The Grammar School Boys Snowbound Part 19

"No, you won't, Hen," spoke d.i.c.k sharply, firmly. "This man doesn't stay here. He's going to leave mighty soon, or he'll wish he had. If you do anything that we can't stand for, Hen, we'll put you outdoors with Mr.

Fits."

"You wait on me, boy," ordered Fits gruffly.

"Yes, sir, I----"

"----won't," Dave finished for him snappily. "See here, Hen, you are of no account here. Look out that you don't make yourself too unpopular to be allowed to remain here to-night."

"I see that I've got to teach some of you young cubs a lesson," remarked Fits, rising from the chair.

"Look out that we don't teach you one!" cried d.i.c.k. "Watch him, fellows.

If Mr. Fits gets too familiar, then sail into him!"

d.i.c.k s.n.a.t.c.hed up one hatchet, Greg another. Dan made a rush for the bow and arrow, fitting a steel tipped arrow to the string. Tom Reade espied the crowbar, and reached it in two bounds. Dave Darrin caught up a stick of firewood, Harry Hazelton following suit.

Hen Dutcher didn't do anything except to slink away to one side of the big room. His bravery didn't go beyond the risk of telling lies.

"If Fits makes a move towards any of us, fellows," commanded d.i.c.k, in a tone whose steadiness surprised even young Prescott himself, "then the rest close in on all sides and give this big bully the best you've got."

"I wish there was a hatchet for me," growled Dave, whose eyes were flas.h.i.+ng dangerously.

"Take this one," replied d.i.c.k, pa.s.sing over his own hastily s.n.a.t.c.hed-up weapon. Thereupon Prescott fell back for an instant, darting over to a pile of boxes and picking up the air rifle that had been brought along.

"Let's see if this air rifle is working?" pondered d.i.c.k aloud. He took quick aim and pressed the trigger.

"You dratted little pirate!" roared Mr. Fits, tensing for a leap forward. "I'll show you----"

"You'll get a lot more, if you don't quit trying to run things here,"

d.i.c.k threatened coolly.

Mr. Fits was waving his right hand aloft. d.i.c.k had struck the back of that hand with one of the pellets that the rifle carried in its magazine. The skin wasn't broken on that right hand, but the place stung, just the same, as Mr. Fits well knew.

"Hold on! Give him his supper, if he'll quiet down," urged Dave Darrin, aloud, adding, in a whisper to d.i.c.k:

"And while he's eating it I'll try to find the nearest house, and get men to come down here and grab him."

As cautiously as Dave spoke the big fellow heard him.

"Oh, you will, will you?" leered Fits. "Younker, how long do you think you'd live in the storm that's going on outside? It's a blizzard. If you don't believe me, go out and see. I'll wait till you come back."

For answer Dave ran to the door and opened it. A swirl of snow greeted Darrin in the face, and another big swirl of the white fluff blew in on the floor.

"Go right on out in the snow," jeered Mr. Fits. Dave did so, but the other five chums kept their gaze steadily on the unwelcome intruder.

"By Jove, fellows," muttered Dave, as he stamped back into the cabin, "the storm has grown so that I don't believe any of us could get through it for a distance of three or four miles."

"And you see," continued Mr. Fits, "I stay here to-night for one very good reason, if I didn't have any others. It would be plain manslaughter to make me go out into the storm. I'd simply die in it before going a mile."

"The snow is already up over my knees," confirmed Dave Darrin dismally, "and I believe it would be twice as deep before I'd been gone an hour."

"So you see it wouldn't be decent to put me out," jeered the big bully, "even if I were afraid of you younkers and your wild west outfit of toy guns and archery."

Dave closed and barred the door with a grim tightening around the corner of his lips.

"Now I'll trouble you boys to stow your amateur theatrical outfit in a corner and get me a whopping big supper," continued the big fellow, with a grin, as he returned to his former seat. "If you don't----"

He paused impressively, then added:

"If you don't I'll start something moving here that'll show you who's boss. Or, if you feel too respectable to like my company, then you can all put on your overcoats and step outdoors. Maybe you can find your way to some pleasanter place for the night."

"If we could get through the storm," whispered d.i.c.k to Dave, "then we might leave him here, and get to help who would come down and grab the scoundrel."

"We'd get along all right at the start," muttered Dave, shaking his head. "But I don't believe, the way the blizzard is coming now, that we'd get more than a mile or so before we'd all lie down in the snow and have to give up the fight. You've no idea, d.i.c.k, what a howler and piler this storm is. You ought to go out and try it."

"If you say it can't be done, Dave, I'll take your word. You've as much sand and fight as any of us."

"Supper!" yelled the intruder l.u.s.tily.

"It's the cook's night off," jeered young Prescott.

"Oh, it is, hey?" roared the big fellow. "I'll show you."

Jumping to his feet, s.n.a.t.c.hing up the chair on which he had been sitting, and holding it above his head, Mr. Fits charged.

The crisis in the affair had arrived.

CHAPTER X

IN THE GRIP OF THE BIG BLIZZARD

d.i.c.k Prescott was squarely in the way. He didn't flinch or dodge, either.

Like a flash he brought the air rifle up for use. But there was nothing wicked in d.i.c.k Prescott. Even against such a foe as this big intruder; d.i.c.k felt that it would be wrong, wicked, to aim for the face of Mr.

Fits.

Instead, d.i.c.k aimed for one of the fellow's legs. The little buckshot went where aimed, but through the thick trousers and underwear the little missile had no painful effect.

"Get back, you lunatic!" quivered Dan, in the same instant, drawing the arrow to the head, ready to let drive.

But at that interesting moment another of the Grammar School boys saved the situation. It was Tom Reade, who, just as Mr. Fits started forward, and was still moving, thrust the crowbar between his legs.

Flop! Fits struck the earthen floor rather heavily, the chair flying over the head of d.i.c.k Prescott and landing beyond.

"Good chance!" cheered Harry Hazelton, bringing down his stick of firewood with a blow that resounded.