Page:Stanwood Pier--Harding of St Timothys.djvu/126

100 dard. There was an intensity of feeling in his suppressed voice that caused Harry, overhearing him, to look up.

"No. What?" asked Herrick, with a scornful laugh.

"You're a dirty, cowardly, tricky player!" said Stoddard, still in a low, deliberate voice. "You tripped Rupert. You broke his leg. You know it."

Herrick looked at Stoddard's white face in sullen silence.

"You say things like that," he answered at last, "and you'll get your head smashed. You need n't think that just because you're so puny you can say anything without getting hurt."

"You ought to be ruled off the field—for keeps," Stoddard retorted, and turned his back.

Harry and three or four others of the eleven, who had been listening in amazement, crowded up to Herrick. "What's he talking about?" "Trip who up?" "You didn't, did you, Joe?"