"Huh!" muttered Greg, as the boys walked down the outer steps. "I'd like to give him something to think about. Why did you get so crusty when I sprang the idea of doing the wreck scene in his flower beds to-night?"

"Because the idea was too kiddish," returned d.i.c.k. "Besides, Old Dut was talking to me a good deal along such lines."

"Did you go and tell him what I wanted to do?" flared Greg.

"I didn't. But Old Dut pinned me down and asked me whether that book throwing were really an accident, and I had to admit that it wasn't.

Now, listen!"

d.i.c.k thereupon repeated his conversation with Princ.i.p.al Jones.

"He's a wise man, all right," nodded Harry Hazelton.

"I guess so," nodded Dave Darrin. "After all, it would look rather kiddish in us to go slipping up to his front yard in the dark night, lifting off his front gate and carrying it down to the river."

"It would be stealing, or wasting, property, also," agreed Tom Reade.

"So, fellows," resumed d.i.c.k, "I guess----"

"Hullo! What's going on down there?" broke in Darrin hastily, as all six of the Grammar School boys looked ahead.

A woman's scream had caught their ear.

"It's Mrs. Dexter," muttered Hazelton.

"And that rascally husband of hers," added Greg Holmes.

"Some new row, of course," broke in Dan Dalzell.

"It's a shame!" burst from d.i.c.k.

"That Dexter fellow ought to be hung," growled Tom Reade. "He's always bothering that woman, and she's one of the nicest ever. But now he won't let her alone, just because her grandfather had to die and leave Mrs.

Dexter a lot of money."

The little city of Gridley was quite familiar with the domestic troubles of the Dexters. The woman was young and pretty, and good-hearted. Abner Dexter, on the other hand, was good-looking and shiftless. He had married Jennie Bolton because he believed her family to be wealthy, and Dexter considered himself too choice for work. But the Bolton money had all belonged to the grandfather, who, a keen judge of human nature, had guessed rightly the nature of Abner Dexter and had refused to let him have any money.

Dexter had left his wife and little daughter some two years before the opening of this story. Three months before old man Bolton had died, leaving several hundred thousand dollars to Mrs. Dexter. Then Dexter had promptly reappeared. But Mrs. Dexter no longer wanted this shiftless, extravagant man about, and had told him so plainly. Dexter had threatened to make trouble, and the wife had thereupon gone to court and had herself appointed sole guardian of her little daughter. At the same time she had turned some money over to her husband--common report said ten thousand dollars--on his promise to go away and not bother her again.

Plainly he had not kept his word. As d.i.c.k and his chums glanced down the quiet side street they saw husband and wife standing facing each other.

The man was scowling, the woman half-tearful, half-defiant. Behind her, in her left hand, Mrs. Dexter held a small handbag.

"I'd like to be big enough to be able to enjoy the pleasure of thrashing a fellow like that Dexter!" growled Dave Darrin, his eyes flashing.

"There's a man standing a little way below the pair," announced d.i.c.k. "I wonder what he's doing, for he seems to be watching the couple intently.

I hope he's on Mrs. Dexter's side."

Unconsciously d.i.c.k and his friends had halted to watch the proceedings ahead of them.

"No, I won't," replied Mrs. Dexter sharply, to something that her husband had said.

Abner Dexter talked rapidly, a black scowl on his face meanwhile.

"No, you won't! You don't dare!" replied the woman, her voice sounding as though she had summoned all her courage by an effort.

Dexter suddenly sprang closer to the woman. The next instant both were struggling for possession of the little black bag that she carried.

"Stop!" cried Mrs. Dexter desperately. "Help! He-lp!"

"Fellows, I don't know that we're bound to stand for that," muttered d.i.c.k Prescott quickly. "She's calling for help. Come along."

d.i.c.k was off down the street like a streak, the others following, though Dave was closest to his chum.

"Here, what are you doing, mister?" demanded d.i.c.k, as he darted up to where the pair were struggling.

Dexter would have had the bag in his own possession by this time, had he not turned to see what the onrush of boys meant.

"None of your business what I'm doing," he replied savagely. "You schoolboys run along out of this."

"Don't go! Help me," pleaded the woman. "He's trying to rob me!"

"You boys clear out, or it will be worse for you!" growled Dexter.

"The lady wins!" d.i.c.k announced coolly, though he was shaking somewhat from excitement. "You let go of her and her property."

But Dexter, his face black with scowls, still clutched tightly with his right hand at the little handbag, to which Mrs. Dexter was clinging with both her hands.

"You let go of that bag," challenged d.i.c.k, "or six of us will sail into you. I think we can handle you. We'll try, anyway."

"Yes; make him let go," begged Mrs. Dexter. "I have money and jewels here, and he is trying to take them away from me."

"Going to do as the lady wishes?" inquired d.i.c.k, stepping closer.

Abner Dexter shot another angry glare at the s.e.xtette of Grammar School boys. They were closing in around him, and it looked as though they meant business.

"Gus!" called Dexter sharply.

The man who had been standing a short distance away now ran up to the spot.

"Hullo, what do you want!" asked d.i.c.k coolly. "Are you the understudy in this game of robbery?"

"I'm an officer," retorted the fellow sharply.

"Secretary to some Chinese laundry company, eh?" jeered d.i.c.k.

"I'm a police officer," retorted the man sharply, at the same time displaying a shield.

That put a different look on matters with some of young Prescott's friends. d.i.c.k, however, was a boy not easily daunted.

"If you're an officer," he inquired, "why don't you get busy and do your duty? Here's a man trying to rob his wife, just because she happens to have more money than he has."