“No, we haven’t been following you,” said Dick.  “We just came from, the college boys’ concert in the hall down the street.”

Jasper Grinder looked as sour as did Dan Baxter.  Then he shook his finger in Dick’s face.

“I haven’t forgotten you, Richard Rover,” he said bitterly.  “And I am not likely to forget you.”

“As you please, Mr. Grinder,” was the cool rejoinder.

“And I shan’t forget you, Jasper Grinder,” put in Sam.  “You were the means of my going to bed with a heavy cold.”

“Bah! it was all put on,” exclaimed Jasper Grinder.  “Had I had my way, I would have kept you in the storeroom all night, and flogged you beside.”

“Captain Putnam did a good thing when he dismissed you,” put in Tom.  “It’s a pity he ever took on such a cold-hearted and miserly fellow.”

“You Rovers think you are on top,” said Dan Baxter savagely.  “But you won’t stay on top long, I’ll give you my word on that.”

“What are you going to do about it?” asked Dick, not without considerable curiosity.

“Never mind; you’ll learn when the proper time comes.”

“Is your dad going to try to break jail again?” asked Sam.

“It’s none of your business what he does—­or what I do, either.”

“We’ll make it our business if you try any of your games on us again,” said Dick.  “We’ve stood enough from you and your kind, and we don’t intend to stand any more.”

“Are you going back to school after the holidays?” asked Dan Baxter, after a pause.

“That’s our business,” answered Tom.

“All right; you needn’t answer the question if you don’t want to.”

“What do you want to know for?” asked Sam.

“Oh! nothing in particular.  I suppose it’s a good place for you to go to.  You are all Captain Putnam’s pets, and he won’t make you do a thing you don’t like, or make you study either, if your father shells out to him.”

“We study a great deal more than you ever studied, Baxter,” said Dick.

“Let them go,” cried Jasper Grinder, in deep irritation.  “I want nothing to do with them,” and he turned his back on the Rovers.

“We’re willing to go,” said Dick.  “But, Baxter, I warn you against doing anything in the future.  You’ll only put your foot into it.”

So speaking, Dick walked away, and Tom and Sam followed him.  Baxter shook his fist at them, and Jasper Grinder did the same.

“They’re a bad team,” said Tom, as they walked to the hotel.  “If they try, perhaps they can give us lots of trouble.”

CHAPTER XI.

Home for the holidays.

“Hurrah!  Here we are again!  How natural Oak Run looks!” exclaimed Tom on the following day, as the long train came to a halt at their station and they piled out on to the narrow platform.

“There is old Nat Ricks, the station master,” said Sam.  “Remember how you nearly scared him to death once by putting a big fire-cracker in the waste paper he was burning and then telling him a yarn about dynamite being around?”