CHAPTER I

THE HIGH SCHOOL SNEAK

"I say you did!" cried Fred Ripley, hotly. Dick Prescott's cheeks turned a dull red as he replied, quietly, after swallowing a choky feeling in his throat:

"I have already told you that I did not do it."

"Then who did do the contemptible thing?" insisted Ripley, sneeringly.

Fully forty boys, representing all the different classes at the Gridley High School, stood looking on at this altercation in the school grounds. 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.

"Wait a moment," commanded Frank Thompson, stepping forward. He was a member of the first class, a member of the school eleven, and a husky young fellow who could enforce his opinions at need.

"Get back, Thomp," retorted Ripley. "The cub wants to fight, and he's got to."

"Not if he has an injured hand," retorted Frank, quickly.

"He hasn't," jeered Ripley. "And he's got so fight, if he has four lame hands."

"He can fight, then, yes," agreed Thompson. "But remember, Fred, it's allowable, when a fellow's crippled, to fight by substitute."

"Substitute?" asked Fred, looking uncomfortable.

"Yes; I'll take his place, if Prescott will let me," volunteered Frank Thompson, coolly.

"You? I guess not," snorted Ripley. "I won't stand for that. I'm a third classman, and you're a first classman. You're half as big again as I am, and——-"

"The odds wouldn't be as bad as you're proposing to take out of this poor little freshman with the crippled hand," insisted Thompson. "So get ready to meet me. I'll allow one of my hands to be tied, if you want."

Yet even this proposition couldn't be made alluring to Fred Ripley. He knew Thompson's mettle and strength too well for that.

Dan Dalzell, another freshman, had been standing back, keeping quiet as long as he could.

"See here," proposed Dan, stepping forward, "isn't a freshman allowed to say something when his friend is insulted?"

"Go ahead," nodded Thompson, who knew Dan to be one of young Prescott's close friends.

"Dick isn't in shape to fight, and I know it," continued Dan Dalzell, hotly. "But Ripley wants something easy, like a freshman, so he can have me!"

"And me," cried Tom Reade, also leaping forward.

"He can have one with me, too," offered Harry Hazelton.

"Same here," added Greg Holmes and Dave Darrin.

All five of the speakers were freshmen, and close chums of Dick Prescott's.

"Say, what do you think I want—-to fight a whole pack?" demanded Ripley, hoarsely.

"Oh, you don't have to fight us all at once," retorted Dave Darrin. "But you've insulted our friend, and you've taken a sneaking advantage of him at a time when you knew he couldn't handle anyone as big as you are. So, Ripley, you're answerable to Prescott's friends. I'll tell you what you can do. There are five of us. You can take any one of us that you prefer for the first bout. When you've thrashed him, you can call for the next, and so on. But you've got to go through the five of us in turn. If you don't, I'll call you a coward from now on. You're bigger than any of us."

"See here, Cub Darrin," raged Ripley, starting forward, his face aflame, "I don't allow any freshman to talk that way to me. I won't fight you, but I'll chastise you, and you can protect yourself if you know how."

He made a bound forward, intent on hitting Darrin, who stood his ground unflinchingly. But Thompson seized the third classman by the shoulder and shoved him back.

"Now, stop this, Ripley, and you freshmen, cut it out, too," warned the athletic first classman. "This is descending to a low level. We don't want a lot of bickering or mouth-fighting, and we don't intend to have anything but fair play, either."

"As this is largely my affair," broke in Dick Prescott, who had had time to cool down a bit, "let me have a chance to make an offer."

"Go ahead," nodded Thompson.

"Then," proposed Dick, "since you won't let me fight today, why can't this meeting hold over until my hand is in shape? Then I'll agree to give Ripley all he wants."

"That's the only sensible thing I've heard said in five minutes," declared Frank Thompson, looking about him at other upper classmen. "Is it the general opinion that the fight hold over for a few days, or, say, a fortnight?"

"Yes," came back an eager, approving chorus.

