NOT A LOVE FEAST
At the same instant that Dick and his friends, all utterly astounded,
peered into the cabin from the doorway, Fred Ripley felt the draught and
looked around.
"Hullo!" shouted Fred gleefully. "Here are the other babies!"
"What are you fellows trying to do here?" demanded Dick sternly, as he
strode into the cabin.
"Minding our business, booby!" leered Fred.
"You've no right here. Get out!" Dick ordered.
All of the intruding feasters were now regarding Prescott mockingly. But
perhaps Hen Dutcher, who was seated on the furthest side of the table
from the door, was most pleased of all.
"Now, you want to shut your mouth, Dick Prescott, and keep it shut,"
advised Hen. "You're not running this show, and you'll find it out
mighty soon if you don't keep your tongue behind your teeth."
"My, how brave you've grown, Hen!" remarked Dick scornfully. "You were
taken in and looked after, and now you've brought this gang of hoodlums
down on us."
"Be careful there, small boy!" warned Fred Ripley, flushing.
"As for you, Ripley," Dick went on, "wouldn't your father be proud to
find you with a crowd like this, and stealing food that belongs to other
people?"
"See here, you little rat," snarled Fred inelegantly, as he leaped up,
kicking his chair over and striding toward the Prescott group, "you want
to keep your tongue under control, or you're going to be sorry that you
didn't."
"Let's take the kid down to the spring, break the ice and give his head
a soaking in the spring water," proposed Bert Dodge, rising, too, and
coming forward.
"Hurrah!" cheered Hen. "That's the stuff. Not a bit too good, either,
for a chump like Dick Prescott!"
But Dick wouldn't pay any heed to this renegade Grammar School boy who
had gone back on his own mates.
"And where are the two friends we left here?" demanded Dick, undismayed
by the advance of Fred Ripley and Bert Dodge. Tom and Dave drew a little
closer to their chum, while Harry Hazelton flanked Dave.
"What do we know about your friends?" sneered Ripley. "What do we know
about any of your cheap crowd?"
"And what do you imagine we care about them, either?" demanded Dodge.
"Are you fellows going to get out of here?" Dick demanded.
"When we get good and ready," retorted Fred, grinning. "That may be
to-morrow or the next day."
"I suppose," Dick went on angrily, "you think you have a perfect right
to stay here and to go on stealing our food?"
"You call me a thief, do you?" flared Fred.
"Do you consider yourself any better?" Dick asked. He was at white heat,
fighting mad, and cared little what he said to these rowdyish intruders.
"Grab 'em, fellows!" ordered Fred, making a leap at Dick, while the
other intruders rose from their places at table.
But Dick's right fist landed on Ripley's face, leaving a big, red mark
there, while Dave's ready foot tripped the bully, sending him to the
floor. Ripley was on his feet again in a twinkling.
"Get back, Ripley!" ordered Dick, making a dash at him. "See here, you
rowdy, I'm smaller than you are, but I'm willing to go outdoors with you
and see if I can't teach you some manners."
"And I'll take pleasure in introducing myself to Bert Dodge at the same
time," announced Darrin, his eyes flashing.
"I'll do my best with any other tough who'll oblige me," added Tom
Reade.
"Bullies, toughs, rowdies, are we?" raged Fred Ripley, on his guard,
though just prudent enough to keep out of reach of Dick's fists. There
was a look in Prescott's eyes that the lawyer's self-willed son didn't
wholly like.
"You fellows know just what you are," Dick went on bitterly. "There is
no use in our calling you names. You can supply the names yourselves.
And, if you're afraid to fight us, man to man, then you know well enough
what else you are! Now, what has become of Greg Holmes and Dan Dalzell?"
"Oh, very likely they're still running as fast as they can go toward
Gridley," jeered Fred.
"That's a lie, and no one knows it better than you!" flashed Dick. "Greg
and Dan are not of the running kind."
"Oh, I'm a liar, also, am I?" choked Ripley.
