Half a dozen of the girls, too, hovered in the
background, interested, or curious, though not venturing too close
to what might turn out to be a fight in hot blood.
"If I knew," rejoined Dick, in that same quiet voice, in which
one older in the world's ways might have detected the danger-signal,
"I wouldn't tell you."
"Bah!" jeered Fred Ripley, hotly.
"Perhaps you mean that you don't believe me?" said Prescott inquiringly.
"I don't!" laughed Ripley, shortly, bitterly.
"Oh!"
A world of meaning surged up in that exclamation. It was as though
bright, energetic, honest Dick Prescott had been struck a blow
that he could not resent. This, indeed, was the fact.
"See here, Ripley-----" burst, indignantly, from Dick Prescott's
lips, as his face went white and then glowed a deeper red than
before.
"Well, kid?" sneered Ripley.
"If I didn't have a hand---the right hand, at that---that is too
crippled, today, I'd pound your words down your mouth."
"Oh, your hand?" retorted Ripley, confidently. "The yarn about
that hand is another lie."
Dick's injured right hand came out of the jacket pocket in which
it had rested. With his left hand he flung down his cap.
"I'll fight---you---anyway!" Prescott announced, slowly.
There were a few faint cheers, though some of the older High School
boys looked serious. Fair play was an honored tradition in Gridley.
Ripley, however, had thrown down his cap at once, hurling his
strapped-up school books aside at the same time.
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