unding 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 assailants 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 ga