The High School Freshmen Part 17

Oh, yes! Of course, ye wanter know. Well, I'll tell ye when ye hand me the rest o' the money for doin' the whole trick---then I'll tell ye."

Something in a very low whisper came, in response, from the second party who was invisible to the prowling freshmen.

d.i.c.k Prescott felt that there was no need of prolonging this scene.

He had heard enough.

"Now, rush 'em! Grab 'em---and hold 'em!" shouted d.i.c.k, suddenly.

As the three freshmen shot forward into the darkness something that sounded like an almost hysterical cheer in girls' voices came from the open, dark window overhead.

But neither d.i.c.k nor his chums paused to give thought to that at this important moment.

The unknown who had been doing most of the talking wheeled with an oath, making a frantic dash to get out of the alley and onto the street.

But d.i.c.k shot fairly past him, dodging slightly, and made a bound for the second party to this wicked conference.

Just beyond the doorway in which this second party had keen standing was a yard that furnished a second means of exit from the alley.

It was this second party to the talk that d.i.c.k was after. He left the other fugitive to his two active, quick-witted chums.

They were swift to understand, and grappled, together, with the rascal fleeing for the street.

The three went down in a scuffling, fighting heap.

Like a flash the fellow that d.i.c.k was after seemed to melt into the adjoining back yard. Prescott, in trying to get in after him in record time, fell flat to the ground just inside the yard.

Yet, as he went down Prescott grabbed one of his fugitive's trouser legs near the ankle.

"Let go!" hissed the other, in too low a voice to be recognized.

Before d.i.c.k, holding on grimly, had time to look upward, the wretch lifted a cane, bringing it down on d.i.c.k's head with ugly force.

CHAPTER X

TIP SCAMMON TALKS---BUT NOT ENOUGH

If that ugly blow hadn't proved a glancing one, d.i.c.k Prescott might have been for a long siege of brain fever.

As it was, he was slightly stunned for the moment.

By the time he could leap up and look about him, rather dizzily, his late a.s.sailant had made a clean escape.

"No time to waste on a fellow who's got away," quoth d.i.c.k.

He staggered slightly, at first, as he hurried from the yard back into the alleyway.

"Now, you quiet down!" commanded Dave Darrin hoa.r.s.ely. "No more from you, Mr. Thug!"

"Lemme go, or it'll be worse for ye!" threatened a harsh voice that, nevertheless, had a whine in it.

"What use to let you go, Tip Scammon?" demanded Darrin. "We know you, and the police would pick you up again in an hour."

"Lemme go, and keep yer mouth shut," whined the fellow. "If ye don't, ye'll be sorry. If ye _do_ lemme go, I'll pay ye for the accommodation."

"Yes," retorted Dave, scornfully. "You'd pay us, I suppose, with money you picked up in some way resembling the trick you played on d.i.c.k Prescott."

"Well, money's money, ain't it?" demanded Tip, skeptically.

"Some kinds of money are worse that dirt," growled Greg Holmes.

This was the conversation, swiftly carried on, that d.i.c.k heard as he stepped back to his friends.

Scammon was lying on his back on the ground, with Dave seated across his chest. Greg bent back the wretch's head, holding a short club that the two freshmen had taken away from Tip in the scuffle.

"Where's the other one, d.i.c.k?" gasped Dave, as he saw young Prescott coming back alone.

"He got away," muttered d.i.c.k. "He hit me over the head, and stunned me for a moment, or I'd be holding onto him yet."

"Who was he?" demanded Greg, breathlessly.

"I don't know," d.i.c.k admitted. "I'd give a small part of the earth to know and be sure about it."

That admission of ignorance was a most unfortunate one. Tip Scammon heard it, and the fellow grinned inwardly over knowing that his late companion had not been recognized.

"What are we going to do with this fellow, d.i.c.k?" asked Dave.

"I'm wondering whether he ought to be arrested or not," d.i.c.k replied.

"Fellows, I feel mighty sorry for Tip's father."

And well might all three feel sorry. So, far as was known, this crime against d.i.c.k was the first offense Tip had committed against the law. He was a tough character, and regarded as one of the worse than worthless young men of Gridley. Tip was a handy fellow, a jack-of-all-trades, with several at which he might have made an honest living---but he wouldn't. Yet Tip's father was old John Scammon, the highly respected janitor at the High School, where he had served for some forty years.

"I say, fellows, I wonder if we can let Tip go---now that we know the whole story?" breathed d.i.c.k.

"Say, I'll make it worth yer while," proposed Tip, eagerly.

"How about the law?" asked Dave Darrin, seriously. "Have we any right to let the fellow go, when we know he has committed a serious crime?"

"I don't know," replied Prescott. "All I'm thinking of is good, honest old John Scammon."

"It'd break me old man's heart---sure it would," put in Tip, cunningly.

At the first cry from Belle and Laura Bentley, however Mrs. Meade, who was also in the secret, had hurried down into Clark Street.

Just as it happened she had espied a policeman less than a block away. That officer, posted by Mrs. Meade, now came hurrying down the alleyway.

"Oho! Tip, is it?" demanded the policeman. "Let him up, Darrin.

I can handle him. Now, then, what's the row about?"