t 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 Dick Prescott had been struck a blow
that he could not resent. This, indeed, was the fact.

"See here, Ripley-----" burst, indignantly, from Dick 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."

Dick'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 class, 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 substitute."

"Substitute?" 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 classman, and you're a first classman. 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, ano