Down Dick dropped and lay stunned on the floor. Dillon stood looking down at the lad, muttering savagely, while Mat gasped for breath and held both hands on his stomach. Spotted Dan had recovered from the first shock, and now stood, with his hands on his hips and his feet wide apart, watching what transpired. He had not even lifted a hand to take part in the struggle.
"Well, drat the kid!" snarled Dillon. "He sure comes nigh slipping right through our fingers."
"Confound him!" panted Mat, still gasping for breath. "He soaks his knee inter my solar plexus and pretty nigh puts me out."
"Haw! haw! haw!" laughed Spotted Dan, throwing back his head. "Well, you two gents sure has a highly interesting time of it. So that was why yer didn't want me to go for my blanket! So that's what yer had in the back room yer didn't want me ter see! Well, I reckons I has clapped my peepers on this yere youngster before. I opines I smells your little game. I rather jedge I understands why you drops the railroad job. You seems ter strike another job that interests you a heap more."
Without paying any attention to the pockmarked fellow, Dillon bent over the motionless boy, muttering:
"I wonder if I cracks his skull? That certain was a good rap I gave him."
Blood was trickling down from Dick's hair, and on one side of his head was a cut.
"I don't care ef you did finish him!" grated Mat.
"Well, I does," asserted Dillon. "We knocks ourselves out of a good thing ef that happens."
"A good thing," laughed Spotted Dan. "Well, gents, you counts me in on that good thing. You plays no game like this on me, none at all!"
The boy looked up at the two ruffians near him and then struggled to his elbow, his black eyes full of defiance.
"Give me a fair show and I'll try it again!" he weakly exclaimed. "If I'd a fair show then I wouldn't be here now. I was weaponless. You were three to one against me, and still you had to use a weapon to put me down and out."
"Haw! haw! haw!" again roared Spotted Dan. "These yere Merriwells sure is fighters."
"I reckon you found that out in Prescott the first time you met Frank Merriwell," he said.
Dan suddenly stopped laughing and scowled blackly.
"Don't git so personal!" he cried. "Mebbe I don't like it any!"