"Then so be it," proclaimed Frank. "And now, remember, Ripley, this fight is not to be pulled off until the school agrees to it. If you pick any trouble with Prescott until you get the word, or if you try to find any excuse for hitting him while his hand's out of shape, then you'll answer to the school for your conduct. You know what that means, don't you?"

"Humph!" snorted Fred Ripley. "All this fuss about the High School sneak!"

Again Dick started forward, but Thompson caught him firmly.

"Hold on, freshie!" advised the older boy. "Save it up. Bottle it. You can have all the more fun out of Ripley when your hand is in shape."

"His hand is in as good shape as it ever was," retorted Ripley, scornfully. "And he lies when he says he didn't do this."

Ripley swung, so as to display the tail of a short topcoat that was one of his treasures. The garment was fashionably made and of the best material, for Ripley's father was a wealthy lawyer in Gridley, and the young Ripley hopeful had all the most costly things a boy can prize.

Along the tail of the coat some miscreant had daubed a streak of fresh white paint. Ripley had found it there when donning the coat to leave school at one o'clock that day. Fred knew that Dick had been in the coat room after recess, and, as he disliked the freshman, Ripley had accused Dick of the deed.

Having fired his parting shot, Fred turned on his heel, sauntering over to where the fluttering group of girls waited. One of them, Clara Deane, stepped forward to meet him.

"Fred, why do you have anything to do with such a low-down fellow as Prescott?" asked Clara, contemptuously.

"He's the sneak of the school," uttered Fred, harshly; "but I can't let even a sneak streak my coat with paint."

"And he never did such a thing, either!" broke in Laura Bentley, disdainfully. "Fred Ripley, you accused Dick Prescott of playing off a lame hand. I know how his hand became crippled. Dick wanted me to promise not to tell how it happened, but now I'm going to. Wait and you can hear, both of you."

"I don't want to, I'm sure," rejoined Clara, with a toss of her head. "Come along, Fred."

This pair of students walked away together. They always did, after school was out. The Ripleys and the Deanes were neighbors.

The other girls, however, followed Laura, as, with quick, resolute step, she marched over to where the High School boys still lingered.

"Boys," began Laura, "Mr. Prescott has been accused of pretending about a hurt hand. I know how he injured it; and, as he did it——-"

"Please don't say any more, Miss Bentley," begged Dick, flushing.

"Yes, I shall," insisted Laura, quietly. "It happened night before last. Dick Prescott didn't want anything said about it, and neither did the police, so——-"

"The police?" chipped in several of the High School boys and girls.

"Yes, the police wanted it kept quiet, so they could have a chance to catch the fellow," Laura hastened on. "But they've had time enough, now, to catch the rascal, if they're ever going to. You see, it happened this way: Mother had forty-five dollars on hand that belonged to the church fair fund. So, night before last, she asked me to take it over to Miss Bond, the treasurer. I was going through Clinton Street, in one of the dark spots, when a man jumped out from behind a tree and made a snatch for the purse that I carried in my hand.

"Well, somehow—-I don't just know how," Laura continued, "I managed to keep hold of the purse and I screamed, of course. Then some one came running down the street as fast as he could—-and Dick Prescott leaped at the rascal. It was a hard fight—-a fearful one."

The girl shuddered even then, in the telling, but she continued: "The wretch was twice as big as Dick Prescott. I thought Dick was going to be killed. Twice the fellow broke loose, and started to run, but what do you think Master Dick was up to?"

"What?" chorused the interested audience.

"Master Dick had his mind set on subduing the robber and holding him for the police. So he tried to stop the wretch from getting away. At last, however, the fellow hurled Dick backward, so that he fell. When he got up he was lame. You all may have noticed that Mr. Prescott limped a bit yesterday?"

"Yes; he did," confirmed Frank Thompson.

"And his hand was hurt, too—-I know that," insisted Laura. "For he escorted me to Miss Bond's, and then home. When we got there, I asked my father, who is a doctor, to take Dick into the office. Father said, afterwards, that Dick's right wrist was sprained, and his ankle wrenched a bit, too. He said Dick would be doing well to have the full use of his wrist in a week. Then the police came, when my father telephoned for them, and the police didn't want anything said for a while."

