Dave Porter at Star Ranch | Page 7

a trifle pale. "Step behind here!" he called to Phil
and Roger, and pulled them back of some handy bushes.

The horse and buggy soon came up to them and passed on, the three
boys keeping out of sight until the turnout was gone. Dave gave a deep
sigh.
"I guess Mr. Poole means business," he said.
"What do you mean?" questioned the senator's son.
"I mean he is going to have me locked up."
"Why?" asked Phil.
"That man in the buggy with him was Mr. Mardell, the police justice."
CHAPTER III
AN INTERVIEW OF INTEREST
"Well, I shouldn't go back home until your father and your uncle
return," said the senator's son. "Then, if you are arrested, they'll know
exactly what to do."
"It's too bad it happened!" murmured Dave. "I wish I had gotten off to
the West without seeing Aaron Poole. But I suppose there is no use in
crying over spilt milk. I'll have to face the music, and take what
comes."
The three lads went on, and presently came in sight of the farm where
Caspar Potts and Dave had once resided. The ground was now being
cultivated by the man who had the next farm, and the house was
tenantless.
"I've got the key of the house," said Dave. "If you'd like to take a look
inside I'll unlock the door. But it's a very poor place--a big contrast to
the Wadsworth residence."
"And so you used to work here, Dave?" said Phil, gazing around at the
fields of corn and wheat.

"Yes, I've plowed and worked these fields more than once, Phil. And in
those days, I didn't know what it was to have a nice suit of clothes and
good food. But Professor Potts was kind to me, even if he was a bit
eccentric."
"It was a grand thing that you found your folks--and your fortune," said
Roger.
"Yes, and I am thankful from the bottom of my heart."
The three boys entered the deserted house, and Dave showed the way
around. There was the same little cot on which he had been wont to
stretch his weary limbs after a hard day's work in the fields, and there
were the same simple cooking utensils with which he had prepared
many a meal for himself and the old professor. Conditions certainly had
improved wonderfully, and for the time being Dave forgot his trouble
with Aaron Poole. No one could again call him "a poorhouse nobody."
From the cottage the boys walked to the barn. As they entered this
building they heard earnest talking in the rear.
"You are a mean lad, to tease an old man like me!" they heard, in
Caspar Potts's quavering tones. "Why cannot you go away and leave
me alone?"
"Don't you call me mean!" came in Nat Poole's voice. "I'll do what I
please, and you can't stop me!"
"I want you to leave me alone," reiterated the old professor.
"I will--when I am done with you. How do you like that, old man?"
And then Nat Poole gave a brutal laugh.
"Oh! oh! Don't smother me!" spluttered Caspar Potts. "Please leave me
alone! You have ruined my clothes!"
"I wonder what's up?" said Dave to his chums, and ran through the barn
to the rear. There he beheld Caspar Potts in a corner. In front of him

stood Nat Poole, holding a big garden syringe in his hands. The syringe
had been filled with a preparation for spraying peach trees, and the son
of the money-lender had discharged the chalk-like fluid all over the
aged professor.
"Nat Poole, what are you up to!" cried Dave, indignantly, and, leaping
forward, he caught the other youth by the shoulder and whirled him
around. "You let Professor Potts alone!"
"Dave!" cried the professor, and his voice showed his joy. "Oh, I am
glad you came. That young man has been teasing me for over a quarter
of an hour, and he just covered me with that spray for the peach-tree
scale."
"What do you mean by doing such a thing?" demanded Dave. "Give me
that syringe." And he wrenched the article from the other youth's grasp.
He looked so determined that Nat became alarmed and backed away
several feet.
"Don't you--you--er--hit me!" cried the money-lender's son.
"What a mean piece of business," observed Roger, as he came up,
followed by Phil. "Nat, you ought to be ashamed of yourself!"
"Oh, you shut up!" grumbled Nat, not knowing what else to say.
"I always thought you were a first-class coward," put in Phil. "Now I
am sure of it."
"This is none of your affair, Phil Lawrence!"
"I should think it was the affair of any person who wanted to see fair
play," answered the shipowner's son.
"Nat, you take your