Page:Ballinger Price--The Happy Venture.djvu/141

Rh was added to the prostrate figures in the darkening field. Two of them did not long remain prostrate. Ken lurched, bewildered, to his feet, and, seeing his foe stretched by some miracle upon the ground, he bundled Kirk over the wall and followed giddily. Stumbling down the shadowy road, with Kirk's hand in his, he said:

"That was good luck. I must have given the gentleman a crack as he got me."

"He was trying to steal your money, I think," Kirk said. "I was lying on top of you, so I kicked him, hard."

"Oh, that was it, was it?" Ken exclaimed. "Well, very neat work, even if not sporting. By the way, excuse me for speaking to you the way I did, but it wasn't any time to have a talk. You precious, trusting little idiot, don't you know better than to go off with the first person who comes along?"

"He said he'd take me home," Kirk said plaintively. "I told him where it was."

"You've got to learn," said his brother, stalking grimly on in the dusk, "that everybody in the world isn't so kind and honest as the people you've met so far. That individual was going to take you goodness knows where,