"Now you've done it!" panted Dick, holding up one hand and trying to put a stop to the trouble. "Quit fighting and help put the fire out."
"You youngsters put it out yourselves, then," Fred retorted. "It was all your fault that it started."
An indignant denial came to Dick's lips, but he forced it back. This shack was another's property, and personal differences must be kept in the background until the blaze had been extinguished.
"Let me past you," demanded Dick indignantly, but Bert Dodge barred the doorway until the mounting flames scared Ripley, who turned and yelled to Dodge to let the boys out. Dick & Co. raced to the log cabin, where they caught up the water buckets, a dishpan and other utensils that would hold water. Dick also snatched up a hatchet, for he knew that the spring would be frozen over.
Fast as they worked at the spring, the shack was well ablaze by the time that the Grammar School boys returned with the first water.
"Why don't you fellows brace up and do something, Ripley?" Dick queried, as he ran up with water.
"What is there for us to do?" Fred demanded rather soberly.
"Find something to do. Show yourself a man."
"Now, don't you turn impudent again," Ripley warned young Prescott angrily. "It was that sort of thing that started the first trouble."
"You'd better find something to do, for your father has charge of this property," Dick shot back over his shoulder, as he ran toward the spring.