He paused to give a last cut, and the vine came free; then he began to slice off a few trailing side roots, so as to make a pretty fair rope out of it. After which he started to speak again.

"He was awful mad, Fenton, I give you my word. Never saw him in such a temper. And the way he hauled me over the coals was scandalous, too.

Said he'd think up what he'd have to do with me for punishment, over night. Also said everything was going crooked with him at once. Well, I just made up my mind I wouldn't stay around home, any longer; but skip out till the breeze blew over. And I also thought up a bully good scheme to bring the old man to terms. Huh! you ain't the only one that's got brains, Fenton, if you do think so."

Again he paused, as if to give emphasis to his words. Fred was waiting anxiously, to learn what Buck had decided to do. If only he would lower that vine, he felt sure he could pull himself out in ten seconds.

"I happened to remember that we had a relative somewhere up in this region; and so I just made up my mind to disappear for a little while myself. It's in the air you see, even you've got the fever. And I'd play a winning card on the governor by taking with me something he set considerable store on. A day or two'd bring him to terms; and I reckoned he'd promise to let up on me, in order to get back--there, how d'ye think that'll answer, Fenton?"

He held up the stout vine. Fred could see it plainly, for the bright sky was beyond. It seemed to be at least ten feet in length, and as thick as one's wrist.

"That ought to do the trick finely, Buck," he remarked, pleasantly, just as if he did not have the slightest doubt in the world but that the other fully intended pulling him out of the hole.

"Do you think you can hold on?" asked Buck, beginning to lower away with tantalizing slowness, as though he enjoyed keeping Fred on the anxious seat.

"Sure I can, once I get a good grip. Just a foot or so more, Buck, and then I will be able to reach it. And let me tell you, it's good of you to help a fellow like this. They'll say so in town when they hear about it, Buck."

"Think so, do you?" went on the other, as he suddenly allowed the vine to drop until it touched the hands extended, when it was instantly withdrawn again.

"Oh! don't you wish you could grab it, Fenton?" mocked the grinning bully.

CHAPTER XVII

AN UNEXPECTED ALLY

Fred felt a bitter sense of disappointment when he found that the bully did not have the slightest intention of helping him get out of the limestone pit. When Buck s.n.a.t.c.hed the vine away, he understood plainly enough that all of his slow work in cutting the trailer had been a farce. The cunning bully had done it just to work up his old-time rival with false hopes.

"You don't seem so mighty glad to get a helping hand, Fenton?" sneered Buck, as he failed to get a "rise" to repeated false casts.

"I'd take it quick enough, if I thought you meant to help me out, Buck,"

Fred observed, grimly.

"Well, I like that, now," tormented the other. "Here, look at me borrowin' a knife, and going to all that trouble to trim that vine off; and now he just throws it up to me that he don't put any faith in me.

Seems like they all look on poor old Buck Lemington with suspicion.

Everything that goes crooked in the old village they blame on him, too.

It's a shame, that's what; and d'ye know, Fred Fenton, I somehow feel like you're to blame for most of my troubles."

"I don't see how you make that out, Buck," remarked Fred.

"Up to the time you blew in here things sorter worked pretty nice with me. The fellers never gave me much trouble; and Flo Temple, she used to be glad to have me take her to places. But all that changed when Fred Fenton struck town. Since then I've had the toughest luck ever. And sure, I just ought to love you for all you done for me; but I don't happen to be built that way; see?"

Fred made no answer. What was the use of his appealing to a fellow who had hardened his heart to every decent feeling? Plainly Buck only talked for the sake of hearing his enemy plead; and Fred was determined he would not lower himself any more, to ask favors of this vindictive boy.

"Now, I didn't have anything to do with you getting caught in such a pretty trap, and you know it just as well as I do, Fenton. If they say so in town, you'd better set 'em straight. There are a few things happens that Buck Lemington ain't responsible for, and this here's one of the same."

He waited, as if expecting a reply, but Fred had his lips grimly set, and would not utter one word; so presently Buck went on:

"Now, seein' that I didn't do you this sweet trick, I'm not responsible if you stay there all night; am I? Think I want to take the chances of bein' pulled in, when you try to climb out? Huh! bad enough for one to be in that lovely trap, without a second guy dropping over. Guess not.

I'll just be goin' on my way. If I happen to run across any of the boys, which ain't likely, I might whisper to 'em that their new chum, Fred Fenton, wants help the worst kind."

