But Danny drew back, aghast at the proposition—go alone to a spot like that, and at night!
"Go to it, kid," was suddenly spoken quietly in his ear.
Danny turned to see whose was the kindly voice that advised, and looked into Biddie Burton's eyes.
"Don't let 'em make you take a dare," came in another whisper. "Go." Biddie was not smiling now, and there was a note of serious friendliness in his voice.
It suddenly came to Danny that he would give more to merit that new confidence on Biddie's part than to break down the taunts of the others. And yet he could not. He could no more command his shaking nerves to carry him to that unhallowed, ghostly spot than he could command the unwilling nerves of another. His will-power had deserted him.
"I dare you to go!" badgered L. C.
Danny's spirit flamed for one brief moment. But in the very next his head dropped, and he turned away.
"This is going too far," the wretched little fellow heard Biddie Burton exclaim sharply.
"What is 'going too far'?" a new voice asked out of the darkness, and Willard McKenzie advanced into the group. "What is 'going too far'?" he repeated, glancing from one to another. No answer being volunteered, his keen glance quickly singled out the shamed tenderfoot.
"What have they been up to, Danny?" he asked.