“We might as well stop and have it out with him,” remarked Hugh.
“Yes, since we couldn’t expect to run away from a horse,” added Walter.
So they stepped to one side of the road, and as the vehicle arrived the man in the buggy stopped his sweating horse by drawing sharply on the lines.
“Here, what do you boys mean trying to kidnap my assistant?” he shouted, shaking the whip he held in a menacing manner.
Hugh stepped in front of Cale, one of his objects being to keep the boy from meeting those angry and glittering eyes of the fakir.
“I’d advise you to keep that whip to yourself, sir,” he said, meaningly. “If you have any idea of trying to use it on us you had better think twice. With the first stroke I promise that you’ll find it snatched from your hand, and used on your back without mercy.”
“Yes,” added Billy Worth, “because we’re scouts, don’t think we can’t protect ourselves if set on. The rules don’t keep us from defending ourselves from assault.”
Perhaps the man did not quite like the determined manner of those five boys in khaki; at any rate he stopped switching the whip in that menacing manner, though at the same time continuing to scowl blackly at Hugh.
“What does this mean?” he demanded. “Don’t you boys know you’re liable to arrest for trying to entice my assistant to break his contract with me in the middle of my harvest season? I’ll have the law on you, and lock you all up!”
Billy Worth laughed aloud.