“You will pay for the violin, and a good round sum, too!” asserted the youth, doubling up his fists and advancing toward Frank, who stood beside his wheel, holding the broken instrument. “This woodland belongs to my father, and no one has a right to come up the path except members of our club. If you hadn’t been trespassing, you wouldn’t have run into the violin!” “I was going to assure you of my regret at having damaged the instrument, and of course I am willing to do whatever is right to make good your loss,” Merriwell continued, smiling lightly and deceptively. “But I still insist that a place like this is no spot for you or any one else to leave a violin. I presume you speak of the athletic club down by the lake?” The youth’s face showed scorn now, as well as anger. “Those Lilywhites? Not on your life I don’t! I was speaking of the Blue Mountain Athletic Club. Our cottages are right back here among the trees. You can see them from that bend. As for the violin, I was playing it a while ago, and jumped and left it here when one of the boys called me, expecting to come back in a minute——” Again there was a movement in the bushes, with the sound of hurrying feet, and a voice shouted: “Hello, Hammond! What’s the matter out there?” Then half a dozen boys, attired like the owner of the violin, hurried into view. Merriwell’s friends crowded closer to him when they saw this array of force, and Rattleton was heard to mutter something about Frank’s punching the violinist’s head. “I don’t think there is any need of a quarrel here,” declared Jack Diamond, pushing forward. “Here, you fellows! I’ve been bragging all day to Merriwell and my other friends about the big-heartedness of the people of Virginia. I’m a Virginian myself, and I believed what I said. I hope you won’t insist on doing anything that will make me want to eat my words!” The statement was not without effect. “He must pay me for the violin!” growled Hammond. “I can’t afford to have an instrument like that smashed into kindling, and just let it go at that. As for this land, it is my father’s, and very few people besides members of our club go along the path.” “Then the path is not wholly private?” queried Frank. “I am glad to know that.” “And he as good as said he was to blame for leaving the thing where he did!” exclaimed Harry Rattleton. “I don’t think he is entitled to a cent.” “Come, come!” begged Diamond, again assuming the part of peacemaker, though he was raging inwardly at the belligerent Virginia boys. “We expect to stop a few days in Glendale, and we can’t afford to be anything but your friends, you know. What is the violin worth?” “A hundred dollars!” Hammond announced, though in reality the instrument had cost him only twenty. “I doubt if I could get another as good for double that sum.”