He actually threw the vine into the hole, as though to show that his mind was made up. Fred lost all hope. He must face the unpleasant prospect of remaining all night in that cold place, shivering, as drowsiness threatened to overtake him, and trying to keep warm by exercising every little while.

He shivered now at the very prospect. However would he pa.s.s that terribly long night, when minutes would drag, and seem to be hours?

"Here, keep back, you!" Buck suddenly roared; and Fred started, although he immediately realized that the other must be addressing his remark to the comrade he had spoken of as having accompanied him. "Want to slip, and drop down into the old hole along with this silly? And then I'd just _have_ to get him out, before he'd let me save you. Keep back, I tell you!"

"Buck, you'll be sorry you did this," Fred broke his silence to make one last appeal, though he was determined not to demean himself, and "crawl"

as Buck himself would call it.

"Hey! what's this? Are you really threatenin' me?" demanded the other, hotly.

"I didn't mean it that way," Fred answered. "What I wanted to say, was that you'd be sorry later on you didn't try to pull me out. You see I haven't hardly any clothes on; and it's cold and damp down here. Chances are, that if I stay here through the whole night I'll get my death of cold."

"Well, what's that to me?" said the other, gruffly; though Fred thought he saw him hesitate a little, as if appalled at the prospect. "I didn't throw you down there, did I? Can't shove any of that blame on me, eh? If I hadn't just happened to stroll this way, I'd never even knowed you was in such a fix."

"But you do know it," said Fred, "and everybody will say it was up to you to help me out, after you found me here. That makes you responsible, Buck, in the eye of the law. I've heard Judge Colon say as much. A knowledge of the fact makes you a party to it, he told a man he was talking to. I'm going to ask you once more to take hold of this vine when I hold it up, and let me pull myself out."

He did raise the rope subst.i.tute, but Buck declined to accept his end of it.

"I don't see why I ought to give you a hand, Fenton," he remarked, coldly. "I've stood a lot from you, and as I said before, since you came to town things have all gone wrong with me, so I never do have a good time any more. I blame you for it. Yes, and right now it's you more'n any other feller that's got me kicked out of my own home."

"Now I don't understand what you mean there, Buck?" remonstrated Fred, still holding the end of the vine upward invitingly, though with small hope that the other would take hold.

"All right, I'll just tell you, then," Buck replied, almost savagely.

"Who led the party that found Colon? You did. Who found a track of a shoe, with a patch across the sole, on the spot where Colon said he was nabbed by a bunch of fellers with red cloth over part of their faces?

Why, Freddy again, to be sure. And hang it all, my shoe did have just such a patch! That's what they told my dad; and brought it all home to me."

Fred was silent again. He saw that things were working against him once more. If Buck felt this way about it, all his endeavors to induce the other to lend his aid were bound to be useless.

"Now, here's a right fine chance for me to get even with you, Fenton, without taking any risk myself; because I didn't have anything to do with knocking you into this hole. You took care of that part yourself; and let me tell you now, you did me the greatest favor in the world when you slipped, and dropped through these bushes and weeds into the pit."

"Buck! oh, Buck!" said a trembling voice from somewhere back of the bully.

"You dry up!" exclaimed Buck. "You've got no say in this game, let me tell you! Good-bye, Fenton; I reckon I'll be going now. Hope you can keep exercisin' right hearty all through the night; it'll be some chilly if you let up, I'd think. And if I happen to see any of your chums, an'

they ask questions, why, I might let 'em know I heard _somebody_ yelping away up this way--thought it was kids playin', but it _might_ be you calling for help."

"Then you're going to desert me; are you, Buck?" asked Fred, beginning to himself feel angry at the base intentions of the other.

"I wouldn't put it that way," jeered Buck; "I'm just mindin' my own business, you see. Not long ago you told me never to poke my nose in your affairs again. I ain't a-goin' to; I'm follerin' out your own instructions, Fenton. n.o.body c'n blame me for doin' that; can they?"

"But you mustn't leave him there, brother Buck!" cried a voice at that juncture, and Fred suddenly realized that the partner of the bully's flight, and through whom he hoped to bring his angry father to terms, was little Billy, his younger brother, for whom it was said Buck felt more affection than he did for any other person on the face of the earth.

"Well," Buck went on to say, "I'm going to do that same, no matter what you or anybody else says; and so you'd just better be getting along out of this, Billy. It ain't none of your business what happens to Fred Fenton, I guess."

"But it is some of my business," insisted the smaller boy, who had by degrees pushed his way forward, in spite of his big brother's warning, until Fred could see his head projecting beyond the rim of the pit.