Fred came stealthily out of the yard, after looking back at the house. He went straight up to young Scammon.
"So here ye are, pal," laughed Tip. "Glad ye didn"t keep me waitin".
Ye brought the wherewithal?"
"See here, Tip, you scoundrel," muttered Fred, hoa.r.s.ely, a worried look showing in his eyes, "I"m getting plumb down to the bottom of anything I can get for you."
"I told ye to bring twenty," retorted young Scammon, abruptly.
"That will be enough."
"I couldn"t get it," muttered Fred.
"Now, see here, pal," warned Tip, threateningly, "don"t try to pull no roots on me. Ye can get all the money ye want."
"I couldn"t this time," Fred contended, stubbornly. "I"ve got eleven dollars, and that"s every bit I could get my hands on."
"But I"ve _got_ to have twenty," muttered Tip, fiercely. "Now, ye trot back and look through yer Sunday-best suit. You have money enough; yer father"s rich, an" he gives ye a lot. Now, ye"ve no business spendin" any o" that money until ye"ve paid me what"s proper comin" to me. So back to the house with ye, and get the rest o" yer money!"
"It"s no use, Tip. I simply can"t get another dollar. Here"s the eleven, and you"d better be off with it. I can"t get any more, either, inside of a fortnight."
"See here," raged young Scammon, "if ye think ye can play-----"
"Take this money and get off," demanded Fred, impatiently. "I"m going back home and to bed."
"I guess, boy, it"s about time fer me to see your old man," bl.u.s.tered Tip. "If I hold off until to-morrer afternoon, will ye have the other nine, an" an extry dollar fer me trouble?"
"No," rasped Fred. "It"s no use at all---not for another fortnight, anyway. Good night!"
Turning, Fred sped across the street and back under the shadows at the rear of the lawyer"s great house.
"I wonder if the younker"s gettin" wise?" murmured Tip. "He ain"t smart enough to know that fer him to go to his old man an" tell the whole yarn "ud be cheapest in the run. The old man "ud be mad at Rip, but the old man"s a lawyer, an" "ud know how to lay down the blackmail law to me!"
Feeling certain that he was wholly alone by this time, Tip had spoken the words aloud or sufficiently so for him to be heard a few feet away by any lurker.
Shivering a bit, for he was none too warmly clad, young Scammon turned, making his way up the street.
Fully two minutes after Tip had gone his way d.i.c.k Prescott stepped out from behind the place where Tip had been standing.
There was a queer and rather puzzled look on d.i.c.k"s face.
"So Fred"s paying Tip money, and Tip knows it"s blackmail?" muttered the soph.o.m.ore. "That can mean just one thing then. When Tip held his tongue before and at his trial, last year, he was looking ahead to the time when he could extort money by threatening Fred.
And now Tip"s doing it. That must be the way he gets his living.
Whew, but Ripley must be allowed a heap of spending money if he can stand that sort of drain!"
How d.i.c.k came to be on hand at the time can be easily explained.
Earlier in the evening he had been at "The Blade" office. Mr.
Pollock had asked him to go out on a news story that could be obtained by calling upon a citizen at his home. The story would be longer than d.i.c.k usually succeeded in turning in. It looked attractive to a boy who wanted to earn money, so the soph.o.m.ore eagerly accepted the a.s.signment.
As it happened, d.i.c.k had had to wait a long time at the house at which he called before the man he wanted to see returned home.
d.i.c.k was on his way to "The Blade" office when he caught sight of Tip Scammon. The latter did not see or hear the soph.o.m.ore approaching.
So d.i.c.k halted, darting behind a tree.
"Now, what"s Tip doing down here, near the Ripley place?" wondered Prescott. "He must be waiting to see Fred. Then they must have an appointment. Dave always thought that Tip ambushed me with those brickbats at Fred Ripley"s order. There may be something of that sort in the wind again. I guess I"ve got a right to listen."
Looking about him, Prescott saw a chance to slip into a yard, get over a fence, and creep up rather close to Scammon, though still being hidden from that scoundrel. At last Prescott found himself well hidden in the yard behind Tip.
So d.i.c.k heard the talk. Now, as he hurried back to "The Blade"
office the young soph guessed shrewdly at the meaning of what he had heard.
"Now, what had I better do about it?" d.i.c.k Prescott asked himself.
"What"s the fair and honorable thing to do---keep quiet? It would seem a bit sneaky to go and tell Lawyer Ripley. Shall I tell Fred? I wonder if I could make him understand how foolish and cowardly it is to go on paying for a blackmailer"s silence?
Yet it"s ten to one that Fred wouldn"t thank me. Oh, bother it, what had a fellow better do in a case like this?"
A moment later, d.i.c.k laughed dryly.
"I know one thing I could do. I could go to Fred, tell him what I know, and scare him so he"d fall down in his effort to become the crack pitcher of the nine! My, but he"d go all to pieces if he thought I knew and could tell on him!"
d.i.c.k chuckled, then his face sobered, as he added:
"Fred"s safe from that _trick_, though. I couldn"t stand a glimpse of my own face in the mirror, afterward, if I did such a low piece of business."
Prescott was still revolving the whole thing in his mind when he reached "The Blade" office. He turned in the news story he bad been sent for. As he did so the news editor looked up to remark:
"We have plenty of room to spare in the paper to-night, Prescott."
"Yes? Well?"
"Can"t you give us a few paragraphs of real High School news?
Something about the state of athletics there?"
"Why, yes, of course," the young soph.o.m.ore nodded.
Returning to the desk where he had been sitting, d.i.c.k ran off a few paragraphs on the outlook of the coming High School baseball season.
"Did you write that High School baseball stuff in this morning"s paper, d.i.c.k?" asked Tom Reade, the next day.
"Yes."
"You said that the indications are that Ripley will be the crack pitcher this season, and that he is plainly going to be far ahead of all the other box candidates."
"That"s correct, isn"t it?" challenged d.i.c.k.
"It looks so, of course," Tom admitted. "But why did you give Ripley such a boost? He"s no friend of yours, or ours."
"Newspapers are published for the purpose of giving information,"
d.i.c.k explained. "If a newspaper"s writers all wrote just to please themselves and their friends, how many people do you suppose would buy the daily papers? Fred Ripley is the most prominent box candidate we have. He towers away over the rest of us. That was why I so stated it in "The Blade.""
"And I guess that"s the only right way to do things when you"re writing for the papers," agreed Darrin.