During all this time Matt saw very little of Clipperton. Whenever they met, which they were bound to do occasionally, Clipperton threw back his shoulders and scowled blackly. Ratty Spangler, Tubbits Drake and a few more of Perry's friends not only kept their hostile attitude toward Matt, but influenced some of the other students to come over to their side. But Matt was not lacking for friends. Splinters formed himself into a committee of one and passed around a true version of the affair by the canal. Splinters, of course, knew nothing about the matter of the rock, but he knew enough to turn the best boys in the school against Perry.
The Prescott Athletic Club, with several hundred Prescott rooters, was to come to Phoenix by special train on Saturday forenoon. On the afternoon of Friday, the day preceding the "big meet"--as all loyal Phoenix and Prescott people called the athletic event--Matt got back from the track to find a letter waiting for him on the table in his room.
Mrs. Spooner explained that she had found the missive pushed under the front door, and hadn't the least idea who had left it. Matt stared when he opened the letter and began to read. It was from Tom Clipperton, and was very much to the point.
"MATT KING: You think you're a better man than I am. I'll give you another guess. We can settle our differences in one way. Man to man. Come alone to the place where you threw me into the canal. Make it 9 o'clock to-night. Either I'll give you the worst thrashing you ever had, or you'll give one to
"It's a challenge," muttered Matt grimly. "I don't want to fight the fellow--it will only make a bad matter worse. I'll have to, though, unless I can talk with him and tell him a few things he'll believe. Clip is not half bad at heart, and if he'd only get rid of some of his foolish notions, and stay away from Perry, he'd make a mighty good chum."
Crumpling up the note, Matt threw it into a waste-basket.
"I'll have to give him a licking, though, if he won't have it any other way," he added under his breath.
The McReady home was only a little way from the place of meeting selected by Clipperton. It was about half-past seven when Matt left Mrs. Spooner's, intending to call on Chub, and leaving in time to meet Clipperton on the bank of the canal at nine.