But Dick shot fairly past him, dodging slightly, and made a bound for the second party to this wicked conference.

Just beyond the doorway in which this second party had keen standing was a yard that furnished a second means of exit from the alley.

It was this second party to the talk that Dick was after.  He left the other fugitive to his two active, quick-witted chums.  They were swift to understand, and grappled, together, with the rascal fleeing for the street.

The three went down in a scuffling, fighting heap.

Like a flash the fellow that Dick was after seemed to melt into the adjoining back yard.  Prescott, in trying to get in after him in record time, fell flat to the ground just inside the yard.

Yet, as he went down Prescott grabbed one of his fugitive’s trouser legs near the ankle.

“Let go!” hissed the other, in too low a voice to be recognized.

Before Dick, holding on grimly, had time to look upward, the wretch lifted a cane, bringing it down on Dick’s head with ugly force.

CHAPTER X

TIP SCAMMON TALKS—–­BUT NOT ENOUGH

If that ugly blow hadn’t proved a glancing one, Dick Prescott might have been for a long siege of brain fever.

As it was, he was slightly stunned for the moment.

By the time he could leap up and look about him, rather dizzily, his late assailant had made a clean escape.

“No time to waste on a fellow who’s got away,” quoth Dick.

He staggered slightly, at first, as he hurried from the yard back into the alleyway.

“Now, you quiet down!” commanded Dave Darrin hoarsely.  “No more from you, Mr. Thug!”

“Lemme go, or it’ll be worse for ye!” threatened a harsh voice that, nevertheless, had a whine in it.

“What use to let you go, Tip Scammon?” demanded Darrin.  “We know you, and the police would pick you up again in an hour.”

“Lemme go, and keep yer mouth shut,” whined the fellow.  “If ye don’t, ye’ll be sorry.  If ye do lemme go, I’ll pay ye for the accommodation.”

“Yes,” retorted Dave, scornfully.  “You’d pay us, I suppose, with money you picked up in some way resembling the trick you played on Dick Prescott.”

“Well, money’s money, ain’t it?” demanded Tip, skeptically.

“Some kinds of money are worse that dirt,” growled Greg Holmes.

This was the conversation, swiftly carried on, that Dick heard as he stepped back to his friends.

Scammon was lying on his back on the ground, with Dave seated across his chest.  Greg bent back the wretch’s head, holding a short club that the two freshmen had taken away from Tip in the scuffle.

“Where’s the other one, Dick?” gasped Dave, as he saw young Prescott coming back alone.

“He got away,” muttered Dick.  “He hit me over the head, and stunned me for a moment, or I’d be holding onto him yet.”