Page:Dave Porter and his Classmates.djvu/320

294 him on his face in the dirt. Then Dave leaped forward and sat down heavily on the bully's back.

"Ough!" roared Merwell. "Let up! Do you want to break my ribs? Let up, I say!"

"Will you do as I told you to?" demanded Dave, not budging from his position.

"Where do you want me to go?"

"Down into this woods a short distance—away from the roadhouse and the road."

"What for?"

"I'll tell you that when we get there."

Fearing some of his ribs might be broken, Merwell said he would do as Dave desired, and the latter allowed him to rise, but kept a close watch on his every movement. Plum could now see that the boy from Crumville was in deadly earnest and felt it would be useless to talk or interfere, and so followed the two into the woods in silence. Dave brought Merwell to a halt in a little glade surrounded by hemlocks.

"Now, sit down on that stone while I talk to you, Link Merwell," said Dave, pointing to a flat rock. "I shan't take long, but you'll find it to your interest to listen closely to every word I say." And with his handkerchief to the eye that was rapidly closing, the bully sat down.

"In the past you've made a lot of trouble for me and my friends," commenced Dave. "You