"Huh! that's funny," grunted Colon, as though he failed to understand exactly why the said Bristles should have been so very particular.

They walked along, with Colon clutching the left arm of his chum, for he depended upon Fred to show the way, not being very familiar with the crooked path himself.

They kept on talking as they walked, for there were any amount of things that interested them jointly, from the mystery concerning the actions of Corny Ludson, to the plans they had in mind concerning the winning of the glorious Marathon.

Here and there clumps of bushes caused them to turn aside, but that was the way the trail ran, very much like what Fred called a "cow-path."

Indeed, it meandered along in a zigzag fashion, though always heading for the opposite side of the field.

The two boys were just in the act of pa.s.sing the densest patch of bushes that the cow-pasture boasted, when without the slightest warning three figures suddenly confronted them. They leaped from the covert where they had been lying concealed, and, as though all their plans had been arranged beforehand, two of the figures instantly sprang past, so that from all sides of a triangle Fred and Colon found themselves furiously a.s.sailed.

CHAPTER XIV

A PLOT THAT FAILED

Although taken completely by surprise Fred and Colon were not the kind of boys to flinch, or run from sudden danger.

They could see that the three fellows who surrounded them were gotten up just as might have been expected under such circ.u.mstances. When men or boys lay out to do a mean thing, they generally try to arrange it so that their ident.i.ty may not be disclosed. These fellows had their hats drawn low down, their coat collars turned up, and, unless Fred's eyes deceived him, they also had handkerchiefs or some other kind of disguise fastened over the lower part of their faces, just as they may have read of desperate footpads doing out West, when holding up stage coaches.

There was really no time to note anything more. Uttering all sorts of angry cries in falsetto voices, the a.s.sailants bore down upon the two chums.

"Whoop! give it to 'em, Fred!" cried Colon, his long arms immediately taking on the appearance of a couple of old-fashioned flails, such as farmers used before the time of machine threshers.

Fred was already busily engaged. A thrill of satisfaction seemed to fill his boyish heart over the inspiration that had caused him to pick up that heavy walking-stick before sallying forth to cross over to Bristles'

house.

It was certainly a handy thing to have around just then, with the odds against them, and that whirlwind attack on in full force.

After Fred had swung his stick a few times, and several loud thumps told that it had landed on each occasion, grunts began to change into groans.

Of course it hurt, no matter where it landed, and once a fellow ran up against such punishment, the chances were he would not feel just the same savage inclination to press the attack that he had before "taking his medicine."

Colon, too, was doing gallant work, though he possessed no club or cane, and had to depend upon his fists alone. He was tall, and had a terrific reach, so that he could land his clever blows without being severely punished in return.

One thing the two chums were careful to do,---not separate. Although they had had no chance to settle on any plan of campaign, they seemed to just naturally understand that in their case union meant strength.

Accordingly they kept back to back, and in that way managed to hold off all a.s.sailants.

Afterwards Colon used to say that their defence had been conducted along the famous "hollow square" plan, peculiar to British troops for centuries, in that they kept their faces to their foes, and their lines intact.

Of course this sort of vigorous work could not last very long. It was too one-sided, with Fred pounding two of the unknown fellows with his father's walking-stick, as though that might be the regular mission of such heavy canes.

There was a final scramble, in which blows were given and taken on both sides. Then a gruff voice, considerably the worse for wear and lack of breath, gasped out:

"Scoot, fellows! it's all off!"

Immediately the three mysterious a.s.sailants turned and ran away. Fred noticed with more or less satisfaction that a couple of them seemed to wabble considerably, thanks to the whacks he had managed to get in with his heavy stick.

"Go it, you cowards!" shouted Colon after them. "For three cents I'd give chase, and hand you a few more good ones. But unless I miss my guess, one of you'll have a black eye to-morrow, for I plunked you straight. Whew! I'm out of wind with all that rapid action work, Fred!"

Fred himself was breathing rather hard, because of the way in which he had been compelled to exert himself in the melee. So neither of them made the slightest move to advance any further, content to stand there, puffing heavily.

Then Colon began to chuckle, louder and louder, until he broke out into a hearty laugh, at the same time doubling up like a hinge, after an odd way he had.

"Got 'em going and coming, didn't we, Fred?" he wanted to know, when his merriment had subsided in some degree. "They caught us napping, that's right, but say, did it do 'em much good? Not that you could notice. Let me tell you that's a sore lot of fellows to limp all the way home to Mechanicsburg to-night."

