ace, but couldn't. Then Dick hammered his body.
Young Alvord lost all his coolness, and began to windmill his hands.
That settled it, of course. Any boy who forsakes his guard to take to
windmilling is as good as whipped. Dick watched his chance, then drove
in a blow on Ben's jaw that felled him flat.

"O-o-oh!" wailed Ben, holding to his jaw with both hands.

"Do you give it up?" demanded Hoof.

"No!"

"Then get up and go on with the fight."

"I will when I'm ready."

"You will, now, or I'll decide against you," warned Hoof.

"That booby broke my jaw," groaned Ben.

"You wag it pretty well, for a broken jaw," jeered Dave.

"Get up, Ben!"

"If you don't you're thrashed!"

"Don't give up like a baby!"

"Get up and fight," ordered Hoof. "One!"

Ben lay on the ground, glaring about him in sullen silence.

"Going to get up?" demanded Hoof. "Two!"

"Oh, Ben, don't let Prescott whip you as easily as that," implored
several of Alvord's backers.

"Get up!" commanded Hoof, putting the toe of his boot lightly against
Alvord's body. "Three!"

Still Ben refused to stir.

"Dick Prescott wins the fight," announced Hoof judicially. "Ben refused
three times to get up and go on."

As soon as Prescott began to don his discarded coat, Ben got to his
feet.

"Now, I have something to say to you, Alvord," announced Dave, going
over to the worsted one. "You insulted six of us and called us liars.
Dick is only one. You'll have to fight the rest of us, one a day, or
else apologize before the crowd."

"I won't apologize," glared Ben.

"All right, then. You'll fight me after school to-morrow," Darrin
declared.

"And me the day after," challenged Greg Holmes. Reade, Dalzell and
Hazelton all put in their claims for dates.

"You think you're going to bully me, don't you?" grunted Ben.

"No," Dave answered. "But when a fellow lies about me I'm going to make
him fight or apologize."

"I don't know whether I will fight you, or not," snarled Ben.

"Then you'll get a thrashing just the same, and be called a coward by
every decent fellow in school," flared Dave.

Ben quailed a bit inwardly. He had had all the fighting he wanted for
the present.

"That Prescott fellow is no good, anyway," sniffed Ben, as he walked
homeward with Toby Ross, the only one of the late spectators who had
stood by him.

"Well, may-be he didn't tell on us," suggested Toby.

"'Course he did!"

"Dick has always acted pretty decently."