"Well, then, yes!" decided Grady.
"Whoop!" ejaculated Dick, placing his straw hat back on his head and starting on a sprint out of the yard. His chums followed. Some of the fellows who were nearer the gate tried to reach it first. In an instant, the flight was general.
"Come on, Rip! You're not going to hang back on the crowd, are you?" uttered one boy, reproachfully. "Don't spoil the community idea."
So Fred Ripely tagged on at the rear of the flight.
"What is it, boys—-a fire?" called Laura Bentley. A dozen girls had drawn in, pressing against the wall, to let this whirlwind of boys go by.
"Tell you when we get back," Purcell called. "Time presses now."
It took the leaders only about four minutes to reach Foster's Pond. Even Ripley and the other tail-enders were on hand about a minute later. There was a fine grove here, fringed by thick bushes, and no houses near. In a jiffy the High School boys were disrobing.
"And the fellow who 'chaws' anyone else's clothes, to-day," proposed
Dick, "is to be thrown in and kept in, when he's dressed!"
"Hear! hear!"
Dick was one of the first to get stripped. He started on a run, glided out over a log that lay from the bank, and plunged headlong into one of the deepest pools. Then up he came, spouting water.