"Ouch! I'm scalded!"
"Skidoo, boys! there's more a-comin'!"
"Why didn't ye shoot, Bill, when ye had the chance? Gee! the skin's
a-peelin' off me nose a'ready!"
No sooner had Waddy Walsh thrown the pan of hot water upon the advancing
group that carried the log than he bolted inside again, and the bar was
heard falling back of the door.
Then they heard the young savage laugh loud and long. It was this sound
that aroused the passions of the crowd. They no longer thought of
flight. With the burning sensation that came with the hot water
application, each fellow ached to be revenged. The worst of it was, most
of them knew Waddy well, and indeed he had once been a member of this
same crowd.
Down went the log to the ground. All thought of using it as a battering
ram had left them now.
"Git behind the trees, fellers. It's us to the foolish house if we let
that Waddy Walsh ketch us ag'in," shouted Pet, who was rubbing his face
quite as vigorously as his comrades in misery.
Upon this they hustled for shelter. Each boy took to a tree that
happened to come handy, and feeling safe from a further bombardment they
gave vent to their feelings in all sorts of characteristic shouts.
Frank was feeling a bit anxious about Jerry. What if these reckless
spirits, aggravated by their hot reception, should try to take it out on
the person of the boy they hated? Two of them carried some manner of
shotguns, and there was no telling what they might not be tempted to do.
When, however, he looked anxiously up into the tree where he had last
seen Jerry, to his delight he found that the other had vanished
completely from sight.
"Where's he gone?" asked Bluff, at this moment, he having apparently
likewise just discovered the absence of the other chum.
"I don't know. Perhaps he's only hiding behind the trunk of the tree, or
he may have found it hollow, like that other one, and slipped in. Watch
what those fellows are up to. If they make a move to shoot at Jerry,
we'll have to put in our oar," Frank answered with considerable feeling.
Pet Peters' crowd was plainly at a loss to know how they ought to
proceed. They saw that hundred dollars reward dangling temptingly before
their eyes, and could not bear the thought of letting it pass without
straining themselves to the utmost to win it. All sorts of things they
had wanted so long could be bought with that easy money, and they were
not yet ready to give up their chances.
"Hi! Bill, you an' Sim git over here. I wanter have a spiel with yuh.
Them guns orter fetch our game out on ther knees, if yuh on'y use 'em
steady. Kim over, an' you, too, Miser Lee. P'raps I kin use yuh!"
It was Pet bawling out, and that his word carried weight was manifest by
the way in which the three fellows addressed hastened to cross over to
where he stood back of the big tree that had the gaping hole in its
trunk ten feet from the ground.
Frank could see them talking earnestly, and gesticulating as if to
emphasize their words. Finally Pet seized the gun that one of the others
carried, and taking a quick aim at the cabin he pulled the trigger.
"Bang! bang!" went both barrels.
The dead grass vanished from the little window under the charges of shot
at such close quarters.
"Kim out o' that, an' surrender to the law!" bellowed Pet.
Frank laughed to himself at the words; it was more than comical to hear
this boy, whose contempt for law and order had made him a marked
character in Centerville, so loudly proclaim his sudden conversion.
Silence followed this peremptory command. Those within the cabin either
did not care to answer, or else could not.
"Say, Pet, p'raps ye did for 'em that time?" suggested one of the
others.
"Git out! Thar wa'nt no chance of that happenin'. Waddy just wants tuh
fool us. He allers was that ways, yuh know," answered Pet; but it was
plain that the awful suggestion rather awed him.
"Shall I shoot, Pet?" asked the other owner of a gun, dubiously.
"'Course yuh must. Think I'm goin' tuh do all the work. Blaze away both
of ye, so long as ye got a shell left. Anyhow, p'raps we kin put in a
claim fur part o' the reward, fur holdin' 'em here. Go on, Sim, I tell
yuh!"
So Sim began to bombard the wall of the cabin. He made mighty sure not
to fire in at that little gaping hole where the dead grass had hung
until Pet knocked it through with his shot. If so be any damage was done
to the inmates Sim did not mean to be accused as the guilty one.
