You never did any work in your lives, you're too-----"

"Don't answer them, Dick," said Jack quietly, heading for the middle
of the river. "It won't do any good, and they'll talk all the more.
I don't mind it, and neither should you."

"Come and chuck us in the river, why don't you?" jeered the first of
the boys on shore, Peter Herring by name, and the chief bully of the
school. "You daren't! You're afraid of wetting your pretty clothes.
Yah! what an old tub! You'll never get back with that scow!"

"I'd like to thrash them!" sputtered Percival, who was of an impulsive
disposition. "I'm sorry that they are going to be with us this
summer, but I guess their fathers think they are better off with the
doctor to keep them in check than they would be sporting away their
money at fashionable summer resorts."

"We do not have to be with them any more than we can help, Dick," said
Jack quietly, managing his boat in the deeper water and in a stronger
current as well as he did nearer shore. "They like to stir you up, and
you only please them the more when you answer them."

"If Pete Herring and Ernest Merritt think they can shut me up they
are mistaken," growled Percival. "They are getting ready for a good
thrashing and they'll get it. I am not the only Hilltop boy who is
ready to give it to them. Here comes a steamer, Jack."

"Yes, I see her," said the other quietly. "I will look out for her."

One of the big river steamers was coming up, but Jack kept far enough