"Break away!"
Then, with sharp nails, the lad scratched Uric’s hand till the blood ran. Uttering a snarl of rage, Scudder lifted his fist to strike the belligerent youngster.
From his position on the shoulders of his admiring friends, Dick Merriwell had witnessed some of the struggle, and now he came right over the shoulders of the closely packed mass of yelling cadets who had been gathered about him. In a moment he had seized Uric by the collar, tearing the boy from his grasp.
"What are you doing?" he demanded, his eyes flashing. "Were you going to hit this boy, you coward?"
Scudder shrank back before those flashing, indignant eyes.
"That’s just what he was going to do," cried the boy, "and all because I was trying to get to you to tell ye how he wrote to a feller on the other team and offered to put the feller wise how to beat Fardale."
"What’s that?" exclaimed Dick.
"It’s a lie!" said Uric hoarsely, his face pale and a frightened look in his eyes. "Don’t believe the little whelp!"
The crowd had gathered about them now, and Scudder saw he was hemmed in on all sides. There seemed no way of escape in case he wished to take to his heels.
"It’s the truth!" insisted the boy earnestly. "I had the letter, too. Snatched it right out of his hand this forenoon, when he met the other feller. He was going to burn it. I ran with it, and they chased me all the way to The Harbor. Then I fell through a piece in one of the wharfs and lost the letter in the drink. This feller had pulled a pistol on me, and I guess he would ’a’ tried a shot at me if he’d seen me under the wharf, so I just kept still till they went away."