddenly.

”I came alone,” he bellowed wrathfully. ”There weren't any other fellows.”

”Don't you call Ripley a fellow?” pressed d.i.c.k. ”You said that he and his crowd came on a wagon. So they're going to play pranks on us, are they?”

”I don't know what you're talking about,” protested Hen hoa.r.s.ely.

Dave, Tom and Greg fastened on Dutcher, dragging him out of his chair.

This time d.i.c.k did not feel called upon to interfere.

”Now, you tell us all about this queer game!” commanded Dave Darrin, his eyes flas.h.i.+ng warningly. ”If you don't, we'll shake it out of you; or we'll roll you in the snow until we soak the truth out of you! What do Fred Ripley and his crowd mean to do out here to-night?”

”I--I don't know,” gasped Hen.

”Yes, you do,” warned Dave Darrin crisply.

”No, I don't!”

”Hen Dutcher,” d.i.c.k interrupted firmly, ”we are out here to enjoy ourselves, and we don't propose to be interfered with. We have a right to be here, and no one else has. We've wormed it out of you that Fred Ripley and some other fellows have come out here to torment us. Fred Ripley has no right to come here and play mean tricks on us.”

”Who gave you the right to be here?” demanded Hen sullenly. ”Wasn't it Fred Ripley's father?”

”Yes; but that gives Fred no right to be mean in the matter, and Lawyer Ripley would be the first to say so, if I went and told him.”

”And then you'd be 'Sneak Prescott,'” taunted Hen.

”I didn't say I was going to tell Fred's father,” d.i.c.k answered, his color rising, ”and I haven't any thought of it, either. Any fellow of anywhere near my own size who calls me a sneak can have his answer--two of them,” d.i.c.k went on, displaying his fists. ”You know that well enough, Hen Dutcher. You're one of our own crowd--that is, you go to the Central Grammar with us, and yet you've joined in with some High School boys to bother us and spoil our fun. Who's the sneak, Hen? Who will the fellows at the Central Grammar call the sneak when they hear about this?”

Hen began to look decidedly uneasy. He was well aware what the Grammar School boys in Gridley did to one of their own number who was voted a sneak.