"As soon as I have had some dinner. Is there a restaurant or hotel in the town?"
"No, but I will take you round to my house. Mrs. Bean will be glad to give you a dinner."
Half an hour later Gerald and his new friend set out for Campville.
"If your friend of the morning stops you," said Louis Bean, "it will be at a point about four miles distant. When we approach the place I will get out and conceal myself, to give him a chance to show what he intends to do. I will see that he does no harm. We will have another joke at his expense!"
This proposal suited Gerald, who had no objection to a second discomfiture of the ruffian from whom he had already had one narrow escape.
At the point indicated by his companion, Louis Bean got out of the wagon and hid himself behind a clump of trees.
"Perhaps he may have seen me," he said. "If so, we shall have no fun. We shall soon find out."
"When matters are near the danger line," said Bean, "blow this whistle."
Gerald drove on slowly, hoping that the ruffian would appear. He had a sense of humor which would be gratified by the opportunity to turn the tables on him.
Saul Gridley's anger had not cooled in the three hours since he saw Gerald riding off, after serving him a trick which humiliated him the more because he felt that he had been worsted by a mere boy. He resolved to punish him for the trick, and felt sure that he would have a chance to do it. There was but one road by which Gerald could return from Fairfield—the same road by which he went.