“She is so!” stubbornly disputed the girl. “I seen her!”
“Now be careful! Want to bet on it?” He drew a bright quarter-dollar from a pocket and held it up. “Want to bet five cents against this quarter that a woman’s there? Any woman at all. If you bet and lose, though, I’ll make your teacher get the money from you or give you a good hiding. Want to bet?”
The half-score pairs of eyes fastened wolfishly on the gleaming coin. The boy and the girl wavered and remained silent. There might be some trick, and the thought of a thrashing was unpleasant. As Douglas intended, their failure to accept his dare increased the doubt in the minds of the others.
“You don’t dare to bet,” he laughed sneeringly. “I thought not. Well, now, just to show you you’re cross-eyed and didn’t see any woman at all, I’ll let you look for yourselves. Come on, girls and boys. I won’t touch you.”
Still they hung back. He drifted slowly toward the bridge, giving Lou Brackett every possible second of time while seeming to urge the children on. On the bridge itself he darted a side-glance up-stream. Nobody was in sight.
“Come on!” he snapped. “I can’t stand here all day.”
A bolder spirit among the boys edged forward. In a minute all were coming. Douglas leaned carelessly on the rail and grinned.
“Look under, everybody! I want you all to see that I’m telling it straight. Use your own eyes.”
They tumbled down the bank, spied all around, and came up laughing loudly at the pair of informers.
“She’s gone!” yelled the boy. “She was here but she run somewheres!”