style="font-size:15px;"> So saying, he walked boldly into the crowd, which gave way right and left as he advanced, and took his stand by the side of the prisoner, who was firmly held by two of the largest and strongest students, while two others stood close behind him, in readiness to lend their assistance in case he made any attempt at escape. Although Don had never exchanged a word with the boy, he knew him at once, for they belonged to the same company. It was the new student whose presence, if we are to believe Fisher and his friends, was a disgrace to the academy and everybody belonging to it. He wore the same thin clothes in which he had shivered as he walked up the path that morning, and the keen wind that swept across the icy surface of the big pond must have chilled him to the very marrow. He had no muffler about his face nor any gloves on his hands, which he held clasped one within the other, as if they were very cold. Don looked at him and then at the comfortably clad boys who were standing around, and his blood, which was none of the coolest at any time, boiled with indignation.
“You are a pack of contemptible cowards,” said he, pulling off his gloves and slamming them down on the ice.
“Why, bless our royal heart, it’s the Planter!” exclaimed Tom Fisher, who now, for the first time, recognized the intruder. “Here’s luck, boys. Grab hold of him, some of you, and we’ll wash him too.”
“If that’s the Planter, this must be his brother,” said Dick Henderson.
“Why, so it is,” said Fisher, after he had taken a sharp look into Bert’s face. “Here’s more luck. Take hold of him too, boys; and since they have had the assurance to push themselves in among us without being asked, we will give them the post of honor. We’ll duck them first.”
In obedience to these orders three or four pairs of hands were laid upon Bert’s arms; but when the rest of the crowd moved forward to lay hold of Don, Duncan stepped up and stopped them.
“Stand back, all of you,” said he. “I want to have a little talk with this fellow before he is put into that air-hole. Gordon, you insulted me this morning in the presence of my friends, and I want you to apologize for it at once. If you don’t do it, I will give you a thrashing right here on this ice that you won’t get over for a month.”
“How did I insult you?” asked Don, and the bully was somewhat surprised to see that he did not appear to be at all alarmed.
“You said you would make a spread-eagle of me. Now, which will you do, apologize or fight?”
“Well, if it’s all the same to you, I’ll fight.”
Duncan was fairly staggered by this reply. Remembering the exhibition of strength he had witnessed in the gymnasium that afternoon, he had no desire to come to blows with the stalwart youth who stood before him. He had hoped to frighten an apology from Don, and when he found that he could not do it, he wished he had not been in such haste to make overtures of battle to him. But it was too late to think of that now, for his reputation was at stake. Besides he did not believe that his friend Fisher would stand by and see him worsted.
“You need have no fear of these fellows who are standing around,” said Duncan, who wanted to put off the critical moment as long as he could. “They will not double-team on you.”
“If they do they will take the consequences,” said Don, confidently. “I think myself that they had better keep their distance.”
These bold words astonished everybody.
“Why I believe he thinks he can whip the whole crowd,” said Henderson, who was one of the four who were holding fast to Bert’s arms. Bert was a little fellow, like himself, and consequently Dick was not very much afraid of him.
“Come on,” said Don, impatiently. “I am getting cold standing here in my shirt-sleeves. Give me a little exercise to warm me up. Remember I wasn’t born as near the Arctic Circle as you fellows were, and for that reason I can’t stand the cold as well. Hurry up, somebody —anybody who thinks he was insulted by the words I uttered this morning.”
Driven almost to desperation by this challenge, which he knew was addressed to himself, and which seemed to imply that his prospective antagonist placed a very low estimate upon his powers, Duncan pulled off both his coats, assumed a threatening attitude and advanced toward Don, who extended his hand in the most friendly manner. The bully, believing that Don wanted to parley with him, took the proffered hand in his own, and in a second more arose in the air as if an exceedingly strong spring had suddenly uncoiled itself under his feet. When he came down again he measured his full length on the ice, landing in such dangerous proximity to the hole that had been cut for the poor student’s benefit, that his uniform cap fell into it.
Everybody was struck motionless and dumb with amazement. The bully was so bewildered that he did not get upon his feet again immediately, and the poor student forgot to shiver.
CHAPTER IV
THE NEW YORK BOOT-BLACK
“Take your hands off those boys,” said Don, who was in just the right humor to make a scattering among Fisher’s crowd of friends. “Release them both and do it at once, or I will pitch the last one of you into that hole before you can say ‘General Jackson’ with your mouths open. Come over here, Bert.”
He stepped up and took the prisoner by the arm, and his four guards surrendered him without a word of protest. The magical manner in which Don had floored the biggest bully in school, before whom no boy in Bridgeport had ever been able to stand for a minute, either with boxing-gloves or bare fists, and the ease with which he had done it, astounded them. They had never seen anything like it before, and there was something very mysterious in it. Did not this backwoodsman have other equally bewildering tactics at his command which he could bring into play if he were crowded upon? Probably he had, and so the best thing they could do was to let him alone.
“Your name is Sam Arkwright, is it not?” said Don, taking one of the boy’s blue-cold hands in both his own warm ones. “I thought I had heard you answer to that name at roll-call. I am a plebe too, and so we’ll stand together. Put on these gloves and come with me. You will freeze if you stay here any longer. As for you,” he added, waving his hand toward the students to show that he included them all in the remarks he was about to make, “you are a pack of cowards, and I can whip the best man among you right here and now. Pick him out and let me take a look at him.”
“I am good for the best of them if they will come one at a time,” said Sam. “But I give in to a dozen when they all jump on me at once.”
“I will leave that challenge open,” said Don, as he led Sam away. “You know where my room is, and any little notes you may choose to shove under my door will receive prompt attention.”
Tom and his crowd did not speak; they had not yet recovered from their amazement. They stood gazing after the rescued boy and his champion until they disappeared in the darkness, and then they turned and looked at one another.
“I declare, Duncan,” exclaimed Tom Fisher, who was the first to speak. “You’ve met your master at last, have you not?”
The defeated bully growled out something in reply, but his friends could not understand what it was. Like every boy who prides himself upon his strength and skill, he did not like to acknowledge that he had been beaten.
“Did he hurt you?” asked one of the students. “I noticed that you didn’t get up right away.”
“How in the name of all that’s wonderful did he do it?” inquired another. “I didn’t see him clinch or strike you.”
“He
