“Oh, you’re afraid to bet,” cried Sully, mockingly. “Good-by, slow boots!”
“I’ll bet my pocket-knife against yours we can beat you!” said Harry, considerably nettled by Sully’s taunts. “We will take the same number aboard and try our skill.”
“Done!” yelled Sully, for he was now several rods ahead.
Down the last of the second hill and along the level road shot the Buster, and presently came to a standstill just where the Rudskill turnpike branched off across the railroad tracks. The Whistler had gone on a couple of hundred feet farther up the side of the tracks.
“Told you we’d beat you!” exclaimed Pete Sully, as he and his chums joined Harry and his friends. “You had better not bet your pocket-knife unless you want to lose it.”
“I am not afraid to try against you, Sully, and perhaps it will be you who will lose his pocket-knife.”
“Humph!” sneered Sully. “No fear. And if I did, I guess I could buy another easy enough, even if somebody else couldn’t.”
This was a direct shot at Harry’s poverty, and made the ears of the poor boy tingle, while his handsome face flushed.
“Come on and try your skill and quit your talking,” exclaimed Jack Bascoe, rather sharply, and he faced Sully as he spoke. “There is no use in wasting time here.”
Had it been any one else than Jack Bascoe who had spoken thus suggestively to him, Pete Sully might have picked a quarrel then and there. He was a very overbearing boy, and never allowed a chance of whipping some other boy go by him.