The High School Freshmen Part 1

The High School Freshmen.

by H. Irving Hanc.o.c.k.

CHAPTER I

THE HIGH SCHOOL SNEAK

"I say you did!" cried Fred Ripley, hotly. d.i.c.k Prescott's cheeks turned a dull red as he replied, quietly, after swallowing a choky feeling in his throat:

"I have already told you that I did not do it."

"Then who did do the contemptible thing?" insisted Ripley, sneeringly.

Fully forty boys, representing all the different cla.s.ses at the Gridley High School, stood looking on at this altercation in the school grounds. Half a dozen of the girls, too, hovered in the background, interested, or curious, though not venturing too close to what might turn out to be a fight in hot blood.

"If I knew," rejoined d.i.c.k, in that same quiet voice, in which one older in the world's ways might have detected the danger-signal, "I wouldn't tell you."

"Bah!" jeered Fred Ripley, hotly.

"Perhaps you mean that you don't believe me?" said Prescott inquiringly.

"I don't!" laughed Ripley, shortly, bitterly.

"Oh!"

A world of meaning surged up in that exclamation. It was as though bright, energetic, honest d.i.c.k Prescott had been struck a blow that he could not resent. This, indeed, was the fact.

"See here, Ripley-----" burst, indignantly, from d.i.c.k Prescott's lips, as his face went white and then glowed a deeper red than before.

"Well, kid?" sneered Ripley.

"If I didn't have a hand---the right hand, at that---that is too crippled, today, I'd pound your words down your mouth."

"Oh, your hand?" retorted Ripley, confidently. "The yarn about that hand is another lie."

d.i.c.k's injured right hand came out of the jacket pocket in which it had rested. With his left hand he flung down his cap.

"I'll fight---you---anyway!" Prescott announced, slowly.

There were a few faint cheers, though some of the older High School boys looked serious. Fair play was an honored tradition in Gridley.

Ripley, however, had thrown down his cap at once, hurling his strapped-up school books aside at the same time.

"Wait a moment," commanded Frank Thompson, stepping forward.

He was a member of the first cla.s.s, a member of the school eleven, and a husky young fellow who could enforce his opinions at need.

"Get back, Thomp," retorted Ripley. "The cub wants to fight, and he's got to."

"Not if he has an injured hand," retorted Frank, quickly.

"He hasn't," jeered Ripley. "And he's got so fight, if he has four lame hands."

"He can fight, then, yes," agreed Thompson. "But remember, Fred, it's allowable, when a fellow's crippled, to fight by subst.i.tute."

"Subst.i.tute?" asked Fred, looking uncomfortable.

"Yes; I'll take his place, if Prescott will let me," volunteered Frank Thompson, coolly.

"You? I guess not," snorted Ripley. "I won't stand for that.

I'm a third cla.s.sman, and you're a first cla.s.sman. You're half as big again as I am, and-----"

"The odds wouldn't be as bad as you're proposing to take out of this poor little freshman with the crippled hand," insisted Thompson.

"So get ready to meet me. I'll allow one of my hands to be tied, if you want."

Yet even this proposition couldn't be made alluring to Fred Ripley.

He knew Thompson's mettle and strength too well for that.

Dan Dalzell, another freshman, had been standing back, keeping quiet as long as he could.

"See here," proposed Dan, stepping forward, "isn't a freshman allowed to say something when his friend is insulted?"

"Go ahead," nodded Thompson, who knew Dan to be one of young Prescott's close friends.

"d.i.c.k isn't in shape to fight, and I know it," continued Dan Dalzell, hotly. "But Ripley wants something easy, like a freshman, so he can have me!"

"And me," cried Tom Reade, also leaping forward.

"He can have one with me, too," offered Harry Hazelton.

"Same here," added Greg Holmes and Dave Darrin.

All five of the speakers were freshmen, and close chums of d.i.c.k Prescott's.

"Say, what do you think I want---to fight a whole pack?" demanded Ripley, hoa.r.s.ely.

"Oh, you don't have to fight us all at once," retorted Dave Darrin.

"But you've insulted our friend, and you've taken a sneaking advantage of him at a time when you _knew_ he couldn't handle anyone as big as you are. So, Ripley, you're answerable to Prescott's friends. I'll tell you what you can do. There are five of us.

You can take any one of us that you prefer for the first bout.

When you've thrashed him, you can call for the next, and so on.

But you've got to go through the five of us in turn. If you don't, I'll call you a coward from now on. You're bigger than any of us."

"See here, Cub Darrin," raged Ripley, starting forward, his face aflame, "I don't allow any freshman to talk that way to me. I won't fight you, but I'll chastise you, and you can protect yourself if you know how."

He made a bound forward, intent on hitting Darrin, who stood his ground unflinchingly. But Thompson seized the third cla.s.sman by the shoulder and shoved him back.

"Now, stop this, Ripley, and you freshmen, cut it out, too,"

warned the athletic first cla.s.sman. "This is descending to a low level. We don't want a lot of bickering or mouth-fighting, and we don't intend to have anything but fair play, either."