"So you, a fourteen-year-old freshie, are going about at night trying to waylay footpads, are you?" demanded Thompson, resting a friendly hand on Dick's shoulder. "But why did you keep so close-mouthed, afterwards?" demanded the first classman.

"Well, for one thing, I guess I was a bit ashamed," confessed Dick, reddening.

"Ashamed of rushing to beauty's aid?" demanded Frank, laughingly.

"Nothing like it," Dick protested, growing redder still. "I was ashamed over having let the footpad get away."

"What? And he twice your size?" gasped Thompson. "Fellows, what do you think of the modest cheek of this freshie! Ashamed because he couldn't bag a full-sized thug!"

"That kid's the mustard!" broke in another first classman, approvingly.

"That's what he is!" came from others.

"Wow! whoop!"

They began crowding about the confused, blushing freshie, pumping his uninjured left hand. Then some one shouted:

"He's all right, from the ground up. He's a Gridley boy! He's only a freshie in years, but he'll get over that. Now, up with Dick Prescott! On your shoulders! Give him the High School yell!"

Before he could even dodge, this High School freshman found himself going up in the air. With all consideration for his injured hand the upper classmen rushed him out of the school grounds, onto the street, holding him aloft in the post of honor. The other boys followed. Even the few girls followed, waving their handkerchiefs, while a lusty roar went up:

"T-E-R-R-O-R-S! Wa-ar! Fam-ine! Pesti-lence! That's us! That's us! G-R-I-D-L-E-Y—-H.S. Rah! rah! rah! rah! Gri-idley!"

"What's all that racket back there?" asked Clara Deane, turning at the head of the street. "Why, they're yelling and carrying that odious little Dick Prescott."

"Must be dragging him off to give him a ducking, as he deserves," muttered Fred Ripley, gratingly.

"No, no! It's the school yell, and the girls are waving their handkerchiefs."

"Then they must be canonizing the school sneak," returned Ripley, frowning hard.

"Well, don't wait to see," urged Clara. "We don't care about mixing up too much with such a common crowd as the Gridley H.S. students are."

"Prescott is nothing but a mucker, but he spoiled my coat, and I'll make him smart for it!" uttered Fred, his face burning with sullen rage.

"You'll only smirch yourself, Fred, by having anything more to do with such a fellow," Clara warned him.

"When I'm even with the fellow, I won't have anything more to do with him," snorted Ripley. "But I'll wait, watch and plan for years, if I have to, to take all the conceit and meanness out of that sneak. I'll never quit until I can look at myself in the glass and tell myself that I've paid back the lowest trick ever played on me!"

CHAPTER II

DICK & CO. GO AFTER THE SCHOOL BOARD'S SCALPS

In Gridley High School, sessions began at eight in the morning. School let out for the day at one in the afternoon. The brighter students, who could get most of their lessons in school, and do the rest of the work during the evening, thus had the afternoon for work or fun.

Often, though, it happened that there were parties, or school dances in the evening. Then a portion of the afternoon could be used for study, if need be. Saturdays, of course, were free from study for all but the dullest—-and the dullest usually don't bother their heads much about study at any time.

Gridley was not a large place—-just an average little American city of some thirty thousand inhabitants. It was a much bigger place than that, though, when it came to the matter of public spirit. Gridley people were proud of their town. They wanted everything there to be of the best. Certainly, the Gridley High School was not surpassed by many in the country. The imposing building cost some two hundred thousand dollars. The equipment of the school was as fine as could be put in a building of that size. Including the principal, there were sixteen teachers, four of them being men.

In all the classes combined, there were some two hundred and forty students, about one hundred of these being girls. Nearly all of the students were divided between the four regular classes. There were always a few there taking a postgraduate, or fifth year of work, for either college or one of the technical schools.

With such a school and such a staff of teachers as it possessed the Gridley standard of scholarship was high. The Gridley diploma was a good one to take to a college or to a "Tech" school.

