“Kid, you’re going to be all right; you’ve got your horse-sense with you,” glowed Ben Badger, as he hurried Dick back under a tree.  “Let me see what I can do to stop your nose running quite so red.”

Soon the summons came that took the combatants back to the imaginary ring.  Again they went at it, both sides cautious, for Ripley was puzzled and a bit afraid.  He had not expected this little freshman to last for a second round.  Before the second call of “time” came Ripley had managed to land two stinging ones on Dick’s left cheek, but the freshman did not go down, nor even wilt under this treatment.  He was proving the fact that he could “take punishment.”  Yet Dick did not land anything that hurt his opponent.

“You didn’t half try this time,” whispered Ben, as he attended his man in the “corner” under the tree.

“Come on, mucker!” yelled Ripley, derisively, when the two were summoned for the third round.

“Speak for yourself, fellow,” Dick answered, coolly.

“I’m a gentleman, and a gentleman’s son,” proclaimed Fred, haughtily.  “You’re a mucker, and the son of a mucker!”

“Time!”

Dick could stand an ordinary insult with a fair amount of good nature, when he despised the source of the insult.  But now there was a quiet flash in his eyes that Badger was glad to see.

Ripley started in to rush things.  In quick succession he delivered half a dozen stout blows.  Only one of then landed, and that glancingly.  Ripley was puzzled, but he had no time to guess.  For Dick was not exactly rushing, now.  He was merely fighting in close, remembering that he had two striking hands, and that feinting was sometimes useful.

“A-a-a-h!” The murmur went up, eagerly, as the onlookers saw Prescott land his right fist in solid impact against Ripley’s right eye.  Bump!  Before Ripley could get back out of such grueling quarters Dick had landed a second blow over the other eye.  Ripley staggered.  A body blow sent him to his knees.  Dick backed off but a few inches.

“One, two, three, four, five, six-----” droned off the timekeeper.

Fred Ripley tried to leap up, but, as he did so, Dick’s waiting left caught him a staggering one on the nose that toppled him over backwards to the ground.

“One, two, three-----” began the timekeeper, but suddenly broke
off, to call time.

“Prescott, you’re a bird!” declared Ben Badger, exultantly, as he led his man away.

“I wouldn’t have gone for him so hard,” muttered Dick.  “But the fellow started to get nasty with his mouth.  Then it was time to let him have it.”

Frank Thompson went over to Ripley, to see whether the latter wanted to continue the fight.

“That mucker took an unfair advantage of me, hitting me when I was getting up,” grumbled Fred, who now looked a good deal battered.

“Prescott was right within the rules,” declared Thompson.  “You would have done the same thing if you had had the chance.”