y fight, Beaufort!" he panted. "Let him alone!"

Beaufort turned to Penny again, and again they went at it. It was
in-fighting now. Short, quick jabs for the face and head followed each
other in rapid succession. Then they clinched, Beaufort's stout right
arm holding Penny against him and his left fist seeking lodgment against
Penny's face. But Penny, squirming, kept his head down and the blows
fell harmlessly on his skull. Then, wrenching himself free, Penny
stumbled out of the way, pale and dizzy. Beaufort plunged toward him
again wildly. Penny stood still then. A feint at the stomach, and
Beaufort for an instant dropped his guard. Then, and it all happened too
quickly for Clint to follow, Penny's left shot out, there was a grunt
from Beaufort, another lightning-like blow straight from Penny's
shoulder and the bully went down on his back, one big leg waving in air
as he tumbled. And in the same instant a voice, cold and measured, broke
the stillness.

"Durkin! That's enough of that!"

Mr. Daley and Mr. Conklin stepped onto the scene.

CHAPTER XXIII

CLINT HAS STAGE-FRIGHT

The instructor and the physical director had approached without a sound
of warning, and Penny, Clint and Dreer, the latter exhibiting an evident
desire to efface himself, stared in surprise for a moment. And at the
same time Beaufort, raising himself weakly on one elbow, gazed
bewilderedly from Penny to the faces of the newcomers.

"I'm not through," he muttered thickly. "Wait--a minute!"

"I think you are through, Beaufort," said Mr. Daley coldly. "Pick up
your coat, please, and put it on. Durkin, do the same."

Silently they obeyed, Mr. Conklin helping the dazed Beaufort to his
unsteady feet. He had a bleeding nose and one eye looked far from its
best. For his part, Penny, although evidently distressed, showed only a
bruised cheek.

"Don't go, Dreer," said Mr. Daley. Dreer halted in his elaborately
uninterested departure. "Now, then, boys, what does this mean? Don't
you know that fighting is barred here? And don't you think that, if you
had to try to kill each other like two wild animals, you might--er--have
chosen some day other than the Sabbath?"

No one had any reply to make. "Well," continued the instructor in his
careful way, "why don't you--er--say something? Who began this and what
was it about?"

"Durkin shied a stone at us as we were going down the hill," said Dreer,
"and when we told him to stop it he--he wanted to fig