"What makes you say that, Colon?"

"About Mechanicsburg, you mean?" remarked the tall boy. "Why what else would we think, but that the trick was planned, and carried out by some of that gang of up-river fellows? Haven't we run up against the same lot before, and would you put it past them to try to lame a fellow, so he couldn't take part in a race, and let their side have a clear field?

Huh! easy as falling off a log to see how the ground lies."

"But Colon," objected Fred, "remember what Felix Wagner said to us about playing the game fair and square? I don't believe he'd descend to any such mean dodge as this, nor most of the other fellows up there---Sherley, Gould, Hennessy, Boggs and then some. If this was a set-up job, I'd rather believe it originated nearer home than Mechanicsburg."

"A set-up job!" roared Colon. "You never heard of one with more of the ear-marks of a lowdown game than this has. Why, they planned to get you to cross here all by yourself, and then lay you out so you couldn't run for a month. Didn't I see how they kept kicking at my shins all the time, and I reckon that's what they did with you. I've a welt on my leg right now from a heavy brogan; and I'd like to bet you they put on that sort of foot-wear so as to make their kicks hurt like fun."

"Yes, they did seem to keep kicking at me, every chance they found,"

admitted Fred, as though partly convinced by the other's argument.

"See?" flashed Colon. "I told you how it was. They had that all laid out, and after it was carried through you'd be laid up and lame for the whole of the Spring. When a fellow means to run a twenty-five mile race, he's got to keep in tiptop condition right along, or he'll get soft; and if you couldn't practice every day, why what would be the use of your starting in? Five miles would make your ankle so sore you'd have to be carried home on a hayrick."

"They tried their level best not to give themselves away," continued Fred.

"Hardly ever used their voices,---only when they just had to grunt and groan, after you touched 'em up with that bully walking-stick. Fred."

"And," continued Fred, "they had their hats pulled down over their faces, collars turned up, and some sort of thing over their chins, so their best friend wouldn't have recognized one of them."

"Oh! it certainly was a pretty smart trap, and it failed to work on account of a few things the plotters hadn't thought of," observed Colon, with a vein of satisfaction in his voice.

"One of which was my great luck in having you along with me, Colon."

"Oh! I don't know that that counted any to speak of," objected the other. "Why, when I saw the way you slung about you with that walking-stick, Fred, I knew as sure as anything they were in the soup.

And chances are, it'd have been just the same if you'd come along here by yourself. The biggest piece of luck you had was when you took that notion to carry your dad's heavy cane."

"Perhaps you're right, Colon," admitted Fred, as he felt of the heavy stick, and then remembered with what a vim he had applied it without stint wherever he could get an opening. "And I ought to really thank Flo Temple for that, oughtn't I? Only for the way she joked me about needing a crutch or a cane, I'd never have thought of playing it on Bristles.

And I want to tell you I'd hate to have this thing laid on me, good and hard. Wherever I struck, it's raised a whopping big welt, I calculate."

"Well, if you could tell from the way they hollered every time it struck, that goes without saying," laughed Colon. "And I'll have lots of fun out of this, every time I think of it. Did you hear what that leader said when he knew they'd have to own up beat? 'Scoot, fellows! it's all off!'

I guess it was, for if they'd held out much longer, we'd have floored the whole bunch."

"I was wondering what his voice sounded like," said Fred.

"Oh! I'd take my affidavit that he had a hickory nut in his cheek right then, so as to disguise his voice, if he did have to speak any," Colon went on to say, and in this way proving that he was ready to give their unknown a.s.sailants credit for utilizing every possible device that would insure the successful carrying out of their miserable scheme.

"I knew a fellow who did that same thing once upon a time," Fred hinted.

"Yes, and it was somebody we happen to know right well, too," agreed Colon; "in other words, Mister Buck Lemington, the clever and unscrupulous son of Sparks Lemington, one of Riverport's leading citizens, and a chap who lies awake nights hatching up plans for getting the better of a friend of mine."

"Hold on, Colon, go a little slow about accusing anybody before we've got the least bit of evidence. This might be a different crowd. Perhaps it'll turn out they're from Paulding, where I've heard there's a certain sporting element that's taken to betting on baseball games and athletics and such things, now that horse racing and making pools have been knocked out by law."