They were four to two, a rather top-heavy arrangement, Frank thought, as he backed a little, so as to keep any of the fellows from getting behind him. Outwardly he seemed fairly calm, though his eyes were flashing with the spirit of defiance that moved his soul. “You know as well as anything, Fredericks,” he said, coldly, “that if I’d had any idea this was your boat, nothing could have tempted me to come in here, or bother you at all. But your friend told us it was his boat, and that he was traveling all alone, except for the man who was mending the engine out there.” “Oh! well, Benedict only did what I asked him to do, when I saw that it was your crazy old tub coming in to tie up here,” replied the other, with a careless shrug of his shoulders. “Looked as if fortune wanted to just play the whole thing right into my hands; for I was hoping this very afternoon you’d happen along, as things began to seem dull.” “Well, what are we to believe about this; is it a sort of trap, and do you expect to jump on us, now you’ve got us in here?” asked Frank. Apparently the other was surprised to see him take it so coolly. Perhaps he had even hoped to hear Frank Langdon beg to be let off without any trouble. “Well, you see, the chance to even up old scores is a fine one, since we’re two to your one,” the other remarked, bitterly. “So far as I know, there are no scores to settle,” said Frank. “I never knowingly wronged you, or tried to interfere with your business when in college. In fact, on several occasions, I’ve even left a group of fellows when you came along, because I didn’t want to have any trouble.” “Yes, and that’s one of the things I’ve got against you, Langdon,” declared Oswald, with a scowl. “It looked as if you felt a contempt for me, and couldn’t even bear to be seen in my company. Some of the fellows said as much, and told me I was foolish to stand for it.” “But you surely knew yourself that it was never intended that way, Fredericks. I wanted to be left alone to go my own way, and I knew that some fellows had made up their minds to bring us to blows. Now, fighting isn’t at all to my taste, though I’m sorry to say I’ve had to do my share of it in my day. Just forget that there’s such a fellow as Frank Langdon alive, and I’m sure you’ll never know otherwise for all of me.” “He’s squealing, Ossie!” exclaimed Duke Fletcher. “Yes,” broke in the second college chum, Raymond Ellis, “because we’ve got him penned up here, where we can give him what he ought to have gotten long ago, he sets up a whine that he looks on fighting as a moral sin, and doesn’t want to indulge in it.” Frank laughed in the face of this chap.