The High School Boys' Training Hike Part 23

"Rah, rah, rah!"

With noisy yells the eight young men descended upon the camp.

"Don't you think you'd better steer off?" called Dave, putting himself as much as he could in their way.

"Why, it talks!" cried one of the rah-rah-rah fellows, in mock astonishment.

"Just like a human being!" added a third.

"Wonder what these animals are doing here?" propounded another.

So they invaded the camp, poking their heads in at the tent entrance, examining the wagon with a good deal of curiosity, and poking into the boxes containing the food that d.i.c.k and Greg had just laid out with a view to starting preparations for supper.

"Now, gentlemen," called d.i.c.k, "if you think your curiosity has been sufficiently gratified, do you mind clearing out and letting us alone?"

A variety of mocking replies greeted that proposition.

"We don't like to be disagreeable, you understand," Dave hinted, "but, really, we begin to feel that we have had a great sufficiency of your company, gentlemen."

"What are you going to do about it?" demanded one of the eight intruders rather aggressively.

Dave Darrin doubled his fists, ready to fight, now, at any further provocation. Even good-natured Tom looked about for some sort of club. But d.i.c.k answered, coolly:

"What are we going to do? First of all, we are merely going to suggest for your consideration the idea that gentlemen don't remain where they're not wanted."

"Freshie!" yelled one of the eight contemptuously.

"Toss him in a blanket," advised another.

"We don't mind your presence as much as your bad manners," d.i.c.k remarked coldly. "Will you kindly take your leave?"

"No!" shouted three or four of their tormentors derisively.

Dave, his fists still clenched, bounded forward. One chap, in an especially brilliant blazer, reached out to box Darry on the ear.

That blow never landed, but the tormentor did---on the earth.

_"Eight rainbow hoboes, Looking for life's leaven, One b.u.mped his eyelash, And then there were but seven!"_

improvised Danny Grin joyously.

"Clean out this camp!" yelled one of the others.

"Come on and do it, then!" yelled Tom Reade, losing all patience at last.

d.i.c.k & Co. suddenly presented a solid fighting rank that had accomplished great things on the gridiron. In this formation they advanced toward their tormentors.

There might have been an ugly clash, but one of the eight shouted:

"Come on, fellows! Don't tease the babies. They haven't had their warm milk yet."

Away darted the rainbow eight, Darrin's victim being on his feet by this time and foremost in the retreat.

"Rah, rah, rah!" came back on the air as the high school boys broke a formation for which they had no further need at present.

"Those fellows are plainly guests at the hotel, and we're going to have trouble with them yet," Prescott predicted wisely.

CHAPTER XIII

A SNUB AND THE QUICK RETORT

At half-past five o'clock the next day, d.i.c.k & Co. strolled up to the porch of the Ashbury Terraces Hotel.

From one of the parlors a cry of recognition in a girlish voice floated out. Then appeared the Gridley High School girls, with Susie Sharp in the lead.

"I thought you told us you didn't have any other than your hike clothing with you!" Susie cried accusingly to Tom Reade.

"We didn't. We told you the truth," Reade rejoined.

"Then these-----"

"These new clothes were bought with money from the treasury,"

Reade informed her.

"Does our appearance suit you, ladies?" Greg asked smiling.

"You look like so many tailor's models," replied Belle Meade, adding, sweetly: "If that is any praise."

Certainly d.i.c.k & Co., clad in well-fitting white duck suits, presented a creditable appearance.

"We've been preparing our friends at the Terraces for a different looking lot of young men," laughed Susie. "We have told them that a number of high school boy friends of ours were coming over to dinner and the hop attired in the same clothes they have been wearing in camp and on the road. Now we must apologize to them for presenting fashion plates."

The explanation, as d.i.c.k presently furnished it to Laura Bentley, was a simple one. d.i.c.k had been handling the funds of the six boys on this expedition, which had held out much longer than any of his chums had known. At the time of accepting the invitation young Prescott had felt sure that an Ashbury clothier would be able to furnish proper clothes for his party, and his guess had proved a correct one. Moreover, the treasury of d.i.c.k & Co. had been easily able to endure the drain, for these white clothes had not been costly.

Mrs. Bentley presently joined the little Gridley group of young people on the veranda. That good lady noted, with secret pleasure, the well-groomed appearance of her young guests.

"Rah, rah, rah!" came boisterously up the veranda, as the camp visitors of the evening before suddenly appeared. "Rah, rah, rah!"

Then, halting in a compact group midway on the veranda, they shouted in chorus:

"S-A-U-N-D-E-R-S! Saunders! Saunders! Siss-boom-a-a-ah! Rah, rah, rah!"

"College boys!" exclaimed Susie Sharp in an impatient undertone.

"College boys, and the worst of their kind. They're noisy nuisances!"