“Oh, yes!” sneered Chester, “you want to force a fight on me, do you? That’s Merriwell’s game, is it? He has a lot of his friends with him, and I am alone. I will fight him, but give me a fair show. Let me have some of my friends with me. I will fight him any time.”
“I will meet you in Chadwick’s pasture in an hour,” said Dick.
“I will be there!” hotly retorted Chester. “And I will have some friends with me.”
“I will bet a bunch of longhorns he won’t come,” said the Texan.
“You’re a liar, too!” blazed Chet. “I tell you I’ll be there!”
“We will take his word for it,” came quietly from Dick. “If he doesn’t keep the appointment—well, we’ll know what to think of him then.”
Before the expiration of an hour Dick and his companions crossed Chadwick’s pasture and descended into the little hollow where so many encounters had taken place. With Merriwell were Buckhart, Smart, Jolliby, and Tubbs.
“By Jim!” exclaimed Obediah, “I am hungry! Anybody got a pie in his pocket?”
“You don’t mean a pup-pup-pup-pie?” asserted Jolliby. “What you need is a dud-dud-dud-drink. How would some whisky gug-gug-gug-go?”
“I don’t drink whisky,” piped the fat boy. “It takes the coat off a fellow’s stomach.”