Page:Boys of Columbia High on the Ice.djvu/130

116 We'll stop a few minutes to chat. Lanky has got me all worked up about the fellow, too, and I'm wondering if I could ever have met him before. But I'm not going to ask him point blank. Lanky would say I was interfering in his preserves. Let him think it out if he prefers."

The lone fisherman was apparently glad to see Frank.

He seemed a little more cheerful than before. Perhaps things were looking up in hoboland. At any rate he grinned, and when Frank held out his hand he wiped his own palm on his trousers before accepting it.

"I want to thank you for doing us that little favor Saturday morning," said the boy, and the other acted as though a bit confused.

"Oh! you mean about that Lef Seller gang. That's all right. I just happened to hear 'em talkin', and thought I'd like to tell Lanky about it. You fellers acted square toward me the other day; but they talked as if they'd like to jump me if they just dared. I wish they had. I was just achin' for trouble then. Feel a little better now. They's times, you know, when you just seem like nawthin' could fix you up but a scrap; and I ain't a fighter naturally, either," went on Bill, who had resumed the tending of several fish lines he had dropped through holes chopped in the ice.