"All right, I'm going! Please don't hit me!" pleaded the youth, who was plainly in terror of his life. And then, in his haste to escape, he took several steps forward.
"Look out there, or you'll have a bad fall!" yelled Dave, in quick alarm.
The warning, however, came too late. Deceived by the brushwood and vines growing at the edge of the cliff, Link Merwell lost his footing, and the next instant came tumbling headlong.
"Ha, ha! I told you to keep away! Now don't come back!" yelled the fantastically-dressed man in the bushes behind the cliff; and then with another yell he suddenly disappeared from view.
Dave and Phil rushed forward fully expecting to find Merwell seriously hurt. But in falling the youth had been fortunate enough to catch hold of some of the trailing vines, and these had stayed his progress somewhat, so that all he received was a violent shaking-up.
"Don—don't let—let him sho—shoot me!" spluttered Link Merwell, as he turned over and scrambled to his feet. Then, for the first time recognizing those who stood before him, his face showed more concern than ever.
"Who's that fellow who attacked you, Link?" asked Dave, quickly.
"I don't know—some crazy old lunatic, I suppose," muttered the former student of Oak Hall. "Is he—he—coming after me?"
"No, he just dashed out of sight," answered Phil. "He's the same chap who nearly scared the girls to death," he added to Dave.
"How do you know? He didn't look like that fellow," returned our hero.