“I don’t believe Don shot that moose himself,” said Lester Brigham, when he heard of it. “Some old hunter shot it for him, and he comes home and palms it off as a trophy of his own skill with the rifle. He tried hard to get up a reputation on the strength of that fight with the rioters, which really did not amount to any thing; but after Williams and I risked our lives to save the crew of the Mystery, Don and his crowd had not another word to say. There was danger in that undertaking, I beg you to remember, and if Don and his brother had been the heroes of it, they never would leave off talking about it.”
Lester was standing in the Rochdale post-office waiting for his mail when he said this, and Enoch Williams and Jones were with him. Around them was a crowd of boys, who had so often heard them tell of the wonderful exploits they had performed during their runaway expedition, that they were tired of listening to them. Knowing these three fellows as well as we do, it is hardly necessary to say that, while magnifying their own achievements, they did not scruple to speak in the most contemptuous terms of what Don Gordon had done, and to declare, in so many words, that his promotion and Bert’s was owing entirely to favoritism. They wore their uniforms on all occasions, carried themselves very stiffly when they walked, and tried in every way to impress the Rochdale boys with a sense of their importance. They succeeded with some, while others, who were civil enough to their faces, laughed at them behind their backs. The Mississippi boys were not lacking in common sense if they did live in the country. Williams and Jones were getting ready to go home now, their preparations being somewhat hastened by the arrival of Don and his brother, whom, for reasons of their own, they did not care to meet.
“We heard down here that that fight with the rioters was a pretty severe one,” observed Fred Packard.
“We don’t doubt it,” answered Jones. “It is very natural for some people to praise themselves when there is no one to do it for them. I would be perfectly willing to go through one just like it, and take my chances.”
“So would I,” exclaimed Enoch.
“Here too,” chimed in Lester, puffing out his cheeks and looking very brave and warlike indeed. “And I wouldn’t brag about it after I got home, either.”
“Well, then, why did you not go to Hamilton with Don and the rest?” inquired Fred.
“Because I couldn’t. The third company went, and I belonged to the fourth. I volunteered to go, and so did my two friends here, but the superintendent has his favorites among the students, and of course they had to go, no matter if they were the biggest cowards in the academy.”
“I conclude that you were just spoiling for a fight,” said Joe Packard, with a smile that was highly exasperating to Lester and his two friends. “If that was the case, what made you pull your head under the bed-clothes and pretend that you were ill when the bugle sounded that false alarm?”
“I didn’t do any thing of the kind; did I, boys?” cried Lester, appealing to his guests who were prompt to sustain him in his denial of the humiliating charge. “If Don Gordon told you any story of that sort, he is a mean, sneaking——”