Yet this fine high school stood well in the bodily branches of training. Gridley's H.S. football eleven had played, in the past four years, forty-nine games with other high school teams, and had lost but two of these games. The Gridley baseball nine had played fifty-four games with other high school teams in the same period, and had met defeat but three times in the four years.

Athletics, at this school, were not overdone, but were carried on with a fine insistence and a dogged determination. Up to date, however, despite the fine work of their boys, the citizens of the town had been somewhat grudging about affording money for training athletic teams. What the boys had won on the fields of sport they had accomplished more without public encouragement than with it.

It was now October. Dick Prescott and his five closest friends were all freshmen. They had been in the school only long enough to become accustomed to the routine of work and study. They were still freshmen, and would be until the close of the school year. As freshmen were rather despised "cubs" Dick and his friends would be daring, indeed should they dare to do anything, in their freshman year, to make them very prominent.

According to a good many Gridley people Dick's father, Eben Prescott, was accounted the best educated man in town. The elder Prescott had taken high honors at college; he had afterwards graduated in law, and, for a while, had tried to build up a practice. Eben Prescott was not lazy, but he was a student, much given to dreaming. He had finally been driven to opening a small bookstore. Here, when not waiting on customers, he could read. Dick's mother had proved the life of the little business. Had it not been for her energy and judgment the pair would have found it difficult to rear even their one child properly. The family lived in five rooms over the bookstore.

From the time he first began to go to school it had been plain that Dick Prescott inherited his mother's energy, plus some of his own. He had been one of the leaders in study, work and mischief, at the Central Grammar School. It was while in the grammar school that a band of boys had been formed who were popularly known as "Dick & Co." Dick was naturally the head. The other members of the company were Tom Reade, Dan Dalzell, Harry Hazelton, Greg Holmes and Dave Darrin. These were the same now all High School freshmen who had stepped forward and offered to take Dick's place in fighting Fred Ripley.

Dick was now fourteen, and so were all his partners, except Tom Reade, who was a year older. All of Dick's chums were boys belonging to families of average means. This is but another way of saying that, as a usual thing, Dick and all his partners would have been unable to fish up a whole dollar among them all.

Fred Ripley, on the other hand, usually carried considerable money with him. Lawyer Ripley usually allowed Fred much more money than that snobbish young man knew how to make good use of.

Fred and Clara Deane were undoubtedly the best-dressed pair in the High School, and the two best supplied with spending money. There were a few other sons or daughters of well-to-do people in Gridley High School, but the average attendance came from families that were only just about well enough off to be able to maintain their youngsters at higher studies.

Fred Ripley, despite his mean nature, was not wholly without friends in the High School. Some of his pocket money he spent on his closest intimates. Then, too, Fred had rather a shrewd idea as to those on whom it was safe or best to vent his snobbishness.

From the start of the school year, Ripley had picked out young Freshman Prescott as a boy he did not like. Dick's place in the moneyed scale of life was so lowly that Fred did not hesitate about treating the other boy in a disagreeable manner.

A week after the meeting between Fred and Dick the High School atmosphere had suddenly become charged with intense excitement. The school eleven had come out of training, had played almost its last match with the "scrub" team and was now close to the time for its first regular match. Oakdale H.S. was to be the first opponent, and Oakdale was just good enough a team to make the Gridley boys a bit uneasy over the outcome.

"My remarks this morning," announced Dr. Thornton, on opening school on Monday, "are not so much directed at the young ladies. But to the young gentlemen I will say that, when the football season opens, we usually notice a great falling off in the recitation marks. This year I hope will be an exception. It has always been part of my policy to encourage school athletics, but I do not mind telling you that some members of the Board of Education notice that school percentages fall off in October and November. This, I trust, will not be the case this year. If it is I fear that the Board of Education may take some steps that will result in making athletics less of a feature among our young men. I hope that it is not necessary to add anything to this plain appeal to your good judgment, young gentlemen."

It wasn't. Dr. Thornton was a man of so few and direct words that the boys gathered on the male side of the big assembly room looked around at each other in plain dismay.