“No, you won’t do that,” quietly replied the boy. “And you’ll not make me pay, either. That dog was mad.”
“It was not mad! You’re lying, just lying to get out of it. I’ll make you pay or I’ll make your father pay, or I’ll make you pay in a way you’ll never forget!” wildly yelled Jeek, as he turned to leave. “Just put this in your pipe, young smart aleck—you’ll pay in a way you’ll never forget!”
With that the three men departed. As they reached the next hillock on their way to the road, Jeek turned:
“Two hundred dollars by to-morrow or you’ll regret the day you ever saw me!” he yelled, shaking his fist.
A minute later the boys and girls heard the poorly timed explosions of a cheap automobile on the road.
CHAPTER III
A BIG REWARD IS OFFERED
“Well—that’s that!” said Lanky Wallace as the sounds of the car died away.
“I don’t know whether that’s that or something else,” Frank replied. “That fellow Jeek doesn’t look good to me, and the two fellows he had with him looked as if they’d rather knock a fellow in the head than eat a square meal.”
The girls were still trembling over the excitement of the mad dog and its subsequent shooting, and the arrival of the men with their threats of harm.
Frank wished to dispel the gloom which had fallen on the little party, and now proposed that they continue with the nutting. On the other hand Minnie Cuthbert proposed that the boys go on with their target practice, the girls to sit and watch the contest. But now the boys seemed more inclined to gathering nuts than to gathering target scores.