are you going to stay here?"

"As long as we please."

A few more words passed, and then Snap and Whopper turned their boat
around and started back for their own camp.

Hardly had they done this when something whizzed through the air and
landed in the bottom of the boat with a squashing sound. It was a
tomato that was overripe, and the center splashed over both boys.

"Who threw that?" cried Snap, in anger.

There was no answer.

"Whoever threw that is too cowardly to own to it!" went on the
leader of the Fairview Gun Club.

"Do you mean to say we are a set of cowards?" blustered Ham Spink.

"Yes, you are, to do such a mean thing as that in the dark."

Just then another overripe tomato came whizzing over the rowboat.
Had not Whopper ducked his head he must have been struck.

"Wait, I'll give them a dose of shot!" cried Whopper, reaching down
into the boat as if to take a gun. As a matter of fact, the boys
had brought no weapons with them.

"Hi! hi! Don't you dare to shoot!" roared Ham Spink, in terror.

"Don't shoot! Don't shoot!" came from some of the dude's friends.

"Are you going to throw any more things at us?" demanded Whopper.

"No, no!"

Some of the boys on shore were so scared that they ran for the nearest
trees and got out of sight.

"We ought to give them a shot or two," said Snap, seeing the joke
of the situation. "Maybe it will put some common sense into them."

"Don't!" came once more from three of the boys on shore, and they
drew further out of sight than ever.

"You are a set of cowards," said Snap. "Now, don't you dare to make
any more trouble for us. If you do, you'll surely get into hot water."

"We'll---er---let you alone if you'll let us alone," answered Ham
Spink, in a voice that trembled.

"Very well, then, see that you remember that," said Snap.

A moment later he and Whopper rowed away and soon the darkness hid
them from the view of the Spink party. Then the boys on shore drew
a sigh of relief.

"What rowdies!" declared one boy, who was as dudish as Spink. "I
really believe they would have shot us, don't you know!"

"Very, very rude," said the youth who had thrown one of the tomatoes.

"They ought to be locked up for threatening us," declared Ham Spink.
"It is an outrage that we cannot come here for an outing without
being bothered by such low creatures."

"I tell you what we can do," piped in one of the crowd. "Let us go
over to their camp some day when t