"No," said Bert, "I can't."
"Can't? Why can't you?" persisted Ned, who was rapidly losing his temper.
Bert hesitated a moment, and the colour mounted high in his cheeks. Then he spoke out his reason bravely:
"Because I'm a Christian, Ned; and it would not be right for me to do it."
"A Christian?" sneered Ned. "You'd be nearer the truth if you said a coward."
The words had hardly left his lips before Frank Bowser was standing before him, shaking in his face a fist that was not to be regarded lightly.
"Say that again," cried Frank, wrathfully, "and I'll knock you down!"
Ned looked at Frank's face, and then at his fist. There was no mistaking the purpose of either, and as Frank was fully his match, if not more, he thought it prudent to say nothing more than: "Bah! Come on, fellows. We can get along without him."
The group moved off; but Bert was not the only one who stayed behind. Frank stayed too; and so did Ernest Linton. And these three sought their amusement in another direction.
That scene very vividly impressed Bert, and over and over again he thought to himself: "What will the boys who heard me refuse to go to the orchard, because I am a Christian, think of me when they hear that I have been helping to spend stolen money?"