The boys turned about and saw three canoes coming toward the landing. The crews who were handling the paddles must have been surprised to see Joe and his chums there, for as soon as they recognized them they stopped and held a short consultation.
Now, although the two opposing factions to which Tom and Joe belonged felt very bitter toward each other, they had never come to open warfare. They played ball together, always spoke when they met, and tried to be civil; but there was scarcely a boy on either side who would not have been glad to see Tom Bigden neatly thrashed. Prime, Noble, Scott, and the rest of the fellows who made their head-quarters at the Mount Airy drug store disliked him because he had tried to set himself up for a leader among them; and Joe and his friends had no friendship for him because they knew how persistently Tom, aided by his cousins, had tried to injure them ever since he came to the village to live.
“If Tom could point to a single mean thing we ever did to him, I shouldn’t be so much surprised at his hostility,” Joe often said. “But for him to attempt to ride over us rough shod just because he is jealous of us—that’s something we won’t put up with. If he had the least spark of manliness in him, he would quit his under-handed work, come out open and above-board, and settle the matter with a fair stand-up fight. But he is too big a coward to do that, so he tries to sick Matt Coyle onto us.”
Having brought their consultation to a close, Tom and his cousins dipped their paddles in the water again and drew up alongside the skiff. If you had been there you would have thought, from the cordial manner in which they greeted Joe and his companions, that they were the best friends in the world.
“Much obliged to you for telegraphing to us about our rods,” said Tom. “We’ve got ’em now, and it will be a cold day when Matt Coyle gets his hands on them again.”
“I shouldn’t think you would like to associate with that man as freely as you do,” said Roy, who could not forget that Tom had tried his best to make one of their canoe meets a failure. “He will spring something on you sure, and I wouldn’t have any thing to do with him.”
Tom Bigden’s amazing assurance was not proof against an assault like this. He turned all sorts of colors, but managed at last to say, in reply—
“You must think I am hard up for associates. My interviews with Coyle have been purely accidental. I couldn’t help speaking to him when he spoke to me. Where are you fellows going?”
“We intend to hunt up some trout-fishing before we go home,” answered Arthur.
“Then you’ll have to go back to some of the spring-holes,” said Loren. “I’ll bet there isn’t a legal trout in any of the waters about here. They’ve been fished to death.”