DACE PERRY'S CRAFTINESS.

The captain of the cross-country team was a shining example of what wrong bringing-up can do for some boys. His doting mother had spoiled him, and his father, a wealthy Denver mining-man, had for years been too busy accumulating money to pay any attention to him. When his wife died, the elder Perry suddenly realized that he had an unmanageable son on his hands.

While his mother lived, Perry had gone the pace. He was only sixteen when she died, but for more than a year he had been traveling in fast company, drinking and gambling, and doing his best to make, what he was pleased to call, a "thoroughbred" out of himself. His doting mother had been lenient and easily deceived. She had stood between Perry and his father, and when the latter occasionally refused to supply the boy with money she would give it to him out of her own allowance.

With the passing of Mrs. Perry all this was changed. Mr. Perry, in order to get Dace away from dissipated Denver companions, shipped him off to Phoenix and left him there in charge of a friend who happened to be the principal of the Phoenix High School. This was a change for the better in some ways. Dace had naturally a splendid physique, and he had an overweening pride in becoming first in high-school athletics, no matter how he might stand in his studies. He cut out the "budge," as he would have called liquor, because it interfered with his physical development; also he cut out smoking for the same reason. But he continued to gamble, and the poor old professor was as easily hoodwinked as Mrs. Perry had been.

Perry, Sr., kept his son rigidly to a small allowance. As a result Dace was always head over heels in debt, for, although an inveterate gambler, he was not much more than an amateur at the game, though learning the tricks of the trade fast enough.

When Matt came to the school he aroused Perry's instant and unreasoning dislike. From the best athlete among the seniors Perry was relegated to the position of second best; and this, for one of his spoiled disposition and arrogant ways, constituted an offense not to be forgiven. Now, for the first time, the strained relations existing between Matt and Perry had come to an open break.

Baffled in his plot to give Matt a thrashing, Perry trotted sullenly and silently back toward the bridge across the canal. Before the bridge was reached his spirits had brightened a little, for his crafty mind had found something in the present situation that pleased him.

"See here, fellows," said Perry abruptly, coming to a halt and gathering his followers around him, "you all saw Matt King throw that stone at Clip, didn't you?"

"It wasn't him," piped Tubbits Drake; "it was Nutmegs, although it looked mighty like King did it."

"I say it was King," scowled Perry.

"Oh, well," grumbled Tubbits, "if you say it was King, all right."

Tubbits was an impecunious brother. He was always trying to borrow two-bits—in other words, a quarter—from his large and select list of acquaintances, and the habit had resulted in the nickname of "Two-bits," later shortened to "Tubbits."

"I say it," went on Perry, "and you've all got to swear to it. Savvy? If any one says anything different, I'll punch his head. Chums are like those French guys in the 'Three Musketeers'—one for all, and all for one. What one chum does, the other has to stand for. King and Nutmegs are chums, see? So, even if King didn't really throw that rock, he'll have to take the consequences on Chub's account. Clip thinks King did it, and there's been trouble. Just let Clip keep on thinking the way he does."

"Sure," said Ratty Spangler. "If anybody wants to know about who shied the rock, we'll all say it was the tenderfoot."

"That's all," responded Perry curtly, and trotted on to the bridge.

Just as Perry had imagined would be the case when he brought about this peculiar understanding concerning the one who threw the stone, Tom Clipperton was on the other side of the canal, waiting for his team-mates to come up with him. Clipperton's scanty running-garb was wet through, but that was a mere trifle and didn't bother him. He had bound a handkerchief about his injured forehead, and was thinking moodily of the easy way in which he had been handled by Matt. Perry went up to him and dropped a friendly hand on his shoulder.

"How're you coming, Clip?" he asked.

Clipperton grunted petulantly, shook off the hand and started along the road. Perry, used to his moods, fell in at his side and caught step with him.

"It was a low-down trick, Clip," said Perry, with feigned sympathy, "but just about what any one could expect from a fellow like King."

"He threw the rock," snarled Clipperton, hate throbbing in his voice. "I didn't see the rock in his hand. When it hit me his hand was in the air. Did any of the rest of you see him?"

"We all saw him make that pass at you!" averred Ratty Spangler. "Didn't we, fellers?"

"We did!" all the rest answered as one.

The breath came sharp through Clipperton's lips. "He'll pay for it," he hissed. "You watch my smoke and see."

"That's the talk!" encouraged Perry craftily. "That tenderfoot ought to be kicked out of the school—he ain't fit for decent fellows to associate with. If that old one-legged freak hadn't pulled a gun on us, Clip, we'd have settled with King for what he did to you right there. How are you going to get even with him?"

"I know how," growled Clipperton. "I'll meet him again. I'll meet him as many times as I have to until I do him up."

"You're too headstrong, Clip," returned Perry, "if you don't mind my saying so. That's no way to make a saw-off with Matt King. Be sly. Go after him in a way he don't expect. That's your cue if you want to get him—just take it from me."

Clipperton turned a half-distrustful look on Perry.

"I'm no coward," he muttered. "Man to man. That's the way to settle everything."

"Sure, when you're dealing with a fellow of the right sort. But what's Matt King? Why, Clip, he was afraid of you from the start, and that's the reason he tried to get in his work at long range with the stone."

"D'you think that?" demanded Clipperton huskily.

"No think about it; it's a lead-pipe cinch. When you balance accounts with a fellow like that go after him in his own way."

"What would you do?"

"You're a crack shot, Clip," observed Perry. "I know that because I saw you making bull's-eyes in the shooting-gallery the other day."

Clipperton looked startled.

"What's my shooting got to do with it?"

"Well," went on Perry, "have you got a gun, or can you get one?"

Tubbits and Ratty Spangler grew morbidly apprehensive.

"Looky here, Dace," demurred Tubbits, "don't let Clip go and do anything rash."

"Don't be a fool," snapped Perry. "I reckon I've got some sense left. Old Peg-leg drew a cannon on us, but I'm too well up in law to advise Clip to pull a gun on anybody—even Matt King." His voice grew friendly and confidential as he went on talking with Clipperton. "Can you get a pistol and stuff it in your pocket when you come to the try-out this afternoon, Clip?"

"Yes," was the reply. "What do you want me to do with it?"

Perry turned to the boys behind.

"Jog along, you fellows," said he; "Clip and I have got business to talk over. And mind," he added, as Tubbits, Spangler and the rest moved off ahead, "keep mum about what you've already heard."

"Mum it is," said the cross-country squad obediently, and drew away from the plotters.

"Matt King had better take to the cliffs and the cactus," remarked Ratty Spangler, with a chuckle. "Ginger, there's going to be doings at the try-out this afternoon. What do you s'pose they want with a gun, Tubbits?"

The uncertainty was just desperate enough to fill Ratty with delightful anticipations. He hoped in his little soul that Perry and Clip wouldn't go far enough to involve the rest of the cross-country team, but he wanted them to be sure and go as far as they could.

"Blamed if I know," answered Tubbits. "I'm shyer of guns than I am of rattlesnakes. When that old skeezicks of a Perkins shook that piece of hardware at us a while ago, I thought I'd throw a fit. Why, the mouth of it looked as big as the Hoosac Tunnel to me. No, thankee, no guns in mine."

"We could jerk him up for that," asserted Ratty. "Say, if we'd have him arrested——"

"Arrest nothin'!" snorted Tubbits. "We'd look pretty small hauling old Perkins up before a judge and then telling why we'd gone back along the canal with Perry. Some things are well enough to leave alone—and that's one of them."

The boys were well into town by then, and the party separated, each going his different way and wondering what was to happen during the afternoon.