“I will,” replied Duncan, in savage tones.
“O, you can’t. It’s bred in the bone. But I’ll tell you one thing—you and your partner there,” added Don, nodding his head toward Tom Fisher. “You want to keep your hands off my brother, or I’ll make spread-eagles of the pair of you.”
“Well, that beats anything I ever heard of!” exclaimed Dick Henderson, opening his eyes in surprise. “You have good cheek to talk of making ‘spread-eagles’ of such fellows as Fisher and Duncan, haven’t you, now?”
“Do you think so, little one?” asked Don. As he said this he patted Dick on the head in a most patronizing way—an action on his part that caused Dick to jump aside and bristle up like a bantam that had been poked with a stick. “Well, you hang around and you will see it done, unless they take my advice and mind their own business,” added Don.
Fisher and Duncan did not have an opportunity to reply to this threat, for just then they reached the door and found one of the teachers standing there. They were somewhat behind time, and they were obliged to hasten to their dormitories and take off their caps and overcoats so that they could march to their recitation-rooms with their classes. They looked daggers at Don as they went up the stairs, but he smiled back at them in the most unconcerned manner possible.
“I knew he was a tough one the moment I put my eyes on him,” said Fisher that night after drill hours, when he and about fifty other students were exercising their muscles in the gymnasium. “There isn’t another fellow in school who can do that.”
The subject of these remarks was Don Gordon, who had just come out dressed in neat dark-blue trunks and flesh-colored tights. His arms were bare to the shoulder, revealing muscles at which the boys around him gazed in admiration. His first act was to walk up to the nearest swing, take hold of one of the rings and draw himself up to his chin twice in succession with one hand.
“I tell you, Duncan, you had better let him alone,” continued Fisher, still watching Don, who was now going hand over hand up a rope toward the lofty ceiling.
“And swallow everything he said to me this morning?” exclaimed the bully.
“No, I didn’t mean that,” Fisher hastened to reply. “Those insulting remarks must of course be taken back and apologized for; but you can’t make him do it alone.”