"He was meaner than dirt!" burst forth Dirk, fiercely. "To go back on
her like that, after she had saved us from a row with the police, ain't
what I believe in. Why couldn't he have picked up the rag, seeing she
wanted him to? That's what _I_ say. I'd a done it myself if she had
give me the chance."

"That there Dick Bolton can be too mean for anything when he sets out,"
said Stephen, with a grave air of superiority. "I don't go in for
anything of that kind myself. We wasn't none of us much to boast of; but
Dick, he went too fur. I say, Dirk, what do you s'pose all that yarn
means about to-morrow night? And what be we goin' to do about it? Dick,
he said it was all a game to get hold of us somehow, and he wasn't goin'
to have nothin' to do with it."

Had Stephen Crowley desired exceedingly to secure Dirk's vote in favor
to the proposed entertainment he could not, at that moment, have chosen
a better way. Dirk tossed his thick mat of black hair in a defiant
fashion and answered:--

"He needn't have a thing to do with it, so far as I care. I don't know
who'll miss him; but if he thinks he's got all the fellows under his
thumb, and they're goin' to do as he says, I'll show him a thing or two.
_I'm_ a goin' to-morrow night. I don't care what it is, nor what it
is for. She was nice and friendly to us to-day, and I'm willin' to trust
her to-morrow. I shall go up there and see what she does want. It can't
kill a fellow to do that much."

"Then I'm a goin', too," declared Stephen, with decision. "Dick, he
thinks there won't none of us go if he don't; and I'd just like to show