Page:Rover Boys Down East.djvu/52

42 and, of course, very bitter. But they don't dare to come out against you openly."

"Yes—but they can do a whole lot of things behind my back!" groaned Dudd Flockley. "Oh, you don't know what I have suffered since Jerry and Bart ran away! They have written me letters, and they have demanded money"

"Demanded money. Then they are blackmailers, Dudd!"

"Oh, they said I owed them the money on bets. But I didn't—at least, I don't think I did. But I had to give up. At the depot that day I gave them thirty dollars—all I could scrape up."

"Where did they go to?"

"To New York, and from there they are going to Boston and then to some place off the coast of Maine."

"And they wanted you to join them?"

"Yes."

"Don't you do it!" cried Dick, earnestly "Don't you do it, Dudd! Wash your hands of them and refuse to have anything more to do with them."

"I will—if I can," murmured Dudd Flockley. And then, as some other students approached, the talk had to come to an end.