Dick laughed.
“It’s a shame to disappoint you, but we’ve just about made up our minds to take the trick ourselves. You know Tempest and Fullerton, don’t you?”
Dale turned and shook hands with the two men.
“Sure thing,” he said. “Met Tempest last year, and everybody knows old Bill. So you think you’re going to do us? What a shock you’ll have. It almost makes me sad to think of it. The Philistines may walk up and down the earth, puffing out their chests and making a mighty noise of brazen trumpets, but great will be their fall. Timothy, tenth-sixteenth.”
“Same old fake Scripture quoting,” Dick smiled. “Stolen from Blessed Jones, too. One would never suppose you were such a religious duck to look at you, Spark.”
“Many of my best qualities are kept hidden from the vulgar eye,” Dale returned airily. “Say, I hear you boys have doped out a great line of tricks. Got something up your sleeves for us, have you?”
“We have,” Dick said promptly.
“You don’t say! What’s the nature of it, if I may ask? Perhaps you object to putting me wise, though.”
“No objection whatever,” Dick answered gravely. “It’s muscle.”
“Aren’t you the cute thing!” grinned Sparkfair. “Never mind. You’re safe to get licked, secret or no secret. Where’s that bucking broncho of a Buckhart? I’d like to shake his big paw.”