Part 9 (1/2)

”Well, you see, the chance to even up old scores is a fine one, since we're two to your one,” the other remarked, bitterly.

”So far as I know, there are no scores to settle,” said Frank. ”I never knowingly wronged you, or tried to interfere with your business when in college. In fact, on several occasions, I've even left a group of fellows when you came along, because I didn't want to have any trouble.”

”Yes, and that's one of the things I've got against you, Langdon,”

declared Oswald, with a scowl. ”It looked as if you felt a contempt for me, and couldn't even bear to be seen in my company. Some of the fellows said as much, and told me I was foolish to stand for it.”

”But you surely knew yourself that it was never intended that way, Fredericks. I wanted to be left alone to go my own way, and I knew that some fellows had made up their minds to bring us to blows. Now, fighting isn't at all to my taste, though I'm sorry to say I've had to do my share of it in my day. Just forget that there's such a fellow as Frank Langdon alive, and I'm sure you'll never know otherwise for all of me.”

”He's squealing, Ossie!” exclaimed Duke Fletcher.

”Yes,” broke in the second college chum, Raymond Ellis, ”because we've got him penned up here, where we can give him what he ought to have gotten long ago, he sets up a whine that he looks on fighting as a moral sin, and doesn't want to indulge in it.”

Frank laughed in the face of this chap.

”Depend on it, Ellis,” he said, with cutting coldness, ”that if ever I am forced into fighting in a crowd where you figure, I've got something to give you that's been hanging fire a long time; in fact, ever since you knocked down that half-witted Bailey boy, and bruised his face because he said something you didn't just like. When I heard of it I said to myself that some fine day, if the chance comes, I'm going to pay that debt back. If you think that time has come now, all right. Bluff, you oughtn't to be in this game, because you've never done anything to irritate his lords.h.i.+p. They may let you out, perhaps.”

”Let me out!” roared the impulsive Bluff; ”and leave you here alone with the whole bunch of cowards? I'd like to see them do it, that's all! And what's more, right now I want to give solemn warning that the first move any fellow makes toward laying so much as the tip of his finger on you, Frank, bang goes this gun!”

Bluff looked the part to the life. He was mad clear through, and the way he swung that menacing weapon of his, first toward Oswald, who ducked, and then covering one of the others, who turned as white as a sheet, told the story.

Frank, who knew that the gun was quite dest.i.tute of a single charge, since Bluff had been even then on the way to have it mended, could hardly keep from laughing outright. But then, how were those fellows to know anything like that?

”Here, hold on with that blunderbuss!” exclaimed Oswald; and small wonder that there was a suspicious quiver to his voice, for Bluff certainly looked equal to doing all he threatened so wildly.

”It was all a joke, see!” cried Ellis; and then as the gun swung again so that it began to point toward him, unable to stand the strain any longer, he dropped on his hands and knees, and crawled under the table.

Frank knew that nothing was to be feared any longer.

”I'll trouble you to unlock that door,” he said, wheeling on the astonished young man from St. Paul, who had been witnessing these things, without having a word to say, the smile dying out of his face.

”Oh! sure, just as you say,” mumbled the other, hastening to comply; ”queer how some people don't seem able to take a joke at all.”

”Yes, it looks like that, perhaps,” returned Frank, severely; ”but only for my chum here happening to bring his gun along, we might be having a parrot and monkey time of it right now. Step to one side, or I might rub up against you in pa.s.sing. Come on, Bluff, you did it for them that time, sure enough.”

With that Frank stepped outside, and Bluff quickly followed. Hardly had the latter gotten free from the cabin than he turned, and ”broke” his gun, to show the disgusted conspirators it was quite empty, and that they had been hoodwinked by his quick wit.

Still, none of them seemed to feel like rus.h.i.+ng out after the retreating pair. Frank, accompanied by his chum, walked to the shantyboat where the sign of the locksmith hung. After a look at the pump-gun, the man said he could fix it in ten minutes, so that it would work all right.

Accordingly the two boys sat down to wait until the job was completed.

It was getting quite dusky when they were ready to leave; and Bluff, after a look outside, seeing that it would be necessary for them to pa.s.s the pleasure boat of Fredericks again, bought half a dozen loaded sh.e.l.ls from the man.

”Now,” said Bluff, after he had injected one of these into the firing chamber, ”I feel safe in pa.s.sing that boat. If they make any sort of a move against us, I'll let fly a load in the air first to warn 'em that the repeater isn't on the shelf any longer, but ready to do business at the same old stand.”

”Well, be careful what you do, that's all,” warned Frank, determined to keep in close touch with his hot-headed comrade, so that in an emergency he could s.n.a.t.c.h the gun away, if Bluff seemed disposed to use it the wrong way.

But they were not molested at all. The big young chap who had been tinkering with the engine, grinned as they pa.s.sed by, and Frank thought he nodded to them in a sort of friendly way, as though to say he understood what had happened, and considered it a good joke on his employer.

”Engine broke down?” asked Bluff, in a friendly manner, as he pa.s.sed.