“Humph!” commented the autocrat of the club. “I don’t see where you belong in no first class fishin’ club.”
“All right,” said Bob with growing indignation, but showing only a smile outwardly. “Since I haven’t been elected, it won’t be necessary for me to resign.”
Mac scowled, but evidently felt somewhat ashamed.
“Say, Kid,” he half sneered, “ye look kind o’ decent, ef ye are kind o’ sissy—”
The next moment, the slouchy Mac had sprung backward, and the white-faced Bob was standing before him with clenched fists.
“I don’t know what you fellows down here mean by ‘sissy,’ but up where I live, a boy couldn’t call me that. Take it back!”
For answer, Mac laughed scornfully. He saw trouble coming and welcomed it. He did not wait for an attack, but darted under Bob’s ready arms and closed about the boy’s waist. The next moment, the two boys were locked in each other’s arms on the hard ground.
Mac was tough in muscle and sound in wind. Bob’s lungs were just then his weak point. In muscular build he had only the strength of the average boy, lessened by his far from robust physical condition. But he forgot these handicaps. The only knowledge he had of wrestling was what he had picked up from observation in the Y. M. C. A. gymnasium.
And this was all he had to use against his enemy. As if attempting to escape, Bob, who was beneath, started to roll over on his right side. Mac’s right hand flew from Bob’s left arm to his left shoulder, and the boy underneath shot his left arm below Mac’s chin, forced it around his opponent’s head and closed down with a blow on the uppermost boy’s neck.
This simple wrestling hold was a thing Mac had never encountered. As his head sank downward and sideways under Bob’s arm lock on his neck, the under boy, with all his strength, threw the upper part of Mac’s body over, and before the astounded leader of the Anclote Club knew what was happening, he was on his back and Bob was astride him.