Jabe dashed up on the run. Five feet from Percy he came to a sudden stop and pushed his bulldog jaw out belligerently.
"Well," he growled, scowling darkly, "I've got you at last just where I want you. You can't cry baby now and run to that big, black-haired fellow. I'm going to lick you good!"
Percy stared at his enemy in mild wonder.
But the outward calm of his tones and manner did not betray, even remotely, what was going on beneath. His heart was pumping like an engine, the blood coursed hotly through his arteries, and all over his body his wiry muscles had tensed and knotted. Nine weeks of vigorous life in the open, combined with systematic exercise, taken with the possibility in view of some time squaring his account with Jabe, had made of him an antagonist that even an older, heavier boy might well hesitate to tackle.
Of all this Jabe was ignorant. He saw before him the same fellow he had mastered on the evening of the Fourth, a little browner and clearer-eyed, possibly a little straighter and stouter, but still the same foe his fist had sent to the ground. Jabe knew of no reason why he could not easily repeat his victory, and he burned to do so in the presence of his admirers. Percy's harmless query roused him to unreasoning anger.
"What for?" he mimicked. "What for? Why, because I always intend to finish what I begin; and I had you only half-licked when they pulled me off. Now I'm going to polish you up to the queen's taste. Hustle into that barn!"
Percy allowed himself to be herded through the open door; it might have been noticed, however, that he was careful not to turn his back to Jabe, and that he stepped springily, with his feet well apart. Once inside, he slid his sole over the hayseed that covered the floor; it was no slipperier than the carpet of needles in that glade of the evergreens where he had practised daily with his improvised punching-bag since the second week in July. A quick glance about photographed on his brain the details of the arena in which he was so soon to play the gladiator.
Jabe misunderstood the glance, and it increased his eagerness to begin the fray.
"Afraid, are you?" he sneered. "Looking for some way out? Well, there isn't any besides this door. Line up across it, boys, and trip him if he tries to bolt before I get through with him. The rat's cornered at last, and now he's _got_ to fight. Peel off that coat, Mister! Move quick. I don't want to stop here all day!"