"Yes, but however are we going to get down from here?" sighed the girl who had spoken second, and whose name was Lucy Marsh, while the last of the daring trio Jack knew to be another pretty maid, Adelaide Holliday by name. "I feel afraid to jump from so high a place; and girls can't climb trees and come down like boys do."
"Would you mind if we came up and helped you, girls?" suddenly demanded Jack, as he and his companion showed themselves.
There were alarmed squeals from the three nesting in the crotch of the tree, and this was followed by girlish laughter when they discovered who the newcomers were. It was not only the boys of Chester who liked Jack Winters; for any girl would be proud to be asked for her company by a fellow like Jack, so universally esteemed.
"You've turned the tables on us this time, Jack," said Lucy Marsh, bravely enough. "It's a case of the biters bitten, evidently. We came to spy, and we've been spied on in turn. Well, since you've discovered us in a tree, perhaps you'd better climb up and help a pack of foolish girls back to the solid ground again. I seem to lose my head once I get off the earth."
Accordingly Jack and Joel joined them, and it was no particular effort to help each girl down. When the last had been safely landed, the boys jumped lightly after them.
"You'll excuse our looks, of course, girls," said Joel. "We've been in a scrimmage and are hardly fit for ladies' company; but all the same we're delighted to have been of service to you."
"And so," remarked Jack, turning to Mollie Skinner, who was small but pert, and as pretty as a peach, "you had a boasting letter from some girl over in Harmony, I think I heard you say as we came up. She tried to discourage you, didn't she? All right, Mollie, you just send her back a Roland for an Oliver; give her as good as she sent. Tell her the Chester boys are going to swamp Marshall next Saturday, just to put them in trim for the great game on Thanksgiving morning with poor old Harmony. Twit her with a few reminders of that last baseball game we played, when Chester trailed Harmony's colors in the dust. I guess you can rub it in good and hard, Mollie, if you try."
"And you guess right, too, Jack Winters," snapped the girl, her eyes flashing with spirit. "I'll compose a scathing letter that will give Maude something to think about from now to Thanksgiving. And let me say that I'll be meaning every word of it, too. Why, after what we've seen you boys do in practice I just feel that fellows like Fred, and some of the others of course, in the bargain, just can't be whipped by any old school team that plays. Those are my sentiments, and I don't care who knows them."
"Those Harmony fellows wear the yellow and black of Princeton, you know," spoke up Lucy Marsh, "and love to call themselves the Tigers. They think to frighten their opponents by a great exhibition of rough play, and try to act as if they expected to just walk away with every game."
"That's right for you, Lucy," chipped in Joel, "but those same tactics didn't carry weight last summer. Chester didn't seem to be afraid of being bitten by the tiger, in fact we managed to devour the beast, hide and all; and let me assure you, girls, we can do it again, don't you fear."