Randy of the River | Page 3

want a boat why don't you hire one?"
"I don't have to hire one," answered Randy.
"You wouldn't dare to touch my boat," continued Bob, who was known as the town bully. His father was rich and for that reason he thought he could ride over all the other boys.
"I shouldn't care to touch it," said Randy.
"Don't you know you haven't any right to touch Jack's boat without his permission?" went on the big youth.
"Bob Bangs, this is none of your business."
"Humph! I'll make it my business."
"If you do, you may get into trouble."
"I'll risk that. If you don't get out of that boat I'll tell Jack."
"I am not going to get out of the boat."
"Maybe I'll make you get out," and Bob Bangs came a step closer, and put his hand on the gunwale of the rowboat.
"You leave me and the boat alone," said Randy, sharply.
"You get out of that boat."
"Not for you."
Bob Bangs looked ugly. He was on the point of catching Randy by the collar when an interruption came from behind.
"So you got here ahead of me, eh?" came in Jack's voice, as he approached on a swift walk. "I had to do an errand for father and that kept me."
As Jack came up Bob Bangs fell back in disgust.
"Humph! Why didn't you say you were waiting for Jack?" he said to Randy, with a sour look on his face.
"You didn't ask me, that's why," returned Randy.
"What's the trouble?" questioned Jack, quickly.
"Bob wanted me to leave the boat alone."
"I thought he was trying to sneak it on the sly," explained the big boy. "I didn't know you cared to go out with him," he added, to Jack, with a toss of his head.
"Why shouldn't I go out with Randy?" asked Jack, quickly.
"Oh, I shouldn't care to go out with the son of a poor carpenter."
"See here, Bob Bangs, I consider myself as good as you," said Randy, quickly.
"Humph!"
"Randy is all right, even if his father is a carpenter," said Jack. "It's mean of you, Bob, to talk that way."
"Choose your own company and I'll choose mine," answered Bob Bangs, loftily, and stalked away, his nose tilted high in the air.
Angry words arose to Randy's lips but he repressed them and said nothing. In a moment more some goods on the dock hid the big boy from view.
"Don't you care for what he says," said Jack, quickly. "He thinks a few dollars are everything in this world."
"I didn't mind him--much, Jack."
"Wanted you to get out of my boat, didn't he?"
"Yes. He didn't know I was waiting for you."
"That was a good joke on him."
"I can't understand why he is so disagreeable."
"It was born in him," said Jack, as he leaped into the rowboat and stowed away his fishing outfit. "His father is the same way and so is his mother. They think that just because they have money everybody else, especially a poor person, is dirt under their feet."
"Why, Jack, I guess your father is as rich as Mr. Bangs."
"Maybe he is."
"And you don't put on such airs."
"And I don't intend to. Money is a good thing to have, but it isn't everything--that is what my father and mother say."
"Bob wouldn't want me out in his boat with him."
"Maybe you wouldn't like to go out with him either."
"You are right there. I am getting so I hate to speak to him."
"Well, I am getting that way, too. Every time we meet he tries to impress it upon me that he is a superior person,--and I don't see it."
"Your father and his father have some business dealings, haven't they?"
"Yes, they are interested in the same iron company,--and from what father says, I think they are going to have trouble before long."
"I hope your father comes out ahead."
"It is this way: Father has a controlling interest and Mr. Bangs is doing his best to get it away from him. If Mr. Bangs can get control he will, so father says, join the company of a larger concern, and then father will be about wiped out and he won't get more than half of what is really coming to him."
"But wouldn't that be fraud?"
"Yes, morally, but not legally--so father says," answered Jack, and heaved a sigh. "I hope it all comes out right."
"And so do I--for your sake as well as for your folks," added Randy, heartily.
CHAPTER II
AT THE FISHING HOLE
The fishing hole for which the two boys were bound was on the river about a mile and a half above the town. At this point the stream was thirty to forty feet wide and ten to fifteen feet deep. It was lined on one side with sharp rocks and on the other by thick trees and bushes. At the foot of some of the rocks, where the river made a bend, there