“What do you want?” asked the bully, stopping short, with a scowl.
“Wait a minute,” said Dale, and walked up slowly, while Hogan did the same.
“Don’t be all night about it,” put in Reff Ritter.
“What’s this report I heard to-day?” said Dale, facing the bully.
“What report?” asked Baxter, suspiciously.
“About that race on the ice, and all that,” said Hogan. “It’s a queer tale, so it is! Didn’t yez hear all about it at Cedarville?”
“I guess Coulter knows about it,” went on Dale. “He usually knows everything. Did you see the horse?” he demanded.
“The horse?” asked Gus Coulter, puzzled. “What in the world are you talking about?”
“That horse they brought into the school.”
“Certainly he was a beauty,” said Hogan, with a broad laugh. “All painted with that red paint, too. Where did that paint come from, answer me that now?” he demanded, in a whisper.
“I don’t know anything about a horse or any red paint either,” growled Dan Baxter. “Is this a joke?”
“Listen to that!” cried Dale. “Say, you can put on a good front, can’t you?”
“Maybe you don’t know about that ghost business either,” came from Hogan. “Very innocent, so ye are, I must say!” And he winked with his left eye in a most mysterious manner.
“See here, you are talking Greek to me!” roared Baxter. He was anxious to get away. “If you can’t explain I don’t want to talk to you.”
“Emerald, perhaps they don’t know after all,” whispered Dale, but in such a manner that the bully and his friends could hear.
“Be gorry, I hope we haven’t put our foot into it thin!” muttered the Irish cadet. He walked up to Reff Ritter. “Say, forget it!”
“Is that so now? Then so much the better.”
“Oh, you’re trying to fool us!” burst out Dan Baxter. “I don’t want to listen to another word,” and he turned away, and his friends followed him. Dale and Hogan waited a minute and then went back to the Hall, so that the bully and his cronies might not get too suspicious.
“We held ’em up ten minutes,” said Dale. “I hope that helped Pepper and the others out.”
In the meantime Pepper, Andy, and Jack left the Hall by a roundabout way and hurried along the road leading to the Shepard farm. It was quite dark and rather cold, although there was but little wind.
“I see a carriage coming!” exclaimed Jack, presently. “Step back of the bushes and see who is driving it.”