They did not see the figure of another boy, in a gingham shirt, blue overalls, and a torn straw hat, sitting on a stone back of Mealy, smiling complacently.  Not until the stranger walked down to the water’s edge where Mealy sat did the other boys spy him.

“Who is it?” asked Abe.

“I never saw him before,” replied Jimmy Sears.

“Oh, I’ll tell you who it is,” returned Abe, after looking the stranger over.  “It’s the new boy.  Him an’ his old man come to town yesterday.  They say he’s a fighter.  He licked every boy in the Mountain Jumpers this mornin’.”

By this time the new boy was standing over Mealy, saying, “How you gittin’ along?”

Mealy looked up, and said with the petulance of a spoiled child, “Hush your mouth, you old smartie!  What good d’t do you to go an’ tie my clo’es?”

Piggy and Jimmy and Abe came hurrying to the landing.  They heard the new boy retort, “Who said I tied your clo’es?” Mealy made no reply.  The new boy repeated the query.  Mealy saw the boys in the water looking on, and his courage rose; for Mealy was in the primary department of life, and had not yet learned that one must fight alone.  He answered, “I did,” with an emphasis on the “I,” as he tugged at the last knot.  The new boy had been looking Mealy over, and he replied quickly, “You’re a liar!”

There was a pause, during which Mealy looked helplessly for some one to defend him.  He was sure that his companions would not stand there and see him whipped.  One of the boys in the water said diplomatically, “Aw, Mealy, I wouldn’t take that!”

“You’re another,” faltered Mealy, who looked supplication and surprise at his friends, and wondered if they were really going to desert him.  The new boy waded around Mealy, and leaned over him, and said, shaking his fist in the freckled face, “You’re a coward, and you don’t dast take it up and fight it out.”

Mealy’s cheeks flushed.  He felt anger mantling his frame.  He was one of those most pitiable of mortals whose anger brings tears with it.  The last knot in the shirt was all but conquered, when Mealy bawled in a scream of passionate sobs,—­

“When I git this shirt fixed I’ll show you who’s a coward.”

The new boy sought a level place on the bank for a fight, and sneered, “Oh, cry baby! cry baby!  Say, boys, where’s its bottle?”

[Illustration:  “Say, boys, where’s its bottle?”]

Mealy rose with a stone in each hand, and hobbled over the pebbles, trying, “Touch me now!  Touch me if you dare!”

“Aw, you coward! drop them rocks,” snarled the new boy.

Mealy looked at his friends imploringly.  He felt lonely, deserted, and mistreated, but he saw in the faces of his comrades the reflection of the injunction to put down the stones.  He did so, and his anger began to cool.  But he whimpered again, “Well now, touch me if you dare!”