Читать книгу Frank Merriwell's Setback; Or, True Pluck Welcomes Defeat онлайн

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He turned slowly round, with blazing eyes, and looked over the sea of excited faces.

“Gents, is this hyer Yale? A man mean enough to be a hoss-thief wouldn’t do that on the ranges! All I asks is fer the scalawag that done it to step up to the counter and let me look at him oncet.”

There was no forward movement, and every one seemed to glance at his neighbor. Bludsoe sneered.

“I don’t reckon that any of yer friends did that to keep ye from bein’ beat?”

Higgins turned on him with those blazing eyes. He saw that, in spite of the sneer, Bludsoe had no knowledge of the author of the outrage, and his hot heart relented. He remembered that Bludsoe was a brother roper of the plains, and that plainsmen in a strange land ought to be friends and not enemies.

“I won’t hold that again’ ye, pardner. If you beat me, I’ll know that you wouldn’t do it by a trick like that. Some skunk that never set eyes on the peraries done that!”

Merriwell knew that another riata could not be had in New Haven, and he was about to suggest that something be substituted for the roping-performance, but Higgins asked if a common rope could be had.