Phil Cohen and Tony Prito arrived together and the boys started off at last, trudging along the broad highway in the early morning sunlight, whistling away in the best of spirits. They were decorous enough while they were in the city limits, but once they struck the dusty country roads their natural activity asserted itself and they wrestled and tripped one another, ran impromptu races, picked berries by the roadside and laughed and shouted without a care in the world.
The road skirted the Willow River, which ran among the farms and hills back of Bayport, through a pleasant, pastoral country. Toward the middle of the morning the boys left the road and struck out beneath the trees toward a secluded spot on the river, where they enjoyed a swim. For over an hour they splashed about in the cool water. Chet was the first to come ashore, and the others would have remained much longer had it not been for the discovery that their thoughtful companion, after getting dressed, was busying himself in the time-honored pastime of tying their clothes into knots.
Whereupon they scrambled out of the water and chased the chubby one into the shelter of some bushes, whence they were unable to pursue him further because the thorns hurt their bare feet and they were forced to retreat, hopping, toward the river bank while Chet jeered at them from the covert.
"Chaw on the beef!" he cried, in the time-honored way.
"Just you wait!" spluttered Joe, chewing on a knot with all his might.
"Am waiting," was the cheerful retort of the joker.
"We'll skin you alive!" muttered Jerry.
"And salt you," added Frank.
But when they had untied the knots they gave chase and the plump jester was soon winded, although he had a good start. He puffed and panted as they chased him down the road in the dust. They caught up to him at the entrance to the lane leading into Carl Stummer's farm, forcibly divested him of his hiking-boots, socks and necktie and proceeded to wreak revenge.
"We'll cure you of practical jokes for a while," promised Frank, with a grin, as he cast one boot into a field wherein a bad-natured bull was grazing, and the other into a field at the other side of the lane, with a heavy growth of thistles around the fence.