"But we don't want to go to fighting on Sunday, if there's any
way to avoid it," young Prescott urged, at which four of his chums
nodded their heads approvingly.

"I'm not looking for any fight, either," muttered Dave. "Yet
it goes against the grain to halt just in order to let that gang
slip by without seeing us."

"There are five of us against your single vote, Darry," Dick reminded
him. "Let us have our way."

"Well, we don't need to skulk, do we?" queried Dave.

"Oh, no," Dick assured him. "All we will do is to keep quiet
and not bring on a fight with that tough lot."

"Huh!" muttered Darrin, as though he could not see the difference
between that and skulking.

Presently, after holding a hand behind him to signal silence and
stealth, Prescott started on in the lead. He wanted, if possible,
to see just where Ripley, Dodge and their crowd went, so that
the Grammar School boys would not run too suddenly into them.
The "Co." trailed on in Indian file behind their leader.

Finally Dick halted again, his chums crowding on his heels. They
looked out into a clearing beyond. There, amid trees, stood a
small three-room house, looking still quite new in its trim paint,
though the building had stood there idle for some five years.