“You won’t keep off?”

“No.”

“If you don’t I —­ I’ll shoot you.”

As Dan Baxter spoke he stopped rowing and brought from a hip pocket a highly polished nickel-plated revolver.

“Do you see this?” he demanded, as he pointed the weapon toward the Rover boys.

Both Dick and Tom were taken aback at the sight of the weapon.  But they had seen such arms before, and had faced them, consequently they were not as greatly alarmed as they right otherwise have been.  They knew, too, that Dan Baxter was a notoriously bad shot.

“Put that up, Baxter,” said Dick calmly.  “It may only get you into deeper trouble.”

“I don’t care!” said the bully recklessly.  “I’m not going back to jail and that is all there, is to it!”

“You won’t dare to shoot at us, and you know it,” put in Tom, as the two boats drifted closer together.

“I will, and don’t you fool yourself on it.”

“Drop those oars or I’ll fire, as sure as my name is Dan Baxter,” and the revolver, which had been partly lowered, was raised a second time.

It must be confessed that Dick and Tom were much disconcerted.  The two rowboats were now less than fifty feet apart, and any kind of a shot from the weapon was likely to prove more or less dangerous.  Baxter’s eyes gleamed with the hatred of an angry snake ready to strike.

“You think you are smart, you Rover boys,” said the bully, after an awkward pause all around.  “You think you did a big thing in rescuing Dom Stanhope and in putting me and my father and Buddy Girk in prison.  But let me tell you that this game hasn’t come to an end yet, and some day we intend to square accounts.”

“There is no use in wasting breath in this fashion, Baxter,” returned Dick, as calmly as he could.  “We are two to one, and the best thing to do is for you to submit.  If you fire on us, we may do a little shooting on our own account.”

“Humph!  Do you imagine you can scare me in that fashion?  You haven’t any pistol, and I know it.  If you had you would have drawn the weapon long ago.”

At this Dick bit his lip.  “Don’t be too sure,” he said steadily, as the boats drifted still closer together.  “The minute I heard you had escaped from jail I went and bought a pistol in Cedarville.”  This was the strict truth, but Dick did not add that the weapon lay at that moment safe in the bottom of his trunk at the Hall.

“Got afraid I’d come around, eh?”

“I knew there was nothing like becoming prepared.  Now will you -”

Dick did not have time to finish, for, lowering the front end of the pistol, Dan Baxter pulled the trigger twice and two reports rang out in quick succession.  One bullet buried itself in the seat beside Tom, while the second plowed its way through the bottom, near the stern.

“You villain!” cried Dick, and in his excitement hurled his oar at Dan Baxter, hitting the fellow across the fact with such force that the bully’s nose began to bleed.  The shock made Baxter lose his hold on the pistol and it went over the side of his craft and sank immediately to the bottom of the lake.