Page:Dave Porter and his Rivals.djvu/198

182 the owner of the ice-houses finds this out he'll make you pay for the busted slide."

"Well, I think we ought to pay for it, anyway," answered Dave, quickly. "We broke it."

"Huh! I wouldn't pay a cent unless I had to," grumbled the money-lender's son.

"What about our lanterns?" asked Roger.

"That's so!" exclaimed Ben. "They are all up in the ice-house, or down in the sawdust pit."

"We can't leave them there,—they may set fire to something," said Phil.

"We'll have to get them," decided Dave.

"Oh, but that's dangerous!" cried one of the students who had just been initiated. "Why, the slide might come down just as we were getting the lanterns!"

"Yes, and I don't want to be killed for the sake of four or five lanterns," added another.

"It's not a question of the worth of the lanterns," said Dave. "We mustn't leave them here because of the danger of fire. If we left them, and the ice-houses burnt down, we'd have a nice bill to pay!"

"Oh, don't croak so much!" growled Nat Poole. "I'm going back to school. It's cold here."

"You stay where you are, Nat!" cried Ben, catching him by the arm. "You'll go back with the rest of us, and not before."