CHAPTER XXIII
CLINT HAS STAGE-FRIGHT
The instructor and the physical director had approached without a sound of warning, and Penny, Clint and Dreer, the latter exhibiting an evident desire to efface himself, stared in surprise for a moment. And at the same time Beaufort, raising himself weakly on one elbow, gazed bewilderedly from Penny to the faces of the newcomers.
"I'm not through," he muttered thickly. "Wait--a minute!"
"I think you are through, Beaufort," said Mr. Daley coldly. "Pick up your coat, please, and put it on. Durkin, do the same."
Silently they obeyed, Mr. Conklin helping the dazed Beaufort to his unsteady feet. He had a bleeding nose and one eye looked far from its best. For his part, Penny, although evidently distressed, showed only a bruised cheek.
"Don't go, Dreer," said Mr. Daley. Dreer halted in his elaborately uninterested departure. "Now, then, boys, what does this mean? Don't you know that fighting is barred here? And don't you think that, if you had to try to kill each other like two wild animals, you might--er--have chosen some day other than the Sabbath?"
No one had any reply to make. "Well," continued the instructor in his careful way, "why don't you--er--say something? Who began this and what was it about?"
"Durkin shied a stone at us as we were going down the hill," said Dreer, "and when we told him to stop it he--he wanted to fight."