“I think I know what it is,” burst out Jack. “Come, follow me!” And he dove into the bushes lining the roadway.
CHAPTER X
A MIX-UP ON THE ROAD
As luck would have it, Reff Ritter’s party and the crowd from Pornell Academy had become free at the same time, each working out of the ropes and bags in a manner known only to themselves. Each had brushed up as much as possible and started hurriedly for the place where the lawn party was in progress. The two crowds had come together on the road not over two hundred yards from the ice house. Each accused the other of being guilty of the trick, and in less than five minutes blows were being freely exchanged.
“I’ll show you what it means to treat me like a pig!” cried Roy Bock, and he struck Ritter a blow in the nose that drew blood.
“Oh, you can’t bluff me!” retorted the Putnam Hall bully, and hit the lad from Pornell in the left eye. Then the pair clinched and rolled over and over in the dirt of the road.
In the meantime Grimes struck Coulter and Paxton hit Gussic. Then everybody struck out, and inside of a minute the three Putnam Hall boys were down and the enemy were on top of them. Clothing was torn, collars and ties pulled off, and the general melée was something awful to behold.
It was in the midst of this excitement that Jack and his chums arrived.
“Whow!” cried Andy. “Say, but they are going at each other for keeps, aren’t they?”
“Sure, an’ it’s fightin’ like cats an’ dogs they are,” was Hogan’s comment. “’Tis a bit av Donnybrook Fair,” he added. “Oh, for a shillalah!”
“The Pornell crowd isn’t fighting fair,” said Jack. “They outnumber our fellows.”