"You know yourself better than any one else can," was Prescott's
taunting answer.
"Come on, fellows!" urged Fred. "Rush 'em!"
There was a prompt rush. Dick and his friends did not flinch, but met
the attack squarely. Hen Dutcher was the only boy present who did not
display much eagerness to get at too close quarters in the fray.
"Give it to 'em!" cheered Dutcher, hopping about at a safe distance
while the scuffle went on. "They need plenty! Give Dick Prescott and
Darrin each an extra one for me."
The odds against more numerous and larger boys were so heavy that it was
not long ere Dick, Dave, Tom and Harry were borne down to the dirt
floor. Nor were they handled generously. All four received many an
unfair blow. Fred's temper was up, for Dick had struck him on the nose,
bringing blood.
"Now we'll give 'em the rope treatment," laughed Ripley, hoarsely, when
Dick and his chums had all been downed and were being held.
First a noose was slipped over Dick's wrists, and made fast. Dave was
the next so favored. Tom and Harry rapidly shared that fate.
"Now lead these cattle to the stable!" roared Fred, gripping Dick by the
collar and yanking him to his feet.
The battle being lost, Dick and the others could do no more than submit
to being pushed outside the cabin, Hen Dutcher following and making
faces at all of the captives.
Around to the cook shack the four Grammar School boys were led. The door
was flung open, and in they were thrust.
There on the floor, bound hand and foot and gagged, lay Greg and Dan.
These two members of Dick & Co. had been overpowered and placed here,
but only one look at their faces was needed to show that both still had
their fighting blood up.
"Now, don't let us hear anything from you boobies," commanded Fred
Ripley, "or I'll send a committee out here to attend to you in mighty
short order!"
Then the door of the cook shack was closed on Dick & Co.
"Well, of all the downright mean tricks!" grumbled Tom Reade.
"That's too complimentary a name for such human truck!" cried Dave
Darrin angrily. "Their first scheme, to come down here in the night and
try to scare us, wasn't so fearfully mean, but this is assault and
robbery."
"Never mind about it, now," Dick answered. "Our wrath will keep--no
doubt about that. But our first task is to get our hands free, if we
can. And Greg and Dan must feel pretty tired of being gagged as well as
tied."
A snort, the only noise he could make, was Greg Holmes's answer.
"How are we going to get ourselves free?" Tom demanded: "I've been
trying to wriggle my hands out, but I'll admit that I can't do it."
"Get over here in front of me," urged Dick, "and I'll show you just how
I can free you. Fred Ripley, like other blunderers, is likely to
overlook a few things."
It was not cold in the cook shack, for there was still some fire going
in the stove. The embers also threw a slight amount of illumination into
the room.
Dick dropped to his knees behind Tom Reade, and, reaching for the cords
that bound Tom's wrists behind his back, began to gnaw.
"Well, by hokey!" gasped Tom. "I never had head enough to think of
that."
"If we were gagged like Greg and Dan, we couldn't do the trick," Dave
rejoined. "Come here, Harry; get in front of me and I'll gnaw your
wrists free."
Dick paused long enough in his work to say:
"No need, Dave. When Tom is once free he can use his knife and have us
all turned loose in a jiffy."
Prescott possessed strong, fine teeth. He gnawed away at the cords to
such good advantage that Reade soon had the use of his hands.
"Now, I'll do as much for you, Dick," Tom proposed, reaching for his
pocket knife.
Within a very short time all six were free, and Greg and Dan, their
mouths free of the gags, told indignantly how they had been engaged in
preparing supper when the door opened and Ripley and his crowd burst in.
"And now I suppose the rowdies are eating up the supper," finished Greg
vengefully.
"I guess they've got it about finished by now," Prescott added grimly.
"But we six are free. If we're any good we'll get our cabin back and
make it our castle against all comers."
"Good!" cried Dave, a fiery flash in his eyes. "But how?"
"That's what we've got to figure out," Dick replied thoughtfully. "But
we'll do it."