“Twenty!”

“Thank you,” smiled the auctioneer, nodding in Ripley’s direction.  “Here is a young man of sound judgment and a good idea of money values, as his manner and his whole appearance testify.”

“Someone hold Rip, or he’ll burst,” laughed Greg Holmes in Dick’s ear.

But Fred thought the chums were conferring as to how far they could go with what means the six of them might have at hand.

“They will get going soon,” thought Fred gleefully.

Just then Dick Prescott piped up: 

“Twenty-two!”

“Twenty-two?  Thank you,” bowed the auctioneer.  “Another young gentleman of the finest judgment.  Who says twenty-five?”

“Twenty-three,” offered Fred.

“Twenty-five,” called Prescott promptly.

An instant after Dick had made this bid he felt heartily ashamed of himself.  He hadn’t intended to buy the pony, and didn’t have the money.  He had obeyed a sudden instinct to tease Fred Ripley, but now Dick wished he hadn’t done it.

“Twenty-six!” called young Ripley.

The auctioneer looked at Prescott, but the latter, already abashed at his own conduct, made no further offer.

“Twenty-eight!” called a man in the crowd, who knew that the wealthy lawyer’s son usually got whatever he wanted very badly.  This new bidder thought he saw a chance to get the pony, then later to force Fred to pay a still higher price for the animal.

“Thirty!” called Ripley, with a sidelong glance at Dick & Co.

“Did I hear you offer thirty-five?” queried the auctioneer, singling out Dick Prescott.

But Dick remained mute.  However, in the next instant Greg Holmes, ere Prescott could stop him, blurted out with: 

“Thirty-two!”

“Thirty-four!” called Ripley briskly.

Greg opened his mouth, but Dick nudged him.  “Don’t bid, Greg.  You’d feel cheap if you had to take the pony and couldn’t produce the money,” Dick admonished him.

“Thirty-five!” called the man who had raised the bidding before.

“Thirty-six,” from Ripley.

“Thirty-eight!” called the man.

“Thirty-nine!” offered Fred, though he was beginning to perspire freely.

“Forty!” promptly offered the man.

“Forty-one!” said Fred.

And there it hung.  After three minutes more of hard work on the auctioneer’s part the pony went to Ripley at forty-one dollars.

“I don’t know what my father will say to me for this,” groaned the lawyer’s son.  “But, anyway, Prescott and his crew didn’t get the chestnut pony, and this is the last piece of live stock, so there’s none left for them.”

He cast a triumphant look in the direction of those whom he termed “the mucker boys.”

“Rip was bidding to keep us from getting a look-in!” whispered Tom Reade gleefully.

“That was what I thought,” nodded Dick Prescott.  “That was why I threw in a couple of bids—–­just to make him pay for his meanness.  But I’m sorry I did it.”