Things seemed pretty lively for a time, with those two guns rattling
away as fast as the owners could reload. From behind their trees the
balance of the attacking crowd watched to see if there came any white
flag of surrender. Beyond the boom of the guns, however, not a sound was
heard, unless the excited voices of the eager boys were taken into
consideration.
Bluff was plainly nervous. He tried to get up several times, and as
often Frank pulled him down again.
"I just can't stand it, with all that racket going on. Why don't we have
a share in it?" he begged, piteously.
"Because we don't want to expose our hand. Give those silly chumps time
and they will play the game to suit us. Wait till their last shell has
been fired; then we control the situation. See?" whispered his comrade,
soothingly.
"Frank, you hit me again that time. What a goose I am. Why, of course
that's the racket for us. Let 'em go on and roll their hoop!" answered
Bluff, who at least was always ready to admit the error of his ways when
convinced.
The shooting soon came to an end, for neither Sim nor Bill seemed to
have any great amount of ammunition with them.
"That's my last shell!" declared the former, presently.
"An' I got my last in the gun. Shall I use 'em, Pet?" demanded the
other.
"'Course, an' send it in the windy this time," growled the one
addressed.
But Bill was too shrewd for that, and proceeded to sprinkle his bird
shot over the surface of the ancient logs.
"Now we control the situation. Our guns are not useless, if theirs are!"
exclaimed Frank, with a chuckle.
Still he did not seem in any hurry to open hostilities. Perhaps he hoped
these eight followers of Pet might find a way to capture the hoboes,
upon which they could appear on the scene and menace the enemy until
they were glad to run away, leaving the fruits of their victory in the
hands of Frank and his friends.
"Pet's up to something tricky. I bet it's the old game of firing the
shanty. You remember, Frank, how he tried to burn us out last Fall when
we were in camp. There goes some of the lot creeping up with armfuls of
leaves. Say, are we going to stand by and see it done?" queried Bluff,
warmly.
"At the last minute we can stop it. When Pet starts up to strike a
match, then we'll take a hand. No hurry. The chaps inside won't thank
us, remember. It's out of the frying-pan into the fire with them," came
from his companion, who was observing all that went on with a critical
eye.
"Looks like they meant to have a big enough pile of leaves there," said
Bluff, as the line of creeping forms kept depositing more and more fuel
close to the wall of the cabin.
"Yes, and I reckon she'd burn like tinder if once started. Suppose those
two hoboes rushed out suddenly, do you suppose Pet and his crowd have
got sand enough to tackle them?" asked Frank of the recruit on his other
side.
"They want that reward bad, I reckon, and would do some tall fightin' to
get it. Fightin' is ther main suit, ye know," answered Tom Somers, as he
caressed the cut on his face tenderly.
"Now they've stopped piling up the leaves. Looks like they expected Pet
to go in and put a match to the bunch. He don't appear to hanker after
the job, but to back out would put him on the blink with the crowd.
There, Frank, he's going to make the riffle, you see. Now, what?" panted
Bluff, again seeking to rise, as he fumbled his gun nervously.
"There's no need of our doing anything, after all," remarked Frank.
"Then you mean to let 'em set the cabin on fire, and perhaps roast the
poor hoboes before our very eyes?" exclaimed Bluff, in dismay.
"Not at all. I only mean that the job of frightening the bunch off is
going to be taken out of our hands, for that wild man is coming back!"
"You don't say? Where--point him out to me, Frank. Oh! if I could only
get a chance to snap him off; but, just like the luck, the last
flashlight cartridge is gone. Ginger! I see him now. Ain't he a terror
though? And won't they go into fits when he rushes 'em? There he comes,
as sure as you live! Wow! watch the circus, boys. My! my! ain't I glad
I'm here to see this!"
Tom Somers had said that his former teammates loved nothing better than
a fight, but there were evidently times when such a condition of affairs
was far from their thoughts. Such seemed to be the case now, for as they
heard the shrill whoops of the outlandish hairy figure that came
prancing headlong toward them, every boy took to his heels in a mad
flight, heedless alike of direction or obstacles in the way, so long as
he could escape a close encounter with that terrible creature.