“Oh,” said Gus Kiggins with a growl, “the fellows are all down on me. First they say I tried to disable Dan’s pitching arm; then they say Hodge’s error in the fifth was my fault; then the reason why none of them could hit Ingersoll was because I’d fixed it up with him; and now they say I doctored your lemonade and made you sick. Give a dog a bad name——”
“Look here, Gus Kiggins!” broke in Ned with eyes flashing. “You know you’re just talking to hear yourself talk. We happen to know about that ipecac.”
“What about it?”
“You had it all fixed for Dan.”
“Oh, I tried to make Dan sick too, did I?” said Gus in real or pretended scorn. “Next you’ll have me down for trying to poison the whole school. Why should I want to play such a trick as that upon Dan? If you should accuse me of wanting to get Ingersoll out of the game——”
“No use, Gus,” broke in Ned quietly.
“That’s the worst of it. You condemn me without hearing a word.”
“We have heard. We know all about the scheme you and Walter——”
“What ‘scheme’ are you talking about?” shouted Gus.