“Why don’t you go on with your game?” asked Bar. “Didn’t you hear me say you might? Even if you don’t know how, you’re old enough to learn.” Exasperatingly polite was Bar. Zeb Fuller himself, at his very best, could not have been more so, and again there was a laugh at Zeb’s expense from among the outsiders. Zeb was altogether too popular with his own set, and they had carried things with too high a hand not to have stirred up jealousies against them. As for Hy Allen, there were a dozen of boys, at least, on that green who had felt the weight of his hand at one time or another. It was evident to all the onlookers, as far as appearances went, that neither Bar nor Val had the shadow of a chance in any physical encounter with Hy, and not much more with Zeb Fuller or Bill Jones, but all the more for that there was a strong feeling of admiration for the cool self-possession of the two strangers. Even their somewhat fashionable, citified dress was halfway forgiven them. “Game!” exclaimed Hy Allen, as angry as if he had received some genuine injury. “This is our green. I’ll teach you a game, one you won’t forget right away.” “Give ’em a chance, Hy,” exclaimed Zeb Fuller. “You two, Val Manning and Cash--Bar whatever your name is--go home now and keep your clothes clean. Tell him what a licking you got last time, Val.” “He has,” said Bar, “and he liked it so well, I thought I’d come over and get one like it.” Again the mocking laugh chuckled in Hy Allen’s ears. Bar Vernon was scarcely six paces distant now, with that polite, deferential smile of his, and as Hiram turned again to get a look at his tormentor, Zeb Fuller’s long bottled-up temper got the better, or the worse, of him, and made a sudden rush, as if to grapple with Bar. “Hold him, Val!” shouted Bar, and Val was almost as much surprised as Zeb himself to find that young genius whirled backward into his arms, so that he had only to pin him and hurl him flat upon the grass. Hy Allen had followed his friend almost instantly, and so had Bill Jones, and the “rush” of the former might have had danger in it, he was so big and strong, but he seemed to catch his foot in something, as Bar dodged under his arm, and the next thing he knew, as he lay prone on the grass, Bill Jones came tumbling over him with a very unpleasant-looking nose. The first impulse of the other boys of Zeb Fuller’s set had been to “follow their leader,” but not one of them had the remotest conception of such a thing as the art of boxing, and four or five of them, one after another, went down like so many nine-pins. It really seemed as if Bar Vernon had hardly made an effort, until, as Hy Allen struggled to his feet, there was a sudden bound forward, a cracking “spat” as if something hard hit something else pretty hard, and the redoubtable Hiram was down again.