With a yell that startled the girls more than the sight of the tramps, Will and Frank sprang forward, grappling with two of the men while Allen and Roy rushed off in hot pursuit of the other two.
It seemed at first as if the boys were going to get the worst of the hand-to-hand struggle, for the men were burly ruffians and they fought with the fury of desperation.
But Will and Frank were desperate too—and mad clean through. They were getting revenge for that other time when they had been held up in the open road and robbed of their money and watches.
It was a terrible fight while it lasted, but it came to an end with great suddenness. Not for nothing had the boys studied the art of wrestling.
It was Will who first got the better of his enemy, tripping him neatly as he lunged forward, and then, as the burly ruffian fell, sitting none too lightly on his chest.
Frank came a close second, smiting his opponent a knockout blow on the point of the jaw that stretched him senseless upon the ground.
So it happened that when Allen and Roy returned red and perspiring to announce that the other two men had gotten clean away and eager to offer assistance to Will and Frank, they found the latter in no need whatever of their aid.
And the next moment there burst through the trees a dozen of the queerest characters the girls had ever seen—an assorted collection of farmers from all over the countryside. And these bewhiskered gentlemen were angry, there was no doubt in the world about that. Even their chin-whiskers trembled with wrath.
It had all happened so suddenly that the girls felt a trifle dizzy. Besides, they did want dreadfully to laugh. Those funny old men staring at them for all the world as though they were to blame—and Will sitting on the fat tramp’s chest!
Mollie did giggle hysterically and one of the farmers, a red-faced old man, swung about at the slight sound.