Page:The Rover Boys on the Ocean.djvu/71

Rh all by himself, occupied a garret room of the tenement.

As soon as the door was locked Arnold Baxter faced Dick. "Now will you keep quiet, or shall I knock you over with this?" he demanded, and raised a heavy cane he had grown into the habit of carrying since he had escaped from the hospital, on the very day that the authorities were going to transfer him to the jail at Ithaca.

"Don't you dare to touch me, Arnold Baxter!" cried the boy boldly.

"Will you keep quiet?"

"That depends. What do you want of me?"

"You followed Girk to this place and were spying on us."

"I think I had a right to follow Girk. He is wanted by the authorities, as you know."

"You heard us planning to do something."

"Perhaps I did."

"I know you did."

"All right, then; don't ask me about it."

"You think that you are a smart boy," growled Baxter uneasily.

"Thank you for nothing."

"Don't get impudent."

"That is what old Crabtree used to say."

"The Rovers always were too important for their own good, young man."