"Dave, the way you went ahead was simply great," cried Phil. "It was as fine a hurdle race as I ever saw."
"Yes, and he helped me, too," said Cashod. "I was thinking Plum would go ahead, until Porter laughed at him. It was all right," and Cashod bobbed his head to show how satisfied he was.
If Nat Poole had been disgusted Gus Plum was more so, and he lost no time in disappearing from public gaze. The two cronies met back of the gymnasium.
"You hurt Porter about as much as I hurt Basswood," Plum grumbled. "If you can't do better than that next time, you had better give up trying."
"Oh, 'the pot needn't call the kettle black,'" retorted Poole. "You made just as much of a mess of it as I did. We'll be the laughing stock of the Porter crowd now."
"If they laugh at me, I'll punch somebody's nose. As it is, I've got an account to settle with Porter, and I am going to settle it pretty quick, too."
"What do you mean?"
"He jeered me while we were in the race. He has got to take it back, or there is going to be trouble," muttered the bully, clenching his fists.
In his usual bragging way Gus Plum let several students know that he "had it in" for Dave, and this reached the country boy's ears the next day directly after school.
"I am not afraid of him," said Dave, coolly. "If he wants to find me, he knows where to look for me."