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The Grammar School Boys Snowbound or, Dick & Co. at Winter Sports, a novel by H. Irving Hancock |
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Chapter 9. The Intruder Who Tried To Be "Boss" |
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_ CHAPTER IX. THE INTRUDER WHO TRIED TO BE "BOSS" The heavy door was thrust open--and then the Grammar School boys had the surprise of their lives. No swarm had invaded their camp. Instead a solitary man, clad in heavy overcoat, and with a cap pulled down over his ears, stamped into the cabin. In his astonishment and dismay Dick Prescott could not repress the cry of: "It's Fits--Mr. Fits himself!" "I see you hain't forgot me!" snarled the fellow, as he slammed the door shut, dropped the bar in the place, and then stood with his back to that barrier. "See here, you can't stay here," declared Dick, his eyes flashing. "Can't, eh?" jeered the fellow. "And what's going to stop me?" "We are. You've no business here." "And if I don't see fit to go, my young bantam?" "Then we'll put you out. We're smaller than you are, but there are seven of us--six, I mean," Dick corrected, after a glance at quaking Hen. "You'll find we can take care of you!" "You kids, eh?" laughed Mr. Fits hoarsely. "Why, if you boys started in to climb over me I'd pick you off and scrunch you, like so many ants. Just try it and see!" To make his bragging good, Mr. Fits crossed the cabin, helping himself to the chair by the table. "I see you've got plenty of grub here," the big fellow went on. "I'll bother you to make me some hot coffee and get me the best you have to eat. Step lively, too! Any younker that doesn't move fast enough I'll pick up and swat, and then I'll throw him out in the snow to stay." Saying which, with a savage snort, Mr. Fits rose and took off his overcoat, tossing it on to the next chair. "What are you two whispering about?" demanded the rough intruder, eyeing Prescott and Darrin, who were now at the further end of the log cabin. "Never you mind," Dave retorted tartly. "Don't give me any impudence, younker!" growled Fits. "Then don't talk to us," Dick advised. "I can see that I've got to trim a couple of you," muttered the intruder sourly. "And then, too, I reckon my supper will be coming along faster." "You'll get no supper here," Dick warned him. "I won't, hey? Why not, I wonder?" leered the fellow. "Because we have no poison to mix with the food," Dave retorted. "I'll have that grub, and some good coffee, set on mighty quick!" growled the visitor. "If that doesn't happen, then I'll run you all out into the snow. You won't last long out there, I warrant you! It's a fearful night." "Wait!" begged Hen Dutcher. "I'll wait on you, sir." "No, you won't, Hen," spoke Dick sharply, firmly. "This man doesn't stay here. He's going to leave mighty soon, or he'll wish he had. If you do anything that we can't stand for, Hen, we'll put you outdoors with Mr. Fits." "You wait on me, boy," ordered Fits gruffly. "Yes, sir, I----" "----won't," Dave finished for him snappily. "See here, Hen, you are of no account here. Look out that you don't make yourself too unpopular to be allowed to remain here to-night." "I see that I've got to teach some of you young cubs a lesson," remarked Fits, rising from the chair. "Look out that we don't teach you one!" cried Dick. "Watch him, fellows. If Mr. Fits gets too familiar, then sail into him!" Dick snatched up one hatchet, Greg another. Dan made a rush for the bow and arrow, fitting a steel tipped arrow to the string. Tom Reade espied the crowbar, and reached it in two bounds. Dave Darrin caught up a stick of firewood, Harry Hazelton following suit. Hen Dutcher didn't do anything except to slink away to one side of the big room. His bravery didn't go beyond the risk of telling lies. "If Fits makes a move towards any of us, fellows," commanded Dick, in a tone whose steadiness surprised even young Prescott himself, "then the rest close in on all sides and give this big bully the best you've got." "I wish there was a hatchet for me," growled Dave, whose eyes were flashing dangerously. "Take this one," replied Dick, passing over his own hastily snatched-up weapon. Thereupon Prescott fell back for an instant, darting over to a pile of boxes and picking up the air rifle that had been brought along. "Let's see if this air rifle is working?" pondered Dick aloud. He took quick aim and pressed the trigger. "You dratted little pirate!" roared Mr. Fits, tensing for a leap forward. "I'll show you----" "You'll get a lot more, if you don't quit trying to run things here," Dick threatened coolly. Mr. Fits was waving his right hand aloft. Dick had struck the back of that hand with one of the pellets that the rifle carried in its magazine. The skin wasn't broken on that right hand, but the place stung, just the same, as Mr. Fits well knew. "Hold on! Give him his supper, if he'll quiet down," urged Dave Darrin, aloud, adding, in a whisper to Dick: "And while he's eating it I'll try to find the nearest house, and get men to come down here and grab him." As cautiously as Dave spoke the big fellow heard him. "Oh, you will, will you?" leered Fits. "Younker, how long do you think you'd live in the storm that's going on outside? It's a blizzard. If you don't believe me, go out and see. I'll wait till you come back." For answer Dave ran to the door and opened it. A swirl of snow greeted Darrin in the face, and another big swirl of the white fluff blew in on the floor. "Go right on out in the snow," jeered Mr. Fits. Dave did so, but the other five chums kept their gaze steadily on the unwelcome intruder. "By Jove, fellows," muttered Dave, as he stamped back into the cabin, "the storm has grown so that I don't believe any of us could get through it for a distance of three or four miles." "And you see," continued Mr. Fits, "I stay here to-night for one very good reason, if I didn't have any others. It would be plain manslaughter to make me go out into the storm. I'd simply die in it before going a mile." "The snow is already up over my knees," confirmed Dave Darrin dismally, "and I believe it would be twice as deep before I'd been gone an hour." "So you see it wouldn't be decent to put me out," jeered the big bully, "even if I were afraid of you younkers and your wild west outfit of toy guns and archery." Dave closed and barred the door with a grim tightening around the corner of his lips. "Now I'll trouble you boys to stow your amateur theatrical outfit in a corner and get me a whopping big supper," continued the big fellow, with a grin, as he returned to his former seat. "If you don't----" He paused impressively, then added: "If you don't I'll start something moving here that'll show you who's boss. Or, if you feel too respectable to like my company, then you can all put on your overcoats and step outdoors. Maybe you can find your way to some pleasanter place for the night." "If we could get through the storm," whispered Dick to Dave, "then we might leave him here, and get to help who would come down and grab the scoundrel." "We'd get along all right at the start," muttered Dave, shaking his head. "But I don't believe, the way the blizzard is coming now, that we'd get more than a mile or so before we'd all lie down in the snow and have to give up the fight. You've no idea, Dick, what a howler and piler this storm is. You ought to go out and try it." "If you say it can't be done, Dave, I'll take your word. You've as much sand and fight as any of us." "Supper!" yelled the intruder lustily. "It's the cook's night off," jeered young Prescott. "Oh, it is, hey?" roared the big fellow. "I'll show you." Jumping to his feet, snatching up the chair on which he had been sitting, and holding it above his head, Mr. Fits charged. The crisis in the affair had arrived. _ |
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