“What’s the use, Joe?” counseled Bob. “You can’t prove it on him and he’ll only lie out of it. It’s bad policy to kick a skunk.”
But Joe had already turned and was striding rapidly back toward Buck and his companions, and Bob went along with him.
There was a hurried confabulation between Buck and his cronies as they saw Bob and Joe advancing toward them, and a hasty looking from side to side, as though to seek some means of escape. But there was no street handy to turn into, and as it would have been too rank a confession of cowardice to turn their backs and run, the trio assumed a defiant attitude and waited the approach of the swiftly moving couple.
Joe stopped directly in front of the bully, while Bob ranged alongside, keeping a sharp watch on the movements of Lutz and Mooney.
“Why did you take down that ladder the other afternoon, Buck Looker?” asked Joe, looking his opponent straight in the eye.
Buck’s look shifted before Joe’s gaze, but he affected ignorance.
“What ladder and what afternoon?” he countered, sparring for time. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, and for that matter I guess you don’t either.”
“I know perfectly well what I’m talking about, and so do you,” replied Joe, coming so near to him that Buck gave ground. “You and your gang took away the ladder from the side of Bob’s barn, and in trying to get down I nearly broke my neck.”
“Pity you didn’t,” blustered Buck. “If your ladder fell down and you didn’t have sense enough to wait for some one to come along and put it up for you, that wasn’t any fault of mine. I wasn’t anywhere near Layton’s barn that whole afternoon.”
“We know better,” said Joe. “Bob and I saw you going along the street a little while before we missed the ladder, and Herb Fennington and Jimmy Plummer saw you and your crowd running away like mad while I was hanging to the pipe alongside the barn.”