CHAPTER XXHELD AT BAY.
Bunker halted and glared at the boys. His clothes were dripping wet, and his long hair clung about his neck. At that moment he was an ugly looking individual.
“You youngsters have had lots of sport this morning, haven’t you!” he snarled. “Well, you shall pay for it, and pay dearly, too!”
“You or your friend here started the ball rolling,” said Frank, quietly. “You filled the side of our canoe with shot, and wounded Mr. Hodge in the wrist. It was fortunate for us that you did not do greater damage. And it is fortunate for you that, after what you did do, you have got off so easily.”
Hodge was not saying a word, but he was watching the man closely. The look on Bart’s face told that he thoroughly despised Bunker.
“Oh, you crow pretty loud for kids!” grated the fellow. “What you need is to have some of the conceit taken out of you. Welch says you have had your name in print so often and been talked about so much that you’ve got the swelled head. You think yourself the smartest chap alive.”
“No matter what I think, that is no excuse for your criminal carelessness in shooting toward us.”
“It wasn’t carelessness, Merry!” exclaimed Bart, unable to keep still longer. “It was criminal design!”
“If one of us shot toward you, it was an accident,” growled the man. “But now you have an account to settle with us.”
“Well, what is it?” asked Frank, quietly.
“You upset us.”
“That’s not true.”
“And you caused us to lose our guns.”
“You denied that you had any guns in the boat.”
“That makes no difference. Now, I want you to pay for those guns.”
“Oh, you do?”
“You bet I do!”
“Well, that is nerve!” laughed Merry, his eyes flashing. “After you overturned your own boat in the attempt to break my head, you expect us to pay for the guns you lost.”
“You are responsible, and you’ll have to pay.”
“There is another opinion about that. You and Mr. Welch are responsible for everything that has occurred between us. Had not Welch tried to break my head with an oar, you would not have capsized and lost your guns. That being the case, you cannot expect us to pay for them.”
To the man, Frank seemed very mild and quiet, and this encouraged Bunker, who fancied it would not be difficult to scare him.
“We do expect you to pay for them!” shouted the man, fiercely; “and you will, too!”
“No, we will not.”
Still, Merriwell was not in the least excited. He even smiled serenely into the face of the water-soaked, angry man. As he did so, he unbuttoned the sleeves of his shirt and began to roll them back. Two round, white arms, shining with dampness, were exposed.
Bunker gave a snarl of anger.
“Why, you fool!” he cried. “Do you think you can scare me by rolling up your sleeves? I’ll take you over my knee and spank you!”
This caused Merriwell’s smile to broaden and break into a ringing laugh.
“Just toss aside that club,” he said, “and I’ll soon show you who will be spanked.”
“Don’t do it, Bill!” came from Welch, who had recovered in a remarkable manner. “He is the greatest athlete in Yale College, if what the papers say about him is true.”
“I ain’t going to fool with him,” declared Bunker, advancing a step and half lifting the club. “Pay for those guns, Mr. Frank Merriwell, or I’ll thump the life out of you!”
Frank stood his ground, looking the man straight in the eyes; but Hodge retreated to the canoe, the prow of which had been drawn up on the sand.
“Keep back!” commanded Merriwell. “We are not going to fool with you any longer.”
“And I am not going to fool with you, either!”
“You have tried to fill us with shot and break our heads this morning. That you have received the worst of it so far is simple retribution. Welch would have drowned if I hadn’t saved him, for you made no move to help him. You owe me something for that.”
“Bah! You saved him because you were afraid.”
“Of what?”
“That, if he died, you would be held responsible. It was cowardice, not bravery, that led you to get him out of the water.”
“You are at liberty to think that, if you like; it makes no difference to me.”
“I know it.”
“All right. I pulled him out, just the same, and we pumped the water out of him after getting him ashore. You were not on hand to help, and he would be dead past resuscitation at this moment had he depended on you.”
Bunker advanced another step.
“It makes no difference,” he grated; “you’ll pay for the guns, just the same—and for the oars, too. I want twenty dollars for my gun, and Jim’s was worth fifteen. The oars bring it up to—well, you can cough up fifty dollars, and we’ll call it square.”
“How kind!” laughed Merriwell. “My dear sir, we could not think of accommodating you.”
“You’ll have to, or I’ll crack your skull sure this time!”
Now the club was flourished threateningly, and the face of the man showed he really meant it. Frank grew grave, but did not take his eyes from the ruffian.
“Look here, Mr. Bunker,” he said, swiftly, “you are getting yourself into a bad scrape. If you don’t drop it, I’ll take the trouble to swear out a warrant for you at the earliest opportunity and place an officer on your track. It will not be difficult to put you behind iron bars.”
“Bah!” again cried the man. “You can’t save yourself that way. Cough up.”
“Not a cent!”
“Then you get it!”
“Come on!”
Frank fell into a defensive attitude, and Bunker swung the club aloft, starting to make a spring.
“Stop!”
The word rang out like a shot. It came from the lips of Bart Hodge, who was standing just behind Frank, having picked a small rifle out of the canoe. The weapon was at Bart’s shoulder, and its muzzle covered Bunker.
“Stop!” repeated Hodge. “If you make another move, I’ll send a twenty-two into your head! It won’t make a large hole, but it will do some damage, even to a wooden head, like yours.”
Bunker halted, for he saw that Hodge was in deadly earnest, and the rifle, small though it was, was not exactly pleasant to look upon just then.
“You fool!” panted the man. “You wouldn’t dare!”
“Oh, yes, I would!” grated Hodge. “I’d like to do it! It would give me great satisfaction, but I thought it best to give you fair warning first. Drop that club!”
Bunker hesitated.
“Drop it!” flashed Bart. “Drop it, or I’ll drop you!”
The man let the club fall on the sand, and then he laughed.
“Well, you chaps have more sand than I thought,” he said. “I was trying you—that’s all. Of course, I didn’t mean to do you any harm.”
“Oh! of course not,” said Merriwell, with sarcasm. “You are one of the most harmless chaps in the world.”
“Don’t think we’re fools,” snapped Hodge. “We stopped your little game, that’s all. Now, git.”
“Yes, go,” cried Frank.
“Where?”
“Anywhere.”
“But the boat—Welch——”
“The boat is all right. Take a walk along the shore—lively. Don’t turn round till you are out of range of this rifle, for you may encounter a bullet if you do. That’s all. Go on!”
“But—but——”
“There are no buts about it. Go this instant, or Hodge will salt you. Get a move on!”
The man turned about and walked away.
“Now,” said Frank, speaking to Welch, “I advise you to have nothing more to do with that chap. He’ll get you into some bad scrape if you do. You are lucky to get off this time so easily. I have no particular grudge against you, even though you did want to thump me for dancing with a certain young lady at Camp Benson yesterday. But don’t monkey round me in the future, for I don’t always overlook things this way. That’s all.”
Hodge had pushed the canoe into the water, and now they entered it and pushed off from the shore.
“It’s lucky I brought this rifle along,” said Hodge, as he placed it in the bow and picked up his paddle.
“I had forgotten you had it,” confessed Frank. “It did come in handy, that is a fact.”
By the time Bunker knew what had happened behind him, they were a long distance from the shore, skimming swiftly away.