“Say the game was lost.”
“It’s all the same. Dan, there isn’t any use in trying to mince matters. I can’t say anything. You know I was mixed up in the matter and it served me right too when I got the glass with the ipecac in it. I’m all broken up, Dan. Do you think you ever can call it square?”
“Walter,” began Dan soberly, “I want you to know——”
What it was that Dan desired to say was left unspoken for, at that moment, a loud piercing scream came from the hall below.
Without a word Dan darted from the room and, leaping down the stairway, came face to face with Gus Kiggins. The burly giant was holding Carlton Hall by his left wrist and was twisting the arm of the little fellow in a way that had brought forth the screams of pain which had startled the two boys.
“You little sneak,” Gus was saying to Carlton, “you will go and tell the fellows that I tried to make Dan sick, will you? I’ll teach you! You’ll get what you deserve if I have to——”
Gus stopped abruptly as Dan stood before him. “Let go of the little fellow,” he ordered.
“I’ll let him go just as soon as I have——”
“Let him go!” interrupted Dan in a low voice.
“I’ll let him go!” shouted Gus as he abruptly released his grasp on Carlton and turned savagely upon Dan. “You’re another! You’re a fraud! You run around with your pious whine and try to do the ‘good little boy’ act! I’ve been aching to get a chance at you, you bean-fed, white-livered, country hypocrite!” Raising his fist he struck blindly